Right-back Richards was back in a senior England shirt at Wembley in midweek, a personal triumph after a near-three-year exile, but he is ready to return to the bread and butter of Premier League life.
Mark Hughes’ team sit just above the relegation zone but Micah said: “Fulham is always a hard place to go. It’s going to be a tough game, that’s for sure, but if we play as well as we know we can, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t win.
“Fulham have got a decent team. They’ve lost Moussa Dembele injured again - and they missed him earlier in the season - but Dickson Etuhu, Kelvin’s brother, has been doing well for them.
“They’ve got other good players too - Clint Dempsey, Brede Hangeland, Zoltan Gera - so it’s going to be a tough afternoon. They’ll be looking to beat us, and we’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen.
It’s going to be a hard game but we’re looking forward to it, and may the best team win
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Richards and his Blues team-mates, held 0-0 in their last two games, will find themselves in opposition to Hughes for the first time since Fulham’s boss left the City of Manchester Stadium last December.
He said: “It will be nice to see Mark Hughes again. There was all sorts of talk about me and the manager having our differences and stuff like that, but he knew my ability and was just trying to get the best out of me.
“In that season I played 45 games for him, so that showed he had some belief in me.”
