GIANFRANCO Zola is confident his team can secure European qualification this season, if some of his injured troops can get back to full fitness.

While star striker Carlton Cole will return from a ban next week, the likes of Valon Behrami and Dean Ashton are out for the remainder of the campaign.

Jack Collison is another casualty but he could return in April – just in time for the crucial final run-in.

“The supporters can be optimistic as long as we manage to get all the players back from injury,” Zola told the club's official website.

“Obviously we have had big problems and in the next few weeks we are looking forward to getting a few players back. When we have all of them available again then we really have a good chance because the team is looking well.

“The team has shown me it is strong and mentally they are strong because we lost a few games. The win against Manchester City was a very good indication to me about how strong they are mentally (after losing to Manchester United, Bolton and Middlesbrough).

“First of all we need consistency. It's a very, very important thing and they need to perform all the time. We have achieved the first target to reach 40 points, now they need to push on because we want to get 52 points. I believe that is the quota we will need to to achieve if we want to get into Europe, so they need to push themselves even harder.”