It is hard to know how Marco Silva would assess Fulham’s four months back in the top flight. Objectively, the Whites have significantly bettered expectations that were lowered by the punishing experience of winning promotion and then failing to be competitive upon their elevation to English football’s elite. But the Portuguese head coach, who has made such an impression since releasing Scott Parker’s in such style having taken over at Craven Cottage, is a perfectionist and will undoubtedly have been disappointed to watch his side surrender points in the dying stages of their most recent Premier League matches at the hands of Manchester City and Manchester United respectively.
Silva has stayed strikingly true to his ultra-attacking philosophy. Plenty of Fulham fans would have feared this in the summer – recalling how Slavisa Jokanovic’s grand plans to play on the front feet evaporated within five months of that magical day at Wembley. But Silva appears to be better at managing the other members of the club’s hierarchy as well as learning the lessons from his own previous Premier League pain. He’s assembled a first eleven that is punching well above its weight, with savvy purchases such as compatriot Joao Palhinha and Bernd Leno adding invaluable knowhow to a newly-promoted side. His success is more striking as Fulham are still relying on a number of their old stalwarts, including veteran centre half Tim Ream, whose outstanding performances earned up a World Cup call-up at the age of 35.
The Cottagers have also weathered an injury crisis that could easily have brought their enterprising start to a shuddering halt. Aleksandar Mitrovic, himself troubled by broken bones in his foot after playing through the pain for Serbia in the Nations League, has proved predatory without the services of Harry Wilson and Manor Solomon for much of the season. Into that creative void has stepped Andreas Pereira, whose signing wasn’t universally popular, with assists and set piece precision galore. The Brazilian’s invention and sense of adventure means Fulham haven’t really missed Fabio Carvalho, which would have been a preposterous sentence to write back in the summer.
Even the enduring doubts about the defence have been assuaged by Ream’s Indian summer and the composed displays of Tosin Adarabioyo and Issa Diop, who has overcome an iffy start to his Fulham career to underline his potential. Silva’s urging of his full backs to venture forward places plenty of pressure on his ball-playing centre halves, but his defenders have proven up to the challenge so far. There will be tests ahead – especially as opponents become more accustomed to just how bold the Whites – but Fulham are well placed at this point of an extremely irregular campaign.
Perhaps the most tantalising aspect of Silva’s tenure is how he’ll use the youth talent that continues to come off the Motspur Park conveyor built that is Fulham’s category one academy. Carvalho’s emergence was no accident as proven by the way that Welsh teenager Luke Harris has adapted to senior football this season. The teenager’s technical talent earned him a senior call up and there are plenty of the attacking midfielder’s team-mates ready to join him in the first team squad. Look for the likes of Ollie O’Neill, an outstanding skipper of Steve Wigley’s under 21s, and Callum McFarlane, who scored twice in 45 minutes last week in Portugal, to make their mark before the end of this campaign.
Fulham fans are often a pessimistic bunch, owing to the club’s illustrious history of heartbreak, but this is a time to be buoyant. The Whites are back in the Premier League and thriving: embracing the challenge, rather than shrinking at the sight of best players in the world. Just as Palhinha loves piling into tackles, we should be licking our lips at the chance to savour Silva’s superb side making waves by the Thames. As Tommy Trinder might say these days to those with season tickets at the Hammersmith End, ‘You lucky people!’
Fine stirring words…looking back and finding the best without perspective or objectivity makes a wonderful read.
But don’t we remember that moment against United when BDR showed that he wasn’t a full back and was playing because there was no one else to deputize for KT.
We lost because of that.
The squad is paper thin and more than half of the fractured season remains.
They’ve excelled beyond expectation, but imagine an injury to Palhinha or that Mitro is still hampered by his injury.
Marco is Merlin.
But there are no adequate replacements and suggesting we rely on Motspur Park is ridiculous.
We need to be super active to secure experienced players come January…look at what Forest are mooted to be spending.
The thing that underscores the above is who is going down this season…it’s difficult to name three teams…Wolves?…Saints…Bees?
Who has a smaller squad than us with winter upon us?
Sorry…this isn’t pessimism but the real world.
I think this is a complete misread of what Dan’s written here.
He addresses the fact that a perfectionist like Silva would have been disappointed with the failure to see out games against Manchester City and Manchester United. I think laying the blame for the latter defeat solely on Bobby Decordova-Reid is hugely unfair: I’d have Onomah’s failure to track back and the assistant referee’s inability to flag that a ball was out of play following a miscontrol by the goalscorer as more identifiable reasons for that narrow reverse.
The current bottom three plus Everton, West Ham, Leeds and Bournemouth are in real danger. None of those have greater quality or depth than we do in my opinion and I wouldn’t trade any of their managers for ours. These moments don’t come along very often and Dan’s right – we should savour them.
The idea that we can proactively target experienced reinforcements next month fails to appreciate that there is scant headroom in the club’s FFP position, making Silva’s achievements to date all the more extraordinary. Fulham already have built a cushion between themselves and the bottom three: we should be aiming to extend it rather than looking over our shoulders.