Marco Silva felt Fulham deserved to win after the Whites battled to a 1-1 draw at Tottenham Hotspur this afternoon.

Silva watched his side largely dominate an absorbing game but fail to take their chances and fall behind to a predatory strike from Brenan Johnson. Substitute Tom Cairney levelled with a lovely finish but was then sent off for a late tackle on Dejan Kulusevski and the visitors had to hold on with ten men.

Speaking to Match of the Day after the final whistle, Silva said:

“I think that everybody should recognise that the team who deserved to win this afternoon was ourselves. We deserved to win. We played our way, with our identity, on the pitch. Myself, the players and the fans should be proud of it. We should have been leading the score with the chances we had. We have to be realistic, Tottenham had chances as well.”

He sprung to the defence of captain Cairney.

“Firstly, I know him. Tom Cairney is not the player for that, everybody knows. I have to be realistic and honest with you, everybody knows I am the first one asking him to be more aggressive in the right way, to keep some principles as a midfielder in that situation, but he is not the type of player to do that type of thing. He stamped on his leg and, of course, looking through the images it should be a red card and we have to accept it, knowing that Tom Cairney was really unlucky because he is not that type of player.”

The Fulham head coach was proud of his players’ response after going down to ten men.

 “What a reaction from us. The reaction was good – fifteen minutes with ten men and the reality is that Tottenham didn’t create one chance.”