Fulham head coach Marco Silva was delighted with his team’s summer transfer dealings, describing the capture of Nathaniel Chalobah on a free as ‘a very good opportunity for us’.

The Portuguese head coach worked with the former England midfielder during his time in charge of Watford and moved quickly to snap up the ex-Chelsea man along with Domingos Quina on deadline day to add to his options in midfield. Silva told his press conference this afternoon – as quoted by the Athletic’s Peter Rutzler:

“Chalobah is a player I know very well from Watford. We signed him from Chelsea and he was called up by England before he suffered an injury. To sign a player like Chalobah for free, for zero, where we don’t pay anything, with his quality and with his profile after losing Andre-Frank Anguissa, it was a very good opportunity for us.

I like to work with two players for each position. After last season we lost five, six, seven players. (Quina) was not signed because of Tom Cairney’s situation. He was a good opportunity for us on the market.”

Silva also gave more details about Cairney’s slow road back to full fitness as he fights persistent knee problems.

“He started the pre-season before I arrived, and did everything with this team-mates. But the reality is he felt the same situation in his knee. It’s taking longer than we expected, but our main target is to get him to a perfect condition and to enjoy the training sessions every day and eventually to be fit enough to be involved in the games. How much longer it will be, I don’t know.”