Marco Silva was delighted that Fulham recovered from conceding a second half equaliser to go on and convincingly win the West London derby at Craven Cottage this afternoon.
QPR substitute Lyndon Dykes cancelled out Aleksandar Mitrovic’s opener within nine minutes of coming on at half time, but Fulham produced the perfect response to ruthlessly dispatch their local rivals – with Mitrovic, Decordova-Reid and Antonee Robinson adding further goals as the Whites romped to a 4-1 win.
Silva told his post-match press conference that he was pleased with Fulham’s reaction following a disappointing defeat in similar circumstances at Coventry City a fortnight ago.
“An important result for us. The way we are winning it is important as well, pleased to see a good reaction from ourselves. We spoke the last few days when I had all the squad together about what happened about the last game, how we should and must react about the adversity that can happen in a game.
I had short conversation with them at the end of the match, congratulations for the result, commitment, attitude. Ok this is what we should do when something goes wrong, adversity, mistakes from ourselves, or someone else, because against Coventry it was ourselves and the referee which changed completely the direction of the game with that penalty.
But we should react in a different way, and we did this afternoon, and I was pleased to see it. Going home with that good feeling of winning a derby for our fans as well, pleased to see the smiles on their faces at the end of the match.”
Silva also felt that a tactical switch, moving Bobby Decordova-Reid into the number ten role after QPR’s equaliser, held the key to tilting what had become a tight contest Fulham’s way.
“We changed the position of Harry and Bobby at 1-1, we tried to put Harry wide and Bobby inside to improve our first pressure. It wasn’t good in that first moment but straight away we pressed higher and better as well. We found the right moments to cause them problems.”
Great 3 points but it wasn’t just the switch of Wilson and Decordova Reid that made the difference. It was also the switch of Kebano from right to left. Really can’t understand how Cavaleiro managed to start yet again but his injury resulted in Decordova Reid being pushed wide left and Kebano staying wide right-which made zero sense.
As Decordova Reid and Boa Morte were deep in conversation prior to him coming on as a substitute-along with the dreaded tactic book-it makes you wonder about Boa’s tactical nous.
It meant that QPR were allowed to come back into the game and things looked decidedly dodgy for a while until Silva got things right.
I hadn’t been impressed with Silva’s pre-match interview when he reacted badly, IMO, to questions about the Coventry performance and constantly referring to the penalty decision-bad as it was -is really just papering over the many cracks that appeared that day. Why so tetchy when asked to discuss our failings in that match?
Still, yesterday, finally, he got it right.
Great to see Rodak back at last.
Unbelievable that Bryan got injured again. He is not having any luck at all.
Fantastic to see Tom Cairney involved after so long, too.
With Carvalho and Tete both primed to make comebacks, things look more promising but we really need to build on this victory with another 3 points midweek.
I think the movement of the three behind Mitro is actually crucial to our fortunes this season. If that fluidity is there and we are less predictable, then defences will find it much harder to live with us.
Charles’ point about the strength in depth that appears to be present with several key players about to return from injury is well made. It’s why we need to kill off teams like we did today more regularly – those defeats last month leave us little room for manoeuvre.
A good win and performance,. Let me firstly get off my chest the fact that Rodak was in goal, long overdue and lets hope he gets a run of games to prove he is our number one keeper. I thought Mitro and Seri were superb the latter’s transformation under Silva is remarkable. Harrison Reed is a tiger in midfield. Contrary to other peoples pinion in my view Harry Wilson remained anonymous for a lot of the match. If was great to see Cairney on the bench .I am sure he would have been given 10 minutes at the end had it not been for the injuries
John W I fully concur your comments about Rodak and Wilson. Nevertheless it was a fine performance and there can be no better striker in the championship than Mitro. Good to see Bobby Decova Reed on the score sheet. I have noticed we always seem to struggle for the first 15 minutes of the second half. Cardiff up next with there long ball tactics against which our defence sometimes struggles. It pains me to see Patker’s Bournemouth to be top of the league and undefeated
Rodak in goal, finally! Lets hope he is given a run of games so as to be able to pick up confidence and show that he is a safer bet than Cazzaniga. I would also like to see a bit more of Muniz, granted with Mitro scoring a will there will never be much space for the Brazilian, but when results are secured, I think he should be getting some more match time.