Marco Silva was delighted with Fulham’s tenacity after the Whites came through a serious examination of their promotion credentials to pinch all three points at Peterborough this afternoon.
Darren Ferguson’s side created the clearer chances in the first half before Aleksandar Mitrovic’s 20th goal of the season put Fulham ahead with fifteen minutes to play. The visitors were indebted to two terrific saves from Marek Rodak in the closing stages as they clung on to all three points and Silva shared his joy at a sixth straight win with FFCTV after the final whistle at London Road:
“Tough, tough win but a great, great win for us. I’m proud of our players – the way they deal with a tough game. Proud of our fans as well. Fantastic from the warm up until the last of minute of the game. It has to be this way. All of us together will be stronger.
We expected it to be a tough game. They were really tough to beat. There are really tough to play here. We started well, not creating many chances, but after about 25 minutes we started to lose a bit of confidence and they started to create some counter attacks and create some uncertainty in our team. I spoke at half time with our players: the key will be the passion and the pressure, we have to play quicker, but keep the pressure and keep the balance and we will create chances to score.”
The Fulham head coach was particularly pleased with a fifth consecutive clean sheet that provided the foundation for a gritty away win:
“Fantastic. Key, key, key for us. Even if you are an offensive team, but you cannot achieve if you are not a solid team with the right balance every time. Keeping clean sheets is everything for us. You know that we will create chances, we will score goals as well and if you keep clean sheets you will win the game.”
Silva saluted Mitrovic’s matchwinning contribution but also highlighted the work of Neeskens Kebano in creating the chance for Fulham’s Serbian striker.
“He was decisive again. He is a really important player for us, but for me is a matter of the collective. Mitro has this ability, but it is a collective thing because the way we created this chance was a fantastic moment from Kebano. Of course, Mitro has this capacity to score goals inside the box. It is a collective work – all of us we did well to create this moment to score.”
Hard fought win I hope Mitros injury isn’t too bad at least he will have a rest before our next league game,also a great performance from Rodak once again.
Very, very important three points in a game that we could easily have lost but for the woodwork and Marek Rodak. Thank heavens that our manager finally recognises the correct goalkeeping pecking order at our club. It is no coincidence that the clean sheets have been a consequence of his recall. Man of the Match today.
Without being too critical, this was far from a fluid performance on a bumpy pitch and with. a swirling wind making our style very difficult to maintain. Add to that a tenacious performance from Peterborough which meant that we never had the luxury of time or space on the ball.
It’s easy for the Posh to feel hard done by and they can cite the two times they struck the woodwork-the second a brilliant save by Rodak- and they can also point to the other opportunities denied them by our keeper.
But, in a game when we never hit the fluency we are capable of, let’s not forget the many chances that we still managed to create in the second half alone.
Some sub-par performances for sure but we stuck to the task throughout and gained a gritty three points thanks to a moment of magic from Kebano and the lethal finishing of Micro-Scoring, incredibly, goal number 20!
To balance the gk posts. Peterborough’s keeper made three fantastic save’s in the second half. One from Neeskens Kebano. Fantastic. Neeskens also made a significant contribution to the win.