Marco Silva was delighted after Fulham stretched their lead at the top of the Championship to five points by hitting Birmingham for six at Craven Cottage tonight.
The Whites have now scored nineteen goals in their last three league outings having had to wait since December to resume their promotion push. The Fulham head coach told FFCTV that he was pleased by his side’s ruthlessness in front of goal:
“We are really happy with the score. More happy with the three points – it is always the main thing for us. It was a different game for us. Of course, we were the best team on the pitch, we deserved the three points. We were really clinical in some moments. We reacted well in some moments when the game was unbalanced. I have to congratulate our players – even if we didn’t play at our top level, we are capable of punishing our opponents.”
Silva feels that Fulham’s players have brought entirely into his attacking approach, which has delivered an incredible seventy goals in 26 games already this season.
“It’s amazing, it’s fantastic. It shows our desire, reflects our philosophy, our technical staff, myself as a manager, our club and our players. When you have an idea, you have to convince your players that this is the way to be successful. From the first day, they had an open mind and because of that we are doing very good things.”
He handed out praise for Aleksandar Mitrovic and Harry Wilson, even though the pair were not on the scoresheet as Fulham ran riot.
“It is not a surprise for me. Two players that didn’t score tonight: Mitro and Harry, it is possible they were the most important players in our front line. Mitro had a very good performance tonight, Harry Wilson the same. I’m really happy with the performance from Mitro – even if he didn’t score, I know the goals will come. I’m really pleased to see the performance of Mitro, how he was involved in all the moments of the game.”
Silva knows that a punishing schedule – forced on Fulham after three festive period postponements – means the Whites will face a test of both of their fitness and quality at Stoke City on Saturday.
“It will be tougher in the future because we are playing tonight and our next opponents have the whole week to rest. I felt sometimes tonight we weren’t in our best physical condition. We have to do our best and prepare our players in the best way that we can.”
Clever words to cheer the one’s that didn’t score tonight. And we are finally providing that we aren’t a “one player team”. COYW
It’s so important to acknowledge the difference that Marco Silva has made to our club.
As he states-from the first day, he tried to convince the players that this was the way to play and they responded with open minds.
Most of them had either been tethered by the safety first approach of our previous manager or completely discarded.
So it is no wonder that the arrival of Silva was like a breath of fresh air after so long in shackles.
I remember during Scott Parker’s reign that, after yet another turgid away performance where we scraped a win by a narrow margin, he told Fulham TV that he had had to convince the players that his way of playing-possession at all costs -was the key to success. As we did win enough to keep us in contention for a play off spot but, also, suffered a large number of embarrassing defeats, I guess the players probably felt somewhat confused as to whether Parker was right or wrong. Ultimately, of course, we won the play off final so I imagine that Parker felt vindicated.
Fast forward to last season and the ruthless disposal of the majority of those players that got us in to the Premiership (in fairness, most of them were given an early opportunity but found wanting) and despite the introduction of some talented loanees,Parker suddenly abandoned his previous policy of possession-sideways and backwards-in favour of fast breaks mainly via the speed of Ademola Lookman. Had Parker had an epiphany? Or was he adapting to the different qualities that the loanees brought to the club? Who knows?
The only problem was that, no matter how fast we countered or how many full backs were left trailing, we had nobody to finish off the chances created. Enter Ivan Cavaleiro!
Rather than utilise the proven goal scoring talents of one, Alexander Mitrovic, Parker subjected us Fulham fans to the agony and despair of having to watch a not very good winger struggle to play in a main striking role as chance after chance went begging.
That’s all old hat now. Scott Parker is Bournemouth’s problem.
In came Marco Silva and not only did he immediately revise our playing philosophy but he took those who had been previously discarded and, by skilled man management, convinced them of their worth in our quest for Premiership.
Not satisfied with that, he actually improved them.
Spending hours on the training pitch making Mitro a better all round player. Has anybody ever seen Mitro working so hard off the ball? It’s a revelation.
Neeskens Kebano -brought in from the wilderness after his banishment to Middlesbrough and transformed into, arguably, one of the most dangerous wingers in the country.
Jean Michael Seri -given a new lease of life.
Last night, Tony Khan sent two messages: the first was in praise of Neeskens Kebano-saying that he had always had belief in him having brought him to Fulham and he praised the Fulham management for finally bringing out the ability that he always knew Neeskens possessed. Khan did not single out Marco Silva in his praise.
Later, he sent another message. He must have realised that he, probably, had not stressed forcibly enough in his first message just how highly he acknowledges that Marco Silva has transformed the playing style and the form of individuals.
This time, he fully praised Silva and said what an honour and a joy it was to work with him.
There is no doubt that Silva has been a fantastic signing for this club of ours.
And I am not giving up on Ivan Cavaleiro-not quite yet anyway.
If anybody can turn this over priced, over paid buffoon into a player it is Marco Silva.
The starting 11plus Seri, Tete, D–Reed and maybe Stansfiekd all good but many others in the squad not up to it. A lot of hype about ChalobJoe who has completely failed to impress me. What has happened to Joe Bryan who seems to have disappeared
Malcolm B, If you can’t find joy in our performances this season then I suggest you start watching a different sport. It can’t get much better than the way it’s going this season so I don’t see any reason for your pessimism.