Marco Silva is in no doubt about the enormity of Fulham’s task when they travel to Manchester City for Saturday’s FA Cup fourth round fixture – admitting that the tie is probably the toughest his side could have.
The Fulham head coach remains a huge admirer of Pep Guardiola’s talent as a coach and City’s style of play, which has made such an impression in recent times in English football. He knows that the trip to the Etihad Stadium will represent a stern test of the Championship leaders’ credentials as a Premier League side in waiting.
“Apart from that fantastic season Liverpool had two seasons ago, since Pep joined the club they have been really dominant, not just in terms of results and winning trophies, but with the quality in their football. For people who love football in this country, they have been pleased to see it, because of the way they are winning football matches.
Of course it will be a tough, tough game for us. An FA Cup match is always a little bit different, is always something special behind these type of games. To be honest, maybe it’s the toughest game you can have, to play against Man City, but at the same time, it’s the easiest game for us to prepare.
It’s so clear what they want to do and the way they do it, which is almost perfect. They do it with high, high quality, and for us we have to be at our top level, and hope they’re not at their top level. But we want to play, as always, with big ambition and try to enjoy the moment, knowing that they will create a lot of problems for us, but when we have the ball we have to try to be ourselves as well and try to match them.”
We know they are the favourites to go through, but in this competition you always have to play with ambition, and we go there to do that, even if we know we are playing against the best team in England. They will create problems for us, like they do for every team in this country, in every stadium they go to they control the match from the first minute to the last. They are maybe one of the best teams in the world, if not the best team in the world. We know that, but at the same time it’s a game for us to enjoy, and an environment for us to enjoy as well. Our fans will enjoy it as well because they will travel in good numbers.”
Silva confirmed that Bobby Decordova-Reid and Antonee Robinson will miss out as they are still on international duty and Kenny Tete has not recovered from the groin injury he sustained at Stoke two weeks ago. That means new signing Neco Williams could make his debut at right back, while Jean Michael Seri will be available having returned from the African Cup of Nations following Ivory Coast’s elimination.
