Marco Silva wants his Fulham side to deal with the ‘new challenge’ of three consecutive away games – starting with what he expects to be a tough test at Swansea City on Tuesday night.
The Fulham boss is insistent that his side have not won anything yet, despite Saturday’s success against Blackburn putting them eleven points clear at the top of the Championship. He knows that the division remains unpredictable – and feels the next seven days, which feature trips to Swansea, Barnsley and West Brom, will tell him a lot about the character of his squad. Silva told FFCTV this morning:
“We took many things this season and deal with it sometimes in a fantastic way. Sometimes just details that we have spoken with the players about. We are always trying to find a different challenge. It will be the first time that we play three games in a row away and it is not the normal situation because of the pandemic situation and the games cancelled in December and January. We are ready, we are in a good moment. The environment around our dressing room is fantastic. The togetherness is there – and at the end it will make a big difference for us.
“Against Swansea, I know it will be difficult. Everything in football is about consistency. Quality is important, good players and togetherness – but if you want to be at the top of any competition in the world, you have to show the consistency in all of the moments. We are showing that. We know as well as a team we will not win all of the games with a fantastic score – the last few away games we have won keeping a clean sheet and normally if you are able to keep a clean sheet and deal with the situation, we can have a good chance to win the match.”
Silva believes Swansea will represent a different kind of test to the ones Fulham usually face in the week – with Russell Martin’s possession-based philosophy starting to pay dividends in Wales.
“It will be different. They have the capacity to take the ball from ourselves, they can have the capacity to move the ball. I think they were the only team to have more possession than us at the Cottage. They showed the way they like to play, their philosophy. We know that their possession is in certain moments is around their box, in their build up and in a good position – we have to know what they expect from that moment, to be able to punish us. We have to be able to press them, we should feel comfortable in that situation and know what we have to do in that moment. They know it can be difficult, it will be difficult for us as well.”
