Marco Silva professed himself pleased with the quality of Fulham’s final pre-season friendly after the Whites drew with West Ham United at Craven Cottage this afternoon.

The Fulham head coach hailed an excellent first half display from his side – with Carlos Vinicius heading the hosts in front just before half time – but was heavily critical of Fulham’s second half showing that saw Jarrod Bowen equalise after Tom Cairney was caught in possession on the edge of his own box.

Silva told FFCTV after the final whistle:

“It was a very good first half. I believe that we did many very good things in the first half, we took many positives from that first 45 minutes. Our second half was definitely not at the same level. We didn’t do the things we did in the first half and we showed a completely different second half. The first half was the level that we like to see our team. We know have to analyse what happened in the second half and explain this to the players so that it doesn’t happen again.

It was important for us to put minutes in the tank and give feedback to the players. It is important to play at the right level to be ready for Boxing Day. It was important for Carlos to score. All strikers need this type of moment to grow their confidence. He was working hard to get it. It was a good open play move for us and a very good finish from Carlos. He is adapting well and I think with the capacity to work hard, there is more to come.”

The Fulham boss was pleased to welcome Tim Ream, Harry Wilson and Dan James back from their World Cup exploits and hopes to have all of the players who played in Qatar back for the trip to Crystal Palace on Boxing Day:

“We know that when we are all together we are stronger. We need all of them ready and conditioned for the restart. We had some injuries that have been creating some problems for us – let us hope we have all the players ready for when the competition starts again.”