An angry Marco Silva condemned Fulham’s lack of fight as the Whites shipped three first half goals to lose a second London derby in the space of six days to league leaders Arsenal at Craven Cottage this afternoon.
The Gunners dominated from the outset and raced into an unassailable lead before the break through goals from Gabriel Magalhaes, Gabriel Martenelli and Martin Odegaard. The Portuguese head coach told his post-match press conference that he was shocked by Fulham’s lack of desire after a similarly sluggish start at Brentford on Monday night:
“Clearly, Arsenal deserved the three points. [In the] first half, we were on the pitch, but in some moments looked like we weren’t. Too soft, not brave enough, completely not aggressive off the ball, let them play in the way they wanted, and we didn’t disturb them as much as we should have done.
We were soft for all the goals, we were soft in all the first half. First goal, how they scored, the second goal, how they scored, and even the third after the throw-in for us was completely our fault. It’s difficult to understand. Of course, we’re going to analyse and we have to understand, and for sure the players are going to understand, because they don’t have another solution, they are going to understand for sure.
After last Monday night, we analysed and we were expecting something completely different. Unfortunately for us, first half was even worse than Monday against Brentford. The first thing that I said [at half time] was we have to wake up, because if you don’t wake up it will be even worse in the second half, because what we did first half is really clearly under our standards and what we should do.
[The] second half was slightly different, even if we were already losing 3-0 – more threat in our attack, we created more chances, we were more brave, more aggressive in some moments. At least we expressed ourselves more on the pitch second half.
Silva explained that Fulham were forced into a late change to their starting line-up with Bobby Decordova-Reid coming in to replace Willian, after the former Arsenal winger reported back pain in the minutes before the teamsheet was due to be handed in.
“Willian had a tough week. [In the] last game he felt his hamstring a bit, but nothing really serious. We assessed him during the week, and the last two days he felt something in his back. He was supposed to start the game this afternoon but he felt pain in his back. We tried, he was with us until the last minute, but we decided he was not in a position to start.”
That was as poor as it gets. No fight. The gulf in technical ability on the ball was frightening. First touch, control, movement was simply different to us. On top of that BDR was his usual ineffectiveness. More worrying Robinson was back to shocking defending.
Perreira is not looking like the player he was at the start of tge season. We’re looking like we’ll scrape a win somewhere to guarantee safety and then collapse.
Very dissapointed in Silva. I know we have very limited options but we could have tried something different. Trying to play through Arsenal was never ever going to happen and we kept trying until the 75th minute before mixing it up. Surely we could have tried something different.
Thank goodness we already have 39 points! We certainly didn’t get to 7th in the Prem playing like that, far too passive, no fight, nothing. Second half was better but the game was already over. We definitely missed Palhinha but everyone needed to up their game and sadly they didn’t. It speaks volumes that Leno was probably our best player for a second game in a row. I’m still confident of a top 10 finish but forget all the talk of Europe. Our squad is not strong enough for that. On the plus side, I’m sure we all would have been more than happy if offered a top 10 finish back in August!
I agree with all the above and our players should be ashamed of themselves they all let Marco down, no energy no fight no skill and with the ticket prices we were ripped off. Robinson doesn’t know how to defend and was caught on the wrong side of the player he was supposed to be marking for 2 of their goals the other goal came from us playing a stupid ball cross field which went to their player. I think we could play with a back 4 of Tete Diop Ream Tosin and move Robinson more forward as he is a weakness in our defence. Palhina was a big loss but we can’t afford to just rely on him, Pereira needs to up his game but so do all the other’s they were an embarrassment to watch, we can’t afford to lose Palhina in the Summer or Marco so we need to start winning games or we might lose both.
I agree with the article and comments. Yes we were playing a very good side but this has been coming for a while. Whilst the back 4 were performing we have been OK. But with 3 of the four off colour it could have been a cricket score had it not been for Leno. We have conceded almost as many goals as the clubs from us going down the table.
But after such a good post world cup start we have only scored 11 goals in 12 games, of which 6 were in 3 FA cup games. Crosses have dried up and if we look at last Sunday we looked as though we were afraid to shoot.
Therefore a change must be made but we should not play lots of the youngsters as we have to maintain a level of experience. So what we will do needs to be thought out carefully.
There’s no disputing that Marco and his team has some decisions to make.