Marco Silva was pleased to see his Fulham side move into the quarter finals of the FA Cup for the first time in thirteen years after the Whites beat Leeds 2-0 at Craven Cottage last night.

Silva’s side booked a place in the last eight of the world’s oldest club cup competition thanks to sensational strikes from Joao Palhinha and Manor Solomon, who scored for the fourth game in succession. They rode their luck at times with Leeds spurning a number of good opportunities in front of goal but Silva told his post-match press conference that he was determined to end Fulham’s recent poor record in the Cup.

“I said from the first day of this competition that we aim really high and our ambition is really high in this competition. We are humble enough to understand that we are not favourites at all, the favourites are different teams than us but we want to chase the competition and chase all the opposition sides. Any time you are going to play this competition, it’s always to try to go through and play with full ambition.

We have been really serious the way we approach [the FA Cup] and the players have been really serious as well. And I’m really pleased for them because they deserve it. We know, as a club, that our story in this competition is not really great. This season we have changed so many things in this football club in terms of results, and our ambition is to do something different as well. Let’s see what we are going to do in the next round, but our ambition is clear.”

The Fulham head coach paid tribute to Javi Gracia’s side, who gave the hosts some seriously nervy moments and were unfortunate not to score themselves.

“The way Leeds came to approach the game, it was easy to understand from the first minute they were not a team to press really high, they waited for us to start to control the game. And we started to do it, to create some dangerous moments, not big chances but dangerous moments around their box, and them waiting for some dangerous counter attacks with the quality players and really fast players they have in their attack line.

And in some moments they waited for us and we gave them what they wanted. Of course, the first goal gave us the confidence we needed, we started to control the game a little better, some good moments for ourselves. Probably we could even have punished them with a second goal and the game could be different. They had a very good chance at the end of the first half in one moment that came off the post.

Second half was different, I think we should have done much better in certain moments. We cannot be winning a game at home and be unbalanced so many times. We lost the ball quickly in certain areas, which you cannot do, and every time we lost the ball, we give the chance to them to make some dangerous counter attacks. They created much more than we would like. The players, they already know, I already spoke with them.

Even if we won the game, it’s clearly something that we have to work on to improve because you cannot give the chance for them to make so many counter attacks and create so many chances.”