Kenny Tete has told the Telegraph that he ‘could smell the success coming’ at Fulham after the Whites drew with Liverpool on the opening weekend of the Premier League season.

The Dutch international heaped praise on Cottagers’ head coach Marco Silva, describing the Portuguese boss as ‘an amazing coach,’ and – in a wide-ranging discussion with Jason Burt, outlined just how confident the Fulham playing squad remains, even after the disappointment and controversy of an FA Cup exit a fortnight ago.

“He’s an amazing coach. You can see from every club that he has been at, the style is the same: attacking football. You can see what he has done with this club and what we have achieved already in less than two years. He has made us very tough to beat and we have not changed our approach. I am so pleased to work with him – especially as he was also a right-back!

With that game you could smell – with the way we played, how compact we were, how good we were on the counter, how we created chances. If you play like that against Liverpool you can fight against every team. That’s what I mean by smelling it. We are aiming as high as possible. I even think we should have won more games. We believe so much as a team and have so much hunger… if you look at the table and the teams below us, especially some of the teams near the bottom – big teams, good teams – then what we have achieved so far is something we have to be proud of.”

Tete admits being infuriated at the manner of Fulham’s defeat at Old Trafford.

“I think we should be in the semi-final. I don’t think they even had a shot at our goal [before equalising]. We were doing so well and then it all changed in one minute. If you would have told us a year ago that we would have gone to Old Trafford, controlled the game, 1-0 up, no-one would have expected that. Now it says something about us, about the manager and we have to build more. It’s been such a good season for us.”