Marco Silva is looking forward to taking his Fulham side to Anfield on Wednesday night – describing the task ahead against an in-form Liverpool side as ‘a great challenge’.
Fulham head to Merseyside off the back of a spirited showing in defeat to the league leaders Manchester City on Sunday and have lost the services of Premier League ever presents Tim Ream and Andreas Pereira for the rest of the season. Silva told his pre-match press conference that he was particularly wary of Liverpool’s strength in attack and the fact that Jurgen Klopp’s men have won their last four fixutres.
“They are in a good moment in the last few games, they have been achieving good results and scoring goals, with all the players in the attack line in better form right now. They can change many players in the attack line, and even so they keep the quality. Yesterday is a good example again, when they had the chance to rest Diogo Jota and start with Diaz coming back from the long-term injury.
And all the situations, with Darwin as well on the bench and starting with Gakpo and Salah. They have a lot of solutions in the attack line, and they have four wins in a row. That is always important. Even before the four wins in a row, they had that game with Arsenal when they were losing 2-0 and they came back with an important point for them.
That means they are in a good moment right now, they want to keep the momentum, of course they want to build from that situation. It’s up to us to be ready to play at Anfield, it’s always really tough. It will be for sure a great environment in that stadium, and it will be another great challenge for us.
Silva said his side should take confidence both from the draw with Liverpool on the opening weekend of the season and the way the Whites pushed Manchester City all the way on Sunday.
“For us all the matches are a challenge, and we like to embrace the challenge. I think yesterday is the best example, and I think really reflects Fulham as a team this season. It is not easy to start the game against a top side, one of the best in the world, and concede a penalty inside the first or second minute of the match, with the absences of Mitro and Willian, two key players in our attack line, losing our captain in that game with a bad injury, and after the beginning of the second half, Andreas Pereira as well.
Even so, we were able to react as a team, to equalise the game, to make it really difficult for City, and show the resilience, show the character and the personality of this group of players, and our organisation. Yesterday we changed some things in certain starting points, for us to press in a different way and to set up in a different way when we didn’t have the ball against City. I think we created different problems to them, and we want to show that [again].
It will be difficult, but we like this type of challenge, it will be a good challenge, new players will have to come in in certain positions, probably we’re going to freshen other positions as well, because everyone needs to be ready for the challenge.”
