Marco Silva has warned his Fulham side they will need to be at their very best to resist West Ham United’s ‘quality’ in Sunday’s London derby at Craven Cottage.
The Hammers will head across the capital in great heart after James Ward-Prowse’s late winner last night completed a turnaround against Tottenham at the London Stadium. Silva waxed lyrical about the attacking resources at David Moyes’ disposal during his pre-match press conference at Motspur Park:
“They have quality as a team. They don’t need to really perform great, great, great, but if you are not on it every single moment of the game, they can punish you because they have the quality, they have a really experienced manager as well. They have the quality with Kudus, Jarrod Bowen, and all those players, the quality of Paqueta and Ward-Prowse behind them. They are always a threat.”
Silva knows Fulham will need to make the most of possession in order to record a first win over West Ham since New Year’s Day 2014.
“We are going to have the ball, and moments that we have the ball probably are the most dangerous moments for us, because we have to be really assertive, to be always in a good balance, because they are really a threat in that type of situation. They are solid enough, good set-pieces as well, with a great taker like Ward-Prowse. They are always a threat, but they know as well that it’s going to be tough for them to come to Craven Cottage to play with us in the moment that we are in right now.
I really believe that it’s going to be a good game. Both teams trying to win the game. Let’s hope we can be stronger than them.”
I would like our fans to be a lot more vocal and get behind our team the way Forest fans did against us on Wednesday, you would have thought they were the home team,why don’t our fans make a bit more noise it would certainly help the team so hopefully we will make an effort against West Ham on Sunday.
Hope our players – and Joao in particular – have been warned against conceding any free kicks within 30 yards (at least) of our goal.