Marco Silva has told his pre-match press conference this afternoon that Saturday’s opponents Aston Villa have enough quality in their squad to pose ‘a difficult challenge’ for Fulham regardless of any injury concerns.
Unai Emery’s side head to Craven Cottage for tomorrow’s fixture having lost three out of their last four fixtures in all competitions and will make the journey to London without the services of Ezri Konsa, Diego Carlos and Boubacar Kamara. But Silva knows his side will need to be wary of a wounded animal:
“[It will be a] top challenge, a difficult one. Unai is doing a fantastic job there. They are fighting for the Champions League places, still playing in European competition. It’s been so difficult for any team to play against them at their home, away from home as well. The way they react in some moments when they have bad results, straightaway they can react. A good example – after a bad result [at home to Newcastle], when they went to Sheffield United away, they won clearly that game, and that showed their quality.
Really, really well managed by Unai as well, with top players in their squad, even with the injuries that they have. If you can replace Pau Torres with [Clement] Lenglet, or Lenglet with Pau Torres, there’s not a big difference. They have all these quality players, [Leon] Bailey or [Moussa] Diaby, all these players that they have in certain areas of the pitch, of course shows the quality they have in their squad, and it’s going to be a really tough game for us.”
Silva also insisted that Nigerian midfielder Alex Iwobi will be involved against Villa despite having received what the Fulham boss described as ‘completely unfair’ abuse from Super Eagles fans following the African Cup of Nations final.
“Mentally, he’s very good. Alex is a happy boy when he’s on the pitch doing what he loves, he’s always doing it with a smile on his face. I know part, I don’t know everything what people said about it. I don’t see reasons because if you lose a game you lose a game together, if you win a game you win together of course. They did brilliantly until the final.
They lost the final and the people reacted they think that is the best. In my opinion it was completely unfair because of the way they criticised him on social media. It’s more strange when there is no reason to do it. Since he arrived here, of course I had a chat with him. He’s going to be involved in the game tomorrow, him and Calvin Bassey.”
