Fulham head coach Marco Silva has insisted that the fact that the Whites took four points off Arsenal last season will make this weekend’s victory with the Gunners a far tougher proposition.
The Portuguese boss told his pre-match press conference ahead of the forthcoming London derby:
“No-one surprises anyone in Premier League no more. You know how Mikel [Arteta] and the Arsenal team respect everybody in this competition, they know that it’s really tough to play and win games at this level. And probably they are going to be even more aware because the reality is we played two great games against them last season – at the Emirates with the draw, and of course with the three points at Craven Cottage.
“But I really believe that it’s going to be even more difficult. Firstly, because with the game last night, it’s going to be [a] really short [turnaround], and because they are in a great moment, definitely. And they are going to be more aware, probably, about our strengths, and it’s going to be tougher for us. But we like this type of challenge. We like to challenge ourselves, and we have to embrace it, and to go with full confidence that we can repeat the same [as last season].”
Silva knows that nullifying Arsenal’s strength from set pieces would go a long way to helping Fulham get a result against the title chasers.
“Last season, we did really well in that situation, we scored twice against them in set-pieces last season, and the reality is that they didn’t score [from a set-piece] against us, and let’s hope we can repeat the same.”
