Marco Silva has demanded that his Fulham side bounce back from their crushing FA Cup defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace by being brave and showing courage against Arsenal tonight.

The Whites were beaten 3-0 by the Eagles at Craven Cottage on Saturday and, although Silva feels Arsenal will have the advantage of a weekend off ahead of another London derby, the Fulham boss has challenged his players to bounce back straightaway.

Silva is under no illusions about the task ahead of them as they travel to the Emirates to take on the Gunners.

“As we expected, they are there. Of course, they are not in the top of the table, because Liverpool is doing so well, but they have been there and trying to be as close as they can from the first position on the table. A top side, not just in terms of individual quality – they have a collective quality.

When we were playing less than 48 hours ago, they were not playing, they were preparing [for] the game. They had all the time to prepare the game from the last international break, [and] that is going to be against us. They have this small advantage, plus the home game is always different than you play away from home, but we know their quality, we know their intensity, their physicality as well. Probably one of the more physical teams in the league.

They like to press really high, they are going to create some problems for us, but we have to be brave enough to play our game, to be brave enough to face them and to match them, because there are three points there to fight for, and they are going to demand many, many things from ourselves. But I really believe that if we are at our best level, we have shown already that we are able to respond really well.”

Fulham can take heart from being unbeaten against Mikel Arteta’s side in their last three league meetings.

Our recent record against them has been very good, shows that we have been doing very, very good things against them. It’s not easy when you are already three games without losing against a team like Arsenal, just shows again what we have been doing so far the last few seasons, and how we have been consistent against a side that have been fighting always to be champions in this competition, and we have been able to get good results against them.

First, we have to be Fulham Football Club, that is the main thing. That means that we are brave, our courage is going to be there, our quality as well, our organisation, and of course we have to be able to match their physicality that is going to be in the game, for sure.”