Marco Silva
Fulham coach Marco Silva Marco Silva believes it would foolish to read too much into Leeds United’s previous two results. Javi Gracia’s men shipped 11 goals in their recent defeats by Crystal Palace and Liverpool, but when asked if that could make them dangerous opposition on Saturday,
Marco Silva replied: “Yes, yes. I know that they are not in the best position, [but] they are fighting for something. It’s nothing different for us to the last three teams that we played against – Bournemouth was the same, West Ham was the same, and Everton. We don’t look for [Leeds’] last two games, it will be the first mistake if you look for the last two results. Of course, we analyse the games and we did what we should have done, but we didn’t look for the results because it will be the first mistake if you think those results is something that is a normal situation for Leeds, because we already played twice against them this season. We know how they can be really tough to play against if they are at their best, that is clear for me, they are always a threat in the attack line. There are very good players in that attack line, players with a lot of skill that can create problems to you. Of course, we analysed them as a team, we know their weakness, but we know their strengths as well, and we want to exploit the weakness to try to win the football match. But the first step for us to win that football match is to respect them as a team and to understand that, in the Premier League, the position doesn’t matter. If you are not at your best level, any team can beat you.”
Having already defeated Leeds home and away this season, Silva wants his team to use that as motivation to make it a hat-trick against the Yorkshire outfit.
Marco Silva replied: “It gives us the confidence that we were able to do it, and it means that we can do it again. The position in the table that we’re around right now gives us the confidence to keep expressing ourselves and to go to play with confidence as well. And now we are going to try to win against Leeds for the third time.”
Having reached the 42-point target set at the start of the season with victory at Everton, Silva has now turned his attention to surpassing Fulham’s highest ever Premier League points total of 53 – achieved when Roy Hodgson led us to seventh in 2009.
Marco Silva said: “We got one of the main [targets] last week and now we have to go for the next one. The next one is try to beat that number of points, which would make history again in this football club and be really important. We are making some important things inside this football club, and the next one is there for us to try to do it. Of course, we have to go game by game, it’s the way we have been approaching, not just the season, even last season when the target was to be Champions. We approach in this way and we keep doing the same, preparing ourselves as best as we can for the next match, always. But it’s important to have that target ahead of us, and if we get it, and we’d have to work really hard to do it, we will set another one.”
