Fulham coach Marco Silva knows it would be dangerous to worry solely about individual players on Sunday afternoon. Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne linked up to devastating effect in Manchester City’s vital midweek victory over title-rivals Arsenal, but when asked if those two were the main threat to Fulham,
Marco Silva replied: “We have to try to stop the Man City team. Of course we understand your question, so many goals that [Haaland] already scored, he is their top target man for them to finish all the moments that they create. They have so many ways to create for him, and that is difficult to stop. And it’s not just Haaland, because if it’s not Haaland there will be another one. Last game that they played, they were winning clearly and Haaland just scored in the last minutes of the game, one goal. You mention a player who in this position is one of the best, if not the best, in this country – that is De Bruyne. He is one of the most important players for them, but you cannot put your focus on just one player. I understand the main target is the striker, the big guy there with a lot of quality and capacity to score, but there are all the other players around. The two wingers that they are going to play, with De Bruyne behind him, are always a threat and have quality in any moment of the game. Let’s see who will be the other midfielder, if it will be [Ilkay] Gundogan playing as an offensive midfielder, he’s a player with the capacity to arrive in the box and to score goals as well. So many individual players for us to look at, we prefer to look in a different way, to look in a collective way. They are strong, one of the best teams in the world, if not the best, and clearly the best team in this competition.”
