Fulham boss Marco Silva was pleased with the result, if not the performance, in Fulham’s season opener at Everton. A virtuoso display from Bernd Leno was the only reason we were goalless at the break, but a much improved second 45 culminated in Bobby De Cordova-Reid snatching the winning goal.
Marco Silva said: “That was not a good performance from ourselves at all. I think overall during the game, we didn’t perform at our level. Even if we started the game well, after the first 15-20 minutes we started to lose so many balls in our build-up, in certain areas.
We gave so many chances for Everton to punish us in counter attacks.
Marco Silva said: “They had their chances, of course, a good number of chances during the first half, because we gave them so many moments for them to punish us. To be honest, it was much more our fault because we didn’t perform. Bernd kept us in the game. A great, great performance from Bernd Leno kept us in the game in certain moments when we were under pressure. We changed some things at half-time, second half was slightly different.”
The winning goal involved all three of Fulham’s substitutes, with Aleksandar Mitrovic playing in Andreas Pereira who squared to De Cordova-Reid who’d ghosted into the box unseen for a tap-in.
Marco Silva said: “Great impact from the players that came from the bench – Bobby, Mitro and Andreas. It was nice to see them involved in the goal we scored, a great moment from ourselves, open play moment that combined down our right side and with Bobby on the opposite side. It was probably our best moment during the match. But second half, I have to say, was much more balanced. We hit the post as well, like Everton hit the crossbar, we had more chances in the second than the first, but in terms of our compactness, in terms of defensive organisation, it was not really good, not even 50 per cent what it should be. Even so, we were able to win a football match. In this circumstance, it is a great feeling for us. It is not a problem for me to say probably Everton deserved a different result this afternoon.
But football is like that, in some moments it’s going to be ourselves playing better, creating more chances but not winning.
Marco Silva said: “But it’s a great feeling when you don’t play at your level during 95 minutes and you are able to win a game away from home. I know what it means to play through this. First game of the season, all the fans will be pushing the home side and trying to get them to play on the front foot. First 15 minutes we took the ball from them and we didn’t give them a chance. After that we had much more problems, but it’s good to see the togetherness and the attitude inside the pitch, and we were able to win the match.”
Everton had a goal disallowed at 0-0 following a foul on Leno, an incident that irked their manager Sean Dyche. But Silva pointed to the fact that the Whites also had a strong shout for a late penalty turned down by the officials.
Marco Silva said: “It was the decision of the referee, like it was the decision of the referee second half when Mitro struck and the ball touched [James] Tarkowski’s elbow when it was not in a natural position. It’s two difficult decisions for the referee. One he didn’t give the goal, he disallowed the goal, and the other he didn’t give the penalty for us.”
