Fulham boss gives condescending verdict on Sunderland: 'From the first minute, we were the better team'
Marco Silva did not give any real respect to Sunderland following the FA Cup ties, saying: ‘From the first minute we were the better team.’
The Premier League side eventually won through in the tie, although only one goal ultimately separated the sides after 180 minutes of football.
Fulham made a strong start in the replay at the Stadium of Light, but Sunderland grew into the game and gave Silva’s men a very tough test in the end.
The game essentially turned on a goal line clearance on an Adam Diallo chance. Had that gone in, the scores would have been level. Instead, Fulham got a scrappy second immediately. Such are the margins in football.
Silva, though, was in no mood to give any credit to Sunderland. According to him, Fulham were better, were always better, probably deserved to win ‘even more comfortably,' and anything good that Sunderland did was down to plucky belief and something that Fulham did badly.
"Firstly, congratulations to Sunderland," Silva said after Fulham's narrow 3-2 win. "They obligated us to play 180 minutes in this round.
“They made it difficult for us. And of course, congratulations to our players and our fans, because we are going to play in the fifth round, which was our clear goal from the first time we played against them at the Cottage. I think from the first minute we were the better team on the pitch.
"We played one or two touches every time, some moments we played a little bit slower than we would like, but from the first minute we created dangerous moments around their box. We scored early in the game which gave us the confidence to control the game in a different way.
"First 30 minutes we probably created enough chances to score the second goal and to be even more comfortable in the game. At 1-0, they are always going to believe, even at 2-0 they believed, and at 3-1 as well.
"The last 15 minutes of the first half, we lost a little bit of our shape and our pressure was not at the level it should be, and because of that we decided to change things and start the second half with Aleksandar Mitrovic and Andreas Pereira. The team improved, our shape improved off the ball as well.
"We scored the second goal and, at that moment, everyone probably thought the game would be killed but, at this level, never. They believed until the end, they scored to make it 2-1, and even with our reaction to make it 3-1 they kept believing.
"It was a real FA Cup tie, with two teams playing to go through, but overall we were the best team."
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