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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Jonathan Gorrie

Marco Silva critical of Fulham standards after Tottenham loss

Marco Silva was critical of his Fulham side after they lost to Tottenham on Saturday

(Picture: Getty Images)

Marco Silva conceded Tottenham “deserved the points” and lamented the first-half performance after watching his Fulham side beaten 2-1 on Saturday.

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg opened the scoring for the home side before Harry Kane equalled Thierry Henry’s record of 43 goals in Premier League London derbies.

The in-form Aleksandar Mitrovic, however, did score his sixth goal in as many games to set-up somewhat of grandstand finish at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Fulham sit tenth in the Premier League after a strong start to the season despite a difficult summer and are gearing up for a west London derby with Chelsea at Craven Cottage next week.

Silva, however, was from pleased about some aspects of his team’s performance.

Speaking to BT Sport after the game, the Portuguese said: “Tottenham deserved three points, our first half was not good enough, we didn’t get to our standards. On the ball we were not at our level, even without high pressure from Tottenham we took many wrong decisions on the ball first half.

"We gave the ball away easy many times and for me that was the main thing of the first half because doing better on the ball we would control the game better and take more decisions and put them under pressure as well and we didn’t do that.

“After the injury of Robinson that created a different scenario for us and we had to adapt. We had much more courage in the second half and tried to match them, we had some problems in our pressure definitely but we were more aggressive.

"Not just because we lost the ball in an important decision it was our reaction after. The way we like to play is to take risks but our reaction has to be different.

In-form: Mitrovic has scored six goals in six games for Fulham this season (Getty Images)

"We missed Robinson on and off the ball. The way they scored the second goal they created problems for us.

"I wanted a reaction, I expected to see that after half-time. I didn’t see that after 10-15 minutes in the second half so I decided to change something.

"We didn’t get our standards, we have to improve on the ball, there is a lot of room for us to improve. We will do it, we need more time to work with the players. It wasn’t our best afternoon, but we tried to get the equaliser until the last minute."

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