Marco Silva was satisfied after a good day at the office away to Huddersfield Town on Saturday afternoon.
Aleksandar Mitrović, Josh Onomah, Fabio Carvalho and Ivan Cavaleiro (2) were all on target as a first win under the new regime was secured in style at the John Smith’s Stadium.
“We deserved to win the three points, we were the best team on the pitch again, as well as last week,” our Head Coach said.
“Unfortunately then we didn’t score more goals, but this afternoon we got five. We had some luck with the first one, but we had clear chances to score more and more.
“At the end it was a fair result, we were the best team, the players did well and it was a good performance for ourselves.
“We were against a good side who we knew liked to play out from the back. We took some advantage and our pressure was good from the first minute of the match.
“We took many positives, not just because we got the result and scored five goals, but some things we saw on the pitch.
“It’s a good feeling for us. You need to win matches to give yourself confidence.”
Some of the passages of play from the Whites were absolutely gorgeous, and Silva was pleased to see a lot of hard work transpire on the pitch.
“You have an idea, and the players are buying that idea,” he explained. “It’s not just my ideas, it’s Fulham Football Club’s idea.
“They are buying that idea, they believe that it gives us more chances to win football matches. In the meantime, we are enjoying what we are doing.
“But it’s the Championship, sometimes you see the quality we saw this afternoon.
“Those moments come from desire, commitment, and you have to have all these things in the same package for us to be stronger and stronger.”
A straight red card for Harry Wilson with 20 minutes to play could have given Huddersfield a jolt in the arm, but instead it was a brace from substitute Cavaleiro that wrapped things up for Silva’s men.
It’s a resilience which went down well with the Gaffer.
“We had some good challenges today,” he said. “After 2-0, they scored but then straight away we scored the third goal.
“After the red card, of course we made some changes to create a different shape on the pitch.
“We had some fast players to the side; Bobby right and Ivan on the left, and more power with Frank Anguissa inside with Seri.
“We scored two more goals after we took a risk to play more and put more players against their backline.
“If you have a good shape and keep the organisation in our team then good moments can come on the counter attack.”
Mitrović’s opener had more than a touch of fortune about it, but his all round performance was fantastic, linking the play and holding up the ball, culminating in a fine assist for Cavaleiro’s fifth.
“It’s important,” Silva replied when asked about our number nine getting off the mark. “He needs this type of performance to boost his confidence, which is normal after the last match, which was disappointing for all the players because we were the best team on the pitch against Middlesbrough.
“Mitro felt better [today], we spoke during the week, I want to leave all this pressure behind him that he has to score all these goals in a game.
“He scored once but he had lots of good moments, he helped the team and he did good work in the side. That’s the most important thing for me.
“The goals for our strikers and wingers will come naturally with our style of play.”
