Marco Silva says Fulham quickly moved on from the weekend’s FA Cup defeat at Manchester City, with an important Championship game quickly coming into view.
Though the Whites came away from the Etihad with their heads held high, the Premier League leaders proved their class to put the tie out of sight in the second period.
But the boys won’t be dwelling on that, with a clash against Millwall to look forward to on Tuesday night.
“From 6pm on Saturday we started to change the mindset, to regroup again,” Silva explained. “That game is already gone, it was a good moment for us to show our quality, to fight to keep our place in the FA Cup. We lost it, and now it’s a new game.
“We’re facing a team who will show a big respect for what we are doing so far, but at the same time they want to match us and create problems for us with their style and the way they like to play.
“We have to play with full focus every time. They are a team that doesn’t need many things to create problems for you – long ball, second ball, they can create problems for you, and you always have to be fully focused and match them.
“And we will play in our way with the ball, express ourselves like we have done so far, with quality and intensity. We may have to be patient as well, and we will do our best to win the football match.
“When we played there [at the Den] in the first half of the season, our third game of the season, it was a really important moment for us.
“The way we played from kick-off, we made a big, big impact on the pitch with our quality, our intensity.
“Millwall as a team is really tough in all the challenges, all the duels, but we did fantastically against them.”
Fulham have taken 13 points from a possible 15 in our league matches to date this calendar year, but Silva is always looking to take another step forwards.
“There is big room to improve,” he stated. “I won’t say to you everything that we should improve, but there are many things.
“I think the second half of the City match is a good example. We did so well during the first half, had some brilliant moments, but we couldn’t do it again in the second half after the third goal.
“That is a good example of something we can improve, but looking at the Championship, we have many, many things we can improve as a collective, to get us to a different level.
“Players who are not playing as many games as they expected, we have to create the conditions for them to match and compete with the others.
“Big fights will come for us, and we must keep improving to be at our best level, because it will be tough until the end of the season.”
