Pre-Bristol City Press Conference

Marco Silva knows Fulham’s promotion hopes lay within our own hands.

Tuesday’s rout at Reading moved us back into the top-two, a point behind leaders AFC Bournemouth who have played a game more.

“We look always at ourselves,” Marco replied when asked what the biggest threat was to the Whites’ ambitions for the season.

“Of course at the end of the weekend we look at the table, I think that’s normal, but during the week, every single day my players know what we talk about.

“We talk about ourselves, ourselves and ourselves. Our focus is always on what we can do and what our strategy is for the next match.

“We know we gave a very good first half of the season, we were stronger than a big part of our opponents, and we did really well.

“We want to do better, but if not we will at least try to do the same in the second half of the season. As I said, our full focus is on ourselves.”

Fulham will look to maintain our 100 per cent start to 2022 when we welcome familiar opponents Bristol City to Craven Cottage on Saturday.

But the Robins have proven a tough nut to crack in our two previous meetings this season, holding us to a frustrating draw in September, before taking last week’s FA Cup meeting to extra-time.

“They made it very difficult in the cup, they did the same in the first round as well,” Silva said.

“We lost two points against them in the first round. We drew that game and of course we wanted to win the game.

“We know that for us to win the game we have to have a good performance, we have to play well, we have to be always ready with a good commitment, good attitude.”