Marco Silva praised his side’s character to overcome a team that he has a lot of respect for.
Fulham trailed to Stoke City early on before equalising immediately through Rodrigo Muniz. We then went in front through Fabio Carvalho only for Stoke City to restore parity themselves.
But the points came back to London thanks to a lovely half-volley from Bobby De Cordova-Reid after Muniz had seen his header come back off the crossbar.
“Really difficult, like we expected it to be,” was Silva’s assessment of the contest. “It was a tough one, it’s always really tough to play here, Fulham’s last few results here weren’t the best. But we did really well.
“We didn’t start the game well – 40 seconds and they scored – [we had] a very good reaction, fantastic strike from Rodrigo after a good recovery from Harrison Reed. And after that we started to control the game the way we like to.
“They had the crowd pushing them, it’s tough to play here, they tried to press us high but we beat their press many, many times and started to play in our way.
“We started to create some problems for them, mixing up our game, sometimes from the back, sometimes we played a little bit more into our striker.
“I think the second goal is a good example, fantastic reaction from Fabio Carvalho with the way he carried the ball and finalised the action. I think at the end Rodrigo touched the ball for the goal, but it was a good moment for ourselves.”
Silva – who confirmed that Aleksandar Mitrović and Harry Wilson missed out through illness – continued: “Second half there was a normal reaction from Stoke, they’re a quality team who are always tough to beat, I have to say they have a lot of individual quality in their squad, with a good idea of football who always create problems for the opposition.
“But I believe we controlled all these moments well. It was a good strike from them after a throw-in and of course we have to do better in that situation, but we showed big character, which I like to see in our team.
“We kept going, we had the chance when Rodrigo hit the crossbar, and then it was a fantastic strike from Bobby to score the third goal.
“And at the end we showed big character and personality. We had some very good moments of football, and I think we deserved the three points.”
