Marco Silva blamed his own Fulham team for allowing Everton to seize a valuable three points
Marco Silva said his Fulham side only had themselves to blame for the defeat to Everton. The former Blues boss, clearly disappointed with having lost after taking an early lead through Raul Jimenez’s back-post header, believed the hosts had the match under control for most of the first half.
Silva cited a breakdown in communication – one that allowed Carlos Alcaraz to win the corner that led to Vitalii Mykolenko‘s leveller – as a turning point and lamented the Cottagers’ failure to deal with set-pieces.
Second half goals from Michael Keane, who headed in from a corner, and Beto took the game away from Fulham, whose hopes of European qualification took a major blow as a result of the 3-1 loss.
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“They had their chance because of a lack of communication between two players on the right hand side and Alcaraz had a chance and after the second half we gave them what we needed with the way we conceded the goals.
“The second goal is more or less the same story because from a throw-in they won a corner and it came from a set-piece.
“The last three or four games we have been punished for most of these moments and it is really tough for us to take because we have to blame ourselves.
“It was our fault.”
Asked by the ECHO whether facing Everton was a different prospect under David Moyes to earlier in the campaign, when Fulham dominated Sean Dyche’s side and were only denied a win by Beto’s stoppage-time goal, Silva said: “The way we played for 30, 35 minutes was clear.
“We prepared the game in the best way and we kept doing the same things and we controlled.
“All the game we knew it was going to be direct, we knew their strategy very well.
“Being aggressive in the first and second duels, and doing the normal things, we knew we could have control and for 30, 35 minutes we did it.
“But that moment of the game, set-pieces, was a big part of it and we were not as good as we should have been in that moment and because of that we lost.”
