Football

Southampton 1-2 Fulham: Cottagers Boss Silva Treating Every Game Like A Final In European Push

The Cottagers hit back from a goal down to beat lowly Southampton 2-1 on Saturday

Fulham boss Marco Silva
Fulham boss Marco Silva
info_icon

Fulham must treat every Premier League match as a final as they aim to push on for European qualification, so says Marco Silva. (More Football News)

The Cottagers hit back from a goal down to beat lowly Southampton 2-1 on Saturday.

Jack Stephens' early goal put Southampton ahead, but Emile Smith Rowe's equaliser paved the way for Ryan Sessegnon to head home a stoppage-time winner.

Fulham sit eighth, level on points with ninth-place Brighton and six behind seventh-place Aston Villa, though there is a chance the top eight could qualify for European football next season.

바카라We have to do our job and that is to play each game as a final and win every game that we can,바카라 Silva told Premier League Productions.

바카라We know to be in the position we are in right now and to be fighting for something important means that this group of players have been doing something very good.

바카라We have been consistent in our position, most of the time in the top half of the table, and we have to really embrace the challenge to be in our current position.

바카라It is always hard to break down these sorts of teams because they have nine or ten players around the box.

바카라They did not want to come and play in our faces, so we had to be patient to break them down, but we did create enough.

바카라We scored the second goal late, but the reality is that we clearly deserved the three points.바카라

Opta's supercomputer makes Fulham favourites to finish ninth, with the Cottagers having a 26.7% chance of doing so.

Sessegnon has now had a hand in six goals across his last eight Premier League appearances for Fulham (four goals, two assists) 바카라 as many as in his previous 59 games in the competition combined.

Silva said: 바카라[Ryan] is a player that always does extra work in terms of finishing and crossing and all of that stuff. But I think it is something natural, he always has the right timing in the box.바카라

Sessegnon's goal could not have come at a better time for the Cottagers, who have now scored three 90th-minute winners in the Premier League this season 바카라 more than any other team.

Southampton's interim boss Simon Rusk, meanwhile, refused to be too downbeat about his side's late capitulation. 

He said: 바카라It바카라s a feeling of disappointment. We scored a late goal last week to get something out of the game and this week we lose a late goal that takes the game away from us.

바카라That is the balance involved with the joy and pain of football. It's a sore one to take so close to the end of the game.

바카라The game is not always science, it is about emotion and feeling. It is common sense that you want to protect a lead when you get in front.바카라

×