Marco Silva reveals Fulham targeted two Chelsea players in Stamford Bridge win
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Marco Silva has revealed that Fulham looked to exploit Marc Cucurella and Pedro Neto during Fulham’s 2-1 victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day. Enzo Maresca’s side remain second in the Premier League and four points behind Liverpool after suffering their first defeat in 13 matches in all competetions.
Cole Palmer’s excellent individual effort opened the scoring for Chelsea in the 16th minute but Fulham equalised with eight minutes remaining through substitute Harry Wilson. Rodrigo Muniz, another second-half substitute, then scored Fulham’s winner in the 94th minute of injury time.
Speaking after the game, Silva revealed that Fulham had highlighted both of Chelsea’s flanks as potential weaknesses. ‘I expected that with Adama [Traore] knowing that Cucurella is going to be more inside, or Cucurella is going to be the second midfielder for them or play in the pocket, we wanted to play with a player like Adama to explore that space after when they are more exposed on that left-hand side and we wanted to explore that position of Cucurella, that was the reason behind [it],’ Silva told Amazon Prime.
‘The reason is that we wanted to explore the full-back [Cucurella] was more inside and we had the profile of Adama there. Of course, it worked really well. ‘It’s not a coincidence that we are the team in the Premier League who have score more goals with players from the bench, it means everybody is on the same page, everybody knows what we are doing as well, everybody fights for their position, I have to take decisions, sometimes they are happy, other times not happy, but the main thing is we are working as a group.’.
