Marco Silva radiated pride for his players after a difficult ending to proceedings at St James’ Park on Sunday afternoon.
“I have to start by saying that I’m really proud of my players, the way we came here and demonstrated again how we can be a really tough team to play against.
“Tough feeling when the game finishes the way it does. The game was much more than that. We came here with confidence, in difficult circumstances, we played last Thursday night.
“Some moments we played good football, the other moments we showed togetherness and organisation that we have been showing so far (this season).”
Our Head Coach acknowledged the strength of our opposition on the day, and was pleased with how his players stood up to that challenge under the conditions.
“This afternoon, not so fresh as we’d like to be but always play with an ambition,” he said. “Not so much time on the ball as we’d like. Newcastle were more dominant on the ball from the first moment, but we never lost our organisation, our ambition to punish them in some moments.
“We know that it’s always tough to come here and play. They are in a good moment like us, they are a really physical team, it’s not just their quality.
“Most of the moments we did well with that. Probably on the ball and some offensive transitions we should’ve done better, but we have to give credit to them as well.”
Silva had his say on the major talking point of the game too, when a couple of fouls in almost as many seconds eventually led to a Fulham penalty.
“I have to mention as well the penalty. Not because we missed that can happen, but I have to mention the decision of the referee and the VAR.
“It’s difficult for us to understand 30 seconds two clear decisions inside the box. It’s difficult to see how the referee didn’t see at least one.”
