Marco Silva was pleased to see Fulham move into the Quarter-Finals of the Emirates FA Cup, a competition he has embraced since the start.
“I said from the first day of this competition that we aim really high and our ambition is really high in this competition,” he said. “We are humble enough to understand that we are not favourites at all, the favourites are different teams than us but we want to chase the competition and chase all the opposition sides.
“Any time you are going to play this competition, it’s always to try to go through and play with full ambition.
“We have been really serious the way we approach [the FA Cup] and the players have been really serious as well. And I’m really pleased for them because they deserve it.
“We know, as a club, that our story in this competition is not really great. This season we have changed so many things in this football club in terms of results, and our ambition is to do something different as well.
“Let’s see what we are going to do in the next round, but our ambition is clear.”
The 2-0 scoreline suggests a fairly routine night’s work, but Leeds United were guilty of some wasted chances, and Silva would have preferred to have been under less pressure than we were.
“The way Leeds came to approach the game, it was easy to understand from the first minute they were not a team to press really high, they waited for us to start to control the game,” he explained.
“And we started to do it, to create some dangerous moments, not big chances but dangerous moments around their box, and them waiting for some dangerous counter attacks with the quality players and really fast players they have in their attack line.
“And in some moments they waited for us and we gave them what they wanted. Of course, the first goal gave us the confidence we needed, we started to control the game a little better, some good moments for ourselves.
“Probably we could even have punished them with a second goal and the game could be different. They had a very good chance at the end of the first half in one moment that came off the post.
“Second half was different, I think we should have done much better in certain moments. We cannot be winning a game at home and be unbalanced so many times.
“We lost the ball quickly in certain areas, which you cannot do, and every time we lost the ball, we give the chance to them to make some dangerous counter attacks.
“They created much more than we would like. The players, they already know, I already spoke with them.
“Even if we won the game, it’s clearly something that we have to work on to improve because you cannot give the chance for them to make so many counter attacks and create so many chances.”
Nevertheless, the goals from João Palhinha and Manor Solomon were each worthy of winning any cup tie.
But did Marco have a favourite?
“It’s not easy to decide,” he replied. “Two different moments, but two great strikes. The first one, very good recovery and reaction from João, the way he won the ball, and a great finish from him.
“The other one was different – the way Manor linked with our striker in that moment, and a great finish in a spot where he is very strong.
“It is for our fans to decide which is the best, but they were two great moments.”
