Fulham boss delighted at response against Stoke City as they strengthen grip on Championship pole position

Marco Silva was delighted with Fulham’s response to going 1-0 down after they fought back to beat Stoke City 3-2 on Saturday.

Goals from Rodrigo Muniz (pictured), Fabio Carvalho and Bobby Reid gave the Whites all three points on the road and moved them eight points clear of second-placed Bournemouth in the Championship standings.

“Really difficult, like we expected it to be,” said Silva. “It was a tough one, it’s always really tough to play here. Fulham’s last few results here weren’t the best. But we did really well.

“We didn’t start the game well – 40 seconds and they scored – [we had] a very good reaction, fantastic strike from Rodrigo after a good recovery from Harrison Reed. And after that we started to control the game the way we like to.

“They had the crowd pushing them, it’s tough to play here, they tried to press us high but we beat their press many, many times and started to play in our way.

“We started to create some problems for them, mixing up our game, sometimes from the back, sometimes we played a little bit more into our striker.

“But I believe we controlled all these moments well. It was a good strike from them after a throw-in and of course we have to do better in that situation, but we showed big character, which I like to see in our team.

“We kept going, we had the chance when Rodrigo [Muniz] hit the crossbar, and then it was a fantastic strike from Bobby to score the third goal.

“And at the end we showed big character and personality. We had some very good moments of football, and I think we deserved the three points.”