‘Delighted’ – Marco Silva’s verdict as five-star Fulham smash Nottingham Forest

Fulham boss Marco Silva congratulated his players after they smashed Nottingham Forest 5-0 at Craven Cottage on Wednesday night.

The west Londoners were 2-0 up with goals from Alex Iwobi and Raul Jimenez in the first half.

Iwobi and Jimenez both scored again in the second half – with Tom Cairney rounding off the goals in the 86th minute – as Fulham moved up to 12th in the Premier League table.

“I’m really pleased,” Silva said.

“I’m delighted with the win and the result. The players deserve all the credit – it was a great team performance and a great result for us.

“Another great feeling that we took from the match tonight is the clean sheet – it was really important for us.

“I spoke before the match about it. I said to the players again when we were winning 2-0 that we have to keep it, keep playing in the same way, trying to be on the front foot always, but we have to be solid off the ball to not give them some chances to make any counter-attacks.

“We knew before the match that was the moment probably where they were prepared to punish us, and we did really well and the players deserve all the credit for that.

“Of course, there some really nice goals as well, with the way that we build, some of the goals were really good, and congratulations, they deserve the credit – the players – congratulations for the fans too, because they deserve it.”

Ex-Wolves forward Jimenez only had one goal to his name for Fulham before the visit of Forest.

“He was fantastic,” Silva acknowledged.

“But I have to say that last time out at Anfield he did an amazing job as well.

“He didn’t score there, but when you play sometimes far from your goal, and you have to fight with van Dijk and Matip and all their players, in some moments we went a little bit more direct.

“The way he was able to win the duels and to link our game when we went a bit more direct, in terms of commitment and effort, it was unbelievable at Anfield what he did.

“And I told him after the match at Anfield that I knew these types of things would come, it’s going to be a consequence of his hard work.”