Marco Silva: My Fulham side deserved a points return against Manchester United

Marco Silva felt his Fulham side deserved more from their 1-0 loss to Manchester United on Saturday.

A 91st minute goal from Bruno Fernandes condemned Fulham to defeat, with the United captain capitalising on the hosts’ failure to clear their lines in the closing stages.

Head coach Silva was of the opinion that his side could have taken more from their clash with Erik ten Hag’s out-of-sorts side.

“It’s a really difficult one to take but defeats are defeats,” he said. “We were the better team, but at this level you cannot be punished in the way that we were.

“Three or four players made mistakes [for the Fernandes goal], it’s difficult to understand. It was not a tactical thing, it was a decision we had to make in a different way. There was no need for us to be nervous at that moment.

“If someone deserved to win this football match, it was Fulham in my opinion. We didn’t put the ball in the net and in one moment they punished us.”

It proved to be a game of few clear-cut chances at Craven Cottage, with both sides fashioning just one shot on target in a tepid first half.

Fulham came out on the front foot in the second half and were close to opening the scoring through both Harry Wilson and Joao Palhinha.

But Fernandes struck the vital late blow after both Palhinha and Tim Ream had failed to get rid of the danger in the first minute of injury-time.

“The first half was 50-50 but we adjusted some things at half-time and we were the better team, creating more chances,” Silva explained.

“Our second half showed that we were in control, we limited Man United to basically nothing.

“With the chances we created, we should have scored.”

PICTURE: KEITH GILLARD