Marco Silva impressed by ‘too good’ Tottenham but still proud of Fulham resilience in defeat

Marco Silva was pleased with how his Fulham side kept plugging away despite being largely outplayed by a dominant Tottenham team in their 2-1 defeat in north London.

Another milestone goal from talismanic striker Harry Kane helped Spurs to victory over the Cottagers to extend their unbeaten start to the Premier League season.

Kane struck in the 75th minute from close range to move beyond Andy Cole into third in the list of all-time top scorers in the competition’s history with 188 goals. It was also his 43rd effort in a Premier League London derby. That figure put him level with the previous outright record-holder Thierry Henry.

It added to Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s drilled opener for Antonio Conte’s men. And while Aleksandar Mitrovic scored late on for Fulham to set up a nervy finale, Spurs held on to make it four wins and two draws from their opening six matches. The Cottagers are now 10th in the table.

Speaking after the game, the Fulham boss said: “Tottenham deserved three points, our first half was not good enough, we didn’t get to our standards. On the ball we were not at our level, even without high pressure from Tottenham we took many wrong decisions on the ball first half.

“We gave the ball away easy many times and for me that was the main thing of the first half because doing better on the ball we would control the game better and take more decisions and put them under pressure as well and we didn’t do that. After the injury of Robinson that created a different scenario for us and we had to adapt.

Silva happier with second-half showing

“We had much more courage in the second half and tried to match them, we had some problems in our pressure definitely but we were more aggressive.

“Not just because we lost the ball in an important decision it was our reaction after. The way we like to play is to take risks but our reaction has to be different.

“We missed Robinson on and off the ball. The way they scored the second goal they created problems for us.

“I wanted a reaction, I expected to see that after half-time. I didn’t see that after 10-15 minutes in the second half so I decided to change something.

“We didn’t get our standards, we have to improve on the ball, there is a lot of room for us to improve. We will do it, we need more time to work with the players. It wasn’t our best afternoon, but we tried to get the equaliser until the last minute.”