Fulham drew 2-2 with Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday, despite having a man advantage for over 70 minutes following Andy Robertson’s red card.
Marco Silva acknowledged that Fulham felt the “power of Liverpool” after his team was held by their 10-man opponents. Substitute Diogo Jota netted a late equaliser, securing a 2-2 draw for the Reds, even though they had played most of the match with a numerical disadvantage after Robertson’s red card.
Liverpool had already fallen behind to Andreas Pereira’s early goal for Fulham, who regained the lead in the latter stages through Rodrigo Muniz after Cody Gakpo’s second-half equaliser.
Silva expressed that his team should have come away with more from the match but admitted that they struggled to handle the Anfield atmosphere.
“It’s a mix of feelings,” said Silva. “When you are leading the score twice and Liverpool have had 70 minutes playing with 10 men, we have the feeling we should have won the game.”
He continued, “We have that strange feeling we could have got more. But the power of Liverpool had an impact as well. I am pleased with the performance but to lead twice against 10 men with 70 minutes, we should have taken the three points.”
Silva went on to discuss the team’s strong start, saying, “The way we started the game, we showed trust in ourselves as well. We have massive respect for Liverpool and the quality they have. When you come here, if you try to match them there will be difficulties as it’s emotional (the crowd) and if you are open, the quality they have with the crowd behind them, they can be unstoppable.”
“We started so well and scored, and our dynamic up front created a lot of problems for them,” Silva added.
He acknowledged that the red card affected the game, stating, “The red card had an impact, of course. It made the game a bit more emotional.”
“The crowd played their part and Liverpool’s players did as well, they took more risks and played more man to man, and we should have kept the ball more ourselves and tried to make them run more. That’s something I felt we had a lack of.”
Silva reflected on Fulham’s adjustments at half-time, noting, “We tried to adjust at half-time that situation to keep the ball more, the early goal from Liverpool had a massive impact on it but we reacted well and scored the 2-1 but they equalised again.”
“We arrived in dangerous areas so many times, especially on our left side, and we knew Salah would play a bit more inside and we should have created more problems than we did,” Silva said.
He concluded, “The second goal we scored was more or less the same as the first goal (in how we created it). But we should have taken better decisions to have more clear shots at goal.”
