Silva warns Forest: We’re now even better than day we beat you 5-0

Marco Silva believes Fulham are even better now than they were when the Cottagers thrashed Nottingham Forest 5-0 in December ahead of the teams' clash at the City Ground.

Two goals each for Alex Iwobi and Raul Jimenez and Tom Cairney's late strike led then Forest boss Steve Cooper to declare he was "embarrassed" - but Fulham showed it was no one-off by thumping West Ham United by an identical scoreline a few days later.

Cooper was sacked a couple of weeks after the heavy defeat and replaced at Forest by Nuno Espirito Santo, whose team are scrapping for their lives in a bid to secure Premier League survival.

Out of the drop zone on goal difference alone after only one win in their last ten league games, Forest's attempts to give themselves some breathing room from the bottom three will be tested again this evening by the visit of Fulham, whose head coach Silva delivered an ominous warning for their hosts.

"As a team, I have to say that we are stronger right now, we are in a better moment than December when we played against them," Silva told a press conference yesterday.

"That was a really strong week for us, with two back-toback 5-0s at home. They were two impressive performances and results for us.

"They are in a position that they don't want to be, and it's going to be a team that is going to fight really hard to get out of that position.

"We know that but, at the same time, we want to fight for the points because we want to keep climbing the table and go for the higher positions in the table if we can."