Silva bidding for a special night
MARCO SILVA has challenged his players to write their name into Fulham folklore and match their European heroics. Fulham knocked out Hamburg and Juventus at Craven Cottage on the way to reaching the 2010 Europa League final. The 4-1 win over Juve in the second leg was one of the greatest nights in the club’s history. Now they can reach their firstWembley cup final since the 1975 FA Cup and manager Silva said: “You don’t often have this type of moment at Fulham.
“They are special. I want to have another special one in one month’s time.
“I know what we are going to face. Liverpool are favourites – even more now because they are leading – but we have the ambition.
“You can leave legacies. When you are at this type of club, titles are more difficult, but if you have the chance to fight for it, of course you are going to.
“It’s important. How many good nights at Craven Cottage, in the cup or Europa League have there been? Let’s hope we can repeat them.”
Fulham have lost twice at Anfield this season, despite scoring three times in the Premier League meeting.
But Silva insists they can turn the 2-1 cup deficit around and said they had been practising penalties before tonight’s clash.
Silva has worked wonders to establish Fulham as a Premier League club but wants to leave a bigger legacy.
He was furious when they crashed out of the Carabao Cup at Crawley last season, which led to a reset this season.
Silva said: “Sometimes setbacks can be important in your season and your approach with your players – to be clear with them about how serious we have to be, it doesn’t matter the competition.
“We have to respect everybody. You can win or lose, you have to have the right desire and mentality.
“Everyone is looking at us to see what we can do against a top side like Liverpool.We know our fans expect us to fight hard to make them proud.We are going to do our maximum.”