Marco Silva calls for ‘ruthless’ Fulham to avenge Newcastle United defeats

Newcastle United and Fulham meet for the third time in all competitions this season later this afternoon. The Magpies have won both meetings so far this campaign, defeating the Cottagers 3-0 at St James’ Park back in December before a 2-0 win in the capital in the FA Cup just over a month later.

Although the score lines suggest the Magpies were relatively comfortable winners, the stories of each game will reflect that they were much closer games than the result suggests. Particularly the league game on Tyneside back in December which was overshadowed by Raul Jimenez’s early red card. The Mexican was dismissed by Sam Barrott on that day for catching Sean Longstaff in the face in a decision that Silva blasted after the game.

Their FA Cup meeting at Craven Cottage was also a very close game and one that could have gone either way had the hosts taken their chances. Speaking ahead of today’s game, Silva revealed he is hopeful that his side are able to repeat those performances and secure a positive result:

“They don’t reflect at all what happened on the pitch.” The Fulham head coach said when asked about the previous meetings between the sides. “As you know and I need to repeat again, in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the [St James’ Park] game when it was really balanced, we played with ten men because we got a red card.

“In the second match, at Craven Cottage in the cup, the team [Fulham] had more chances to win the game. But at the end football matches are about being ruthless, being effective and clinical and in that game the chances were there. 

“If you ask me would I like to have the same chances in [today’s] match I would love to because it means we are capable of creating [goalscoring opportunities]. In terms of performance wise, if we can repeat what we did against them in the cup at the Cottage and improve some things, then this is going to be a good step for us in getting a good result.”