Marco Silva said after the bitter 3-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest that his Fulham team had failed to meet certain minimum expectations for the first time in his three-year tenure as manager.
The Cottagers went into Tuesday night’s game at the City Ground in good form, but were punished for a poor first-half performance which left them 3-0 down at the break.
Silva made three substitutions after just 33 minutes – the second-fastest in Premier League history – but his side’s improved second-half performance was not enough to prevent another disappointing away result.
Only bottom-placed Sheffield United have won fewer away games in the top division this season than Fulham’s two.
“The way certain things have happened, it is the first time since we started this long journey in 2021 that something like this has happened,” Silva said.
“If we don’t start the game the way we should, we will obviously be punished. We didn’t play well in the first half. Everything was so, so slow.”
“We didn’t do what we had planned. We weren’t solid enough, we weren’t aggressive enough. We lost almost all the balls.”
“We reacted in the second half, but the damage was already there in the first half. We completely dominated the second half, but it was already too late. Football is played from the first minute, not in the second half.”
Silva said of his remarkable triple substitution in the first half: “It is important to say that it was not at all the fault of Harry Wilson, Sasa Lukic and Alex Iwobi when I made the triple substitution.
“At that moment, the team needed a lot more substitutions than just three. As a collective, we weren’t there. It was a tactical change. We needed at least Tom Cairney and Willian to have the ball.”
Silva said this week that Fulham are a better team than they were last season, when they finished 10th, and that they are in better shape than they were in December, when they thrashed Forest 5-0 at Craven Cottage.
“This defeat doesn’t change what I said before,” he stressed. “Tonight it was the exact opposite, but that’s football. We did really well. We have to be realistic. It’s been a very good season so far.”
