Fulham manager Marco Silva will this evening bring his runaway league leaders to SA1 with a clear game plan as to how he believes he can secure three more points on his plan to bring Premier League football back to Craven Cottage.
Fulham look almost certain to secure that immediate return as they have opened up an eleven point lead at the top of the table and seeimgly scoring goals for fun with 84 goals already in the for column this season.
But he admits that they will come up against a Swansea side who like to dominate possession and expects his side to press high to try and control the game making it increasingly difficult for Russell Martin and his team.
Fulham have already beaten the Swans once this season – a 3-1 victory back in September – but Silva recognises it was one of the rare occasions where majority possession was conceded by his side.
โTheyโre a team that like to have possession. I think theyโre the team with the most possession in this competition,” Silva said in his Monday press conference.
โTheir game is to play out from the goalkeeper, they have enough courage to do it, and they do it with quality. I think the game we played against them at the Cottage is a good example of that.
โI think maybe they were the only team that had more possession than us at the Cottage. That shows the way they like to play.
โWe know that sometimes they will have possession in a low position around their box, they use the goalkeeper a lot in this moment as well to start from the back. And they do it well.
โItโs up to us, with our plan and our strategy, to try to control these moments, and to feel comfortable with this situation because itโs not the end of the world.
โOf course we like to have the possession, we like to keep the ball, we like to control the game with the ball, itโs our way, but in some moments we have to feel comfortable with the situation, even if itโs not natural for us a team to see the others with the ball.
โWe have to press really high to try to get the ball from them, and we will do it in certain moments. Other moments, we have to control in a different way, and I think that will be a good challenge for us.โ