Fulham manager Marco Silva wants to keep Fulham’s excellent recent record at Goodison Park going when we face Everton in Saturday’s late kick-off.
After a run of just one win in 15 Premier League trips to the blue half of Merseyside, Silva has overseen victory in all three of his returns to his former club.
“I really believe that we changed completely the story behind that game, because for a long, long time Fulham wasn't able to win there,” our Head Coach explained. “As a team, we changed it.
“We were able to change it, not just in Premier League games, even knockout situations, like the Quarter-Final of the Carabao Cup. And that is a good sign.
“We know the type of game that we are going to play, we know them really well, of course I know the club really well, too.
“But it's always really tough – just because we achieved very good results, doesn’t mean that it isn’t something difficult.
“I remember, for example, last season, the first Premier League game was so, so difficult for us. We were able to win the game 1-0, but it was a really tough game. Probably Everton in that game, they deserved more than they achieved, but football is like that.
“Two years ago, we were clearly the best team on the pitch, but they have always been tight games, and it's going to be another one.”
When asked for specifics on why it will be such a testing fixture, Silva said: “Really tough game, because of the home crowd, the support, the type of game that Everton is going to play is not something that you play every single Premier League game.
“More direct game, more second balls, every time there’s a free-kick on the halfway line it will go forward from Jordan Pickford.
“All types of things that you are not used to play always against, and we have to be able to demand from ourselves the focus, the concentration and, of course, the braveness and organisation to play against that type of game.
“They are a really physical team. In almost all the positions, they are physical, they are strong. On the counter-attack they are a really dangerous team.
“With the change of the [Dwight] McNeil position, gives them a little bit more unpredictability, because he’s capable of doing something different there in the middle, behind the striker – [he has] a good connection with Dominic Calvert-Lewin as well.
“And of course, the addition of [Iliman] Ndiaye gives something different for them on the left-hand side, too. That is the big difference, if you compare with the last two seasons, for example.
“But the identity, the philosophy of Sean Dyche, is clear there – a lot of balls in the channels, a lot of balls in behind every time demands for you to be switched on, because they don't need a lot of passes to arrive.
“A ball from Jordan Pickford can go straightaway to fight. A lot of second balls, a lot of fights for the second balls, it’s going to be a game with a lot of duels.”
He continued: “It's going to demand from ourselves in that type of situation, the focus and aggressiveness in the right way.
“We cannot let the game to go always in that direction, because they are strong in that physicality that they put always, and we have to be able to, when we have the ball, play in our game, to calm down the game a little bit and to build the game like we like to build.
“Even when in some moments at Goodison that it’s not so easy, because the pressure, the intensity is going to be there on the top, but we are ready for the game for sure.”