Fulham coach Marco Silva gave Fulham supporters a first win over Chelsea in almost 17 years last season and is keen to replicate that feeling on Monday night.
“You recognise how important it is when you feel the fans,” he said of the SW6 derby. “It’s probably the closest club from our football club, and that makes the derby slightly different, but we have some others in London as well.
“You feel that the game is important for our fans. We want to be competitive, want to fight for the three points. We are playing at home and we want to make their life really difficult.
“Last season I had that feeling, how it’s important for our fans, for sure. We gave them a very good week last January when we played against them at the Cottage.
“After the match, we felt how they were proud of ourselves. This [game] is really special for them.
“We want to get a good result, we want to make them proud again, and what we can promise is that we are going to give our maximum again for the shirt and to make them proud again.
“It’s a big thing for us that we are going to play at home, in our environment. We love everything about Craven Cottage matches and, for us, it will be a very good feeling again.”
Just one league win all season means Chelsea currently sit 14th going into game-week seven, but Silva knows how perilous it could be to write them off.
“Chelsea is Chelsea,” he stated. “No-one can underestimate them because the quality is there.
“Of course, they haven't started the way they would like. Since Mauricio [Pochettino] came in, he is trying to get the things in the right direction for them to fight for titles, like they want to be, but really that’s not the most important thing for us. We will look for ourselves.
“We are analysing them, we are going to have a plan for the match, like we have always, it’s not going to be different than what we did against Norwich, that we did last week against Palace, we will do always the same.
“After the defeat against Villa, [Chelsea] reacted and they went again in the game against Brighton in the Carabao Cup, they went through in the competition, which was one of their goals for that competition, for sure. And now they are going to face us at the Cottage.
“Of course, we respect them, it’s no different than the respect we had for Palace last week, with Luton the week before, with Norwich, or the next one against Sheffield United.
“We cannot hide that it’s a derby, and always a special one. For our fans it’s a really special derby.
“What we want really, and what we can promise them, is just that we are going to give our maximum really for the shirt and to make them proud.”