Fulham Head Coach Marco Silva wants to see Fulham deliver the type of performance we’ve come to expect from our meetings with Manchester United during his tenure.
Friday’s opponents have won three of the four league meetings since Silva arrived in SW6, but all were by a solitary goal, two of which were stoppage time winners at Craven Cottage.
It was our turn to break home hearts in the most recent outing, though, and Silva will be satisfied if his team deliver those levels once again.
“The reality is that the last two seasons, every time we play against Man United, the games have always been decided by fine margins,” he said in his pre-match press conference.
“Sometimes last minute goals for them, I think two times against us they scored late goals that made them win games.
“Okay, we all know the story about the FA Cup Quarter-Final, too. The last game was for us to decide in the last minute of the match. The reality is that we have always given them a match. This is the way we play, the way we prepare ourselves.
“We’re excited to be at Old Trafford, it’s always good to start there, the environment is going to be very good, for sure.
“They want to start on the front foot, we do as well, but they know that they are going to play against us, and they know what we are capable of doing, [from] every time we played against them.
“Let's hope we can repeat at least the same type of performance that we have been playing with them last two seasons. I'm going to be really pleased as a manager if I see my team play in that way.
“And of course, after, as I said, the margins can decide what is going to happen in terms of the result.”
Alex Iwobi’s winner in the seventh minute of stoppage time in this fixture last season was one of our most memorable moments of 2023/24, but Silva would prefer to look ahead rather than celebrate past achievements.
“What’s happened has already passed,” he explained. “Of course, we were pleased with the way we played, because we got the three points, and I think we clearly deserved the three points, too, in that game. But it’s already passed.
“It’s going to be the same teams there on the pitch, same stadium, but the story is going to be different. Let's hope we can repeat something similar, but the story of the game is going to be completely different.”