Marco Silva Addresses Nelson’s Injury, Fixture Congestion, and Upcoming Arsenal Match

Fulham manager Marco Silva addressed reporters ahead of the Premier League fixture against Arsenal on Sunday, scheduled for a 14:00 GMT kick-off. Below are the main points from his press conference: Regarding team updates, Silva stated: “They’re arriving now to the training ground for the session. We have to keep assessing them, it’s a short period to the Arsenal game. Assessing them and recovering them. Right now, Reiss Nelson was going to be out anyway because he’s on loan from Arsenal. The first feedback I got from the medical staff is that it’s going to be a hamstring injury. He’s going to be out for this game for sure and probably the next game. Let’s see how many more.” When asked why Arsenal would not underestimate Fulham, Silva responded: “No-one surprises anyone in Premier League no more. You know how Mikel [Arteta] and the Arsenal team respect everybody in this competition, they know that it’s really tough to play and win games at this level.” Addressing the brief recovery period following their midweek match, he commented: “It’s not the best scenario, it’s not going to be an excuse for us. Yes Arsenal is going to be more rested by 24 hours than us. If I’m in the opposite side I’m going to say you have a small advantage in that situation because you are going to start the game less than 72 hours from the last night game but it is what it is.” Continuing on the subject of the match calendar, Silva added: “We started last night, straight away to prepare for the game. Of course all of us, myself, Mikel [Arteta] would prefer to have a proper week to prepare the game on the weekend but we don’t have and we have to be ready for it. We know what is going to happen throughout the December month, it’s not going to be the first time for us, in 15 days we are going to have the same again.” Silva also addressed a question concerning Arsenal’s proficiency with set-pieces, stating: “Last season, we did really well in that situation, we scored twice against them in set-pieces last season, and the reality is that they didn’t score [from a set-piece] against us, and let’s hope we can repeat the same.”