Marco Silva is a genius, but he’s not perfect

Just like any Fulham fan, I love Marco Silva. In just over three years, our Portuguese manager has won the Championship title, taken us to an FA Cup quarter-final and a League Cup  semi-final while playing the best football we’ve seen since the days of Slavisa Jokanovic in the Championship. You could write article after article about his strengths as Fulham manager (and we have!), but not enough might get said about his weaknesses. However, there definitely are some.

Fulham have started the season really strongly, with some eye-catching performances against some of the biggest names in the league, such as Man City, Man United, and Newcastle. The frustration has come not from the performances, but the results at the end of them. If xG is to be believed, Fulham’s performances should have resulted with a spot in the league’s top three, and yet, at the time of writing, we sit in (admittedly a respectable) 10th.

No points for partial performances

At Old Trafford on the opening day, Fulham had dominated in spells and defended admirably, yet it was Joshua Zirkzee with an 88th-minute winner for the hosts that left Fulham with zero points on the board. Four games in and a similar frustration followed. Fulham were better than West Ham in every aspect at Craven Cottage and took a one-goal lead into stoppage time, before Danny Ings equalised with 95 minutes on the clock. An almost identical scenario occurred at Goodison Park on Saturday, this time with Beto scoring on 94 minutes to deny Silva’s side all three points. In and among that, Fulham went to the Etihad and were it not for some questionable finishing by Adama Traore, the Whites should have walked away with a comfortable win over the reigning Champions. So why does our points tally match the quality of our performances?

Motivation?

One problem I’ve had with Marco Silva since even the Championship days was a weird struggle to motivate his side after the half-time interval. So often, Fulham’s most sluggish period in a game is in those first 10 minutes just after the break. While we should never expect a win against Man City, the game was finely poised at 1-1, and yet a 47th-minute goal from Mateo Kovacic put us instantly on the back foot after all the hard work done in the opening 45. This is a common trend across Silva’s three or so years at the club – and a worrying one. For a manager that our own squad describe as inspirational and a killer for the finer details, how come so often we start a half looking so sloppy and unmotivated?

Five’s a crowd?

A further issue regarding game management and seeing wins out is this constant attempt to see a game out with a back five. On multiple occasions recently, Silva has liked to bring on a centre-back, often Issa Diop, to see a game out in a back five. However, it rarely looks to make us a more solid side. Against Everton at Goodison, Jorge Cuenca was bought on two minutes into stoppage time and in Everton’s first attack against said back five, Beto found space in the Fulham box to head home. So why do we persist with this idea when it doesn’t seem to benefit us? I came up with this analogy in the Fulhamish Community to describe why I don’t believe in simply bringing an extra defender on to see a game out…

If you assemble a brick wall as quickly as you possibly can with very little time to do it and two raging bulls throw themselves at that wall, it’s structural integrity will be basically zero and it’ll be much more likely to fall down. Whereas, with a wall that’s been carefully assembled and has one calmer bull in and around it, its structural integrity will be greater (still with me?). Therefore, if a back four that has coped perfectly well with the likes of Calvert-Lewin for the full 90 minutes, why change the formation of that defence just because Beto and Michael Keane have gone up front? By rushing on Jorge Cuenca for two minutes, you are rushing to put together new foundations of a backline that is being overwhelmed by what’s coming towards it. It rarely works, and yet, so often in a position of promise late on, Silva continues to add an extra centre-half into the picture to see out a game.

Set in his ways

This is just one aspect of Marco Silva’s management that could be seen as stubborn. Whether it be formation, team selection, tactics or game management, Silva knows what he likes and sticks to it no matter what. And to be fair, it’s hard to fault that with the journey he has taken us on since the summer of 2021. However, there’s times when changes have to be made but aren’t made. The key example this season has to be the way he plays his number eights in his 4-3-3 system.

For his whole tenure, this has been a system that has worked. The likes of Harrison Reed, Tom Cairney, Fabio Carvalho, Andreas Pereira and Alex Iwobi have all thrived in such positions at times. However, the past two months have shown an unwillingness from Silva to change things up when it hasn’t. Fulham’s midfield has clearly lacked balance at the start of the 2024/25 season, and that’s ultimately down to the dual eight positions being played by Emile Smith Rowe and Pereira. Any fan can see that playing both advanced options alongside each other isn’t working, both want the opportunity to thrive further forward and offer a distinct lack of defensive cover to the players behind them. But game after game, Silva persists with the same system and players within it.

We still love him

I’d never want a different manager, Marco Silva has done far more good for this football club than bad and has instilled a belief in the fan base that some things are achievable that previously may not have, such as European challenges and deep cup runs. But issues do exist, and as other articles have suggested inside and outside of the Fulhamish realm, making certain tweaks and changing certain attitudes may allow Fulham to go even further with what they are able to achieve under his management. He is our genius, but he’s by no means perfect.