Silva insists Pereira is not finished at Fulham

Marco Silva insisted the door has not been closed on Andreas Periera after the Fulham midfielder was left out of the squad for the draw at Tottenham.

Periera was reported to have said in a recent interview that he wanted to leave Fulham and join Marseille during the January transfer window.

The Brazilian has since posted on social media that he was misquoted and his comments mistranslated in a “malicious and inaccurate manner, completely distorting my words.”

Boss Silva has previously shunned the likes of Tosin Adarabioyo when they did not show commitment to the club.

But he claimed Pereira’s omission from the squad was nothing to do with the comments attributed to him and was merely a “technical decision”.

Silva said: “I didn’t read the interview. I know some of the topics of the interview.

“I didn’t read the interview because for me to read something from my players I need to be sure that they did it.

“I didn’t read it but I know what you are talking about. The thing that I want to tell you is that Andreas is going to be back stronger and is going to be with us to help the team like he has been.

“He’s going to be the important player that he’s been since he our joined the football club.

“It’s nothing related to the interview. I don’t make decisions (based) on interviews. My decisions are never going to be related to newspapers or something.

“My decisions come from a daily basis with the players, (training) sessions, games and nothing more.”

And Silva indicated that the former Manchester United man is in line for a quick return, with Tom Cairney and Sasa Lukic now facing suspensions.

Cairney scored a superb equaliser in the 1-1 draw with Spurs but was then sent off, while Lukic picked up a fifth yellow card so must also serve a ban.

“Let’s hope we can have Andreas ready again next week in the way I know he can play. We need everybody in this moment of the season,” said Silva.

Fulham created several chances against Spurs but the hosts went ahead through Brennan Johnson’s goal.

Cairney, on as a substitute, brilliantly levelled and it was a useful point for the Whites, but Silva they felt the deserved more.

He said: “I think we deserved much more from the game. We deserved clearly to win the game with the chances that we created against a very good side.

“Tottenham had very good chances too, but overall we had more. We had more control of the game and performance-wise we did really well.

“We didn’t give any chances to them when with 10 men for the last 15 minutes of the game.”

Having initially been booked for a crude challenge on Dejan Kulusevski in the 83rd minute, Cairney was shown the red card after referee Darren Bond viewed the incident on the pitchside monitor.

“We all know Tom Cairney and he’s not a malicious player at all – I’m the first one pushing him to be more aggressive in the right way,” said Silva.

“He was unlucky. He went for the ball and, if you want to accept just the images, you have to accept the red card.”