Plan for Pereira paid off, says Silva

Marco Silva put Andreas Pereira’s brace against West Ham down to a plan to get the Fulham midfielder into more attacking areas.

Pereira scored both goals in a 2-0 victory for the Whites at the London Stadium.

And boss Silva said: “The plan was clear for him. We said for him to never be behind the two midfielders from West Ham. We wanted him always in the pockets in between the lines.

“About him arriving more in certain areas, it’s something that we have demanded from him. Before Andreas joined our football club, he was playing much more as a second midfielder, at Man United in some moments, sometimes as a wide player as well, in the other spells that he had around Europe as well, even in Flamengo in Brazil he played always as a second midfielder.

“Since he joined ourselves, he has been clearly in a different line, much more as an offensive midfielder there in the pockets, and that is something that we have been working with him on, to arrive more in certain positions.”

The opener came after just nine minutes, when Alex Iwobi’s lofted ball towards Rodrigo Muniz at the back post was intercepted by Konstantinos Mavropanos, whose heavy touch laid the ball on a plate for Pereira, who rounded keeper Lucasz Fabianski and fired into an empty net.

Fulham provided threat on the counter-attack and made West Ham pay for committing bodies forward through Pereria again, 20 minutes from time.

Muniz slipped the ball wide to Iwobi, who played a perfect low cross for Pereira to tap into another empty net.

“I’m really pleased to see him arrive in certain areas that are important,” said Silva.

“The way he believed in the first goal that the second ball would come for him, and of course the composure in that finish was really good.

“And the way he arrived inside the box for the second goal, really pleased to see, because it’s something that we demand from them and we push them to do it.”

Silva had no doubt that his side fully deserved the win.

“It was a great win for us and I really thought we deserved the three points.” he said.

“In the opening 10 minutes West Ham started better than us and had a good chance to score, but after that moment we scored the first goal and we got the confidence that is important to play with at this level and controlled the game.

“We scored twice, but we created a lot more chances to score. It’s really hard to come here and control the game, and especially to keep a clean sheet at the London Stadium.

“Most of our transitions were really good and, really, we should have had more of a killer instinct to be even more comfortable in the game.”