Fulham boss Marco Silva praised Sunderland for never losing their belief - but insisted his side was the better team from first minute until last in last night's FA Cup fourth round replay. The Premier League side won 3-2 at the Stadium of Light to progress to the fifth round, where they will face a home tie against Leeds United.
Sunderland and Fulham had drawn 1-1 at Craven Cottage in the initial tie, but Tony Mowbray's Black Cats could not cause an upset in the replay. Fulham scored inside the opening ten minutes through Harry Wilson and doubled their lead through Andreas Pereira on the hour.
Jack Clarke halved the deficit before Layvin Kurzawa restored Fulham's two-goal cushion shortly afterwards, although Jewison Bennette scored in the final minute of the 90 to give Sunderland late hope, although they were unable to force an equaliser to take the tie into extra-time. "Firstly, congratulations to Sunderland," said Silva, who watched the game from the stands having picked up a touchline ban after being booked four times this season.
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"They obligated us to play 180 minutes in this round. They made it difficult for us. And of course, congratulations to our players and our fans, because we are going to play in the fifth round, which was our clear goal from the first time we played against them at the Cottage. I think from the first minute we were the better team on the pitch.
"We played one or two touches every time, some moments we played a little bit slower than we would like, but from the first minute we created dangerous moments around their box. We scored early in the game which gave us the confidence to control the game in a different way.
"First 30 minutes we probably created enough chances to score the second goal and to be even more comfortable in the game. At 1-0, they are always going to believe, even at 2-0 they believed, and at 3-1 as well.
"The last 15 minutes of the first half, we lost a little bit of our shape and our pressure was not at the level it should be, and because of that we decided to change things and start the second half with Mitro [Aleksandar Mitrovic] and Andreas Pereira. The team improved, our shape improved off the ball as well.
"We scored the second goal and, at that moment, everyone probably thought the game would be killed but, at this level, never. They believed until the end, they scored to make it 2-1, and even with our reaction to make it 3-1 they kept believing.
"It was a real FA Cup tie, with two teams playing to go through, but overall we were the best team."
Sunderland will now turn their attention back to their Championship campaign, with a home game against Reading on Saturday, while Fulham are at home to Nottingham Forest this weekend.
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