Fulham manager Marco Silva knows that Fulham are capable of providing a response to the FA Cup disappointment when we travel to the Emirates on Tuesday night.
Arsenal currently occupy second place in the Premier League, but Silva is confident that his side can claim a positive result, if we’re at our best.
“As we expected, they are there [fighting for the title],” he said. “Of course, they are not in the top of the table, because Liverpool is doing so well, but they have been there and trying to be as close as they can from the first position on the table.
“A top side, not just in terms of individual quality – they have a collective quality.
“And when we were playing less than 48 hours ago, they were not playing, they were preparing the game. They had all the time to prepare the game from the last international break, [and] that is going to be against us.
“They have this small advantage, plus the home game is always different than you play away from home, but we know their quality, we know their intensity, their physicality as well. Probably one of the more physical teams in the league.
“They like to press really high, they are going to create some problems for us, but we have to be brave enough to play our game, to be brave enough to face them and to match them, because there are three points there to fight for, and they are going to demand many, many things from ourselves.
“But I really believe that if we are at our best level, we have shown already that we are able to respond really well.”
When asked what needs to happen for us to extend our unbeaten run against Arsenal to a fourth match, Silva replied: “Many things have to be there. First, we have to be Fulham Football Club, that is the main thing.
“As you mentioned, our recent record against them has been very good, shows that we have been doing very, very good things against them.
“It’s not easy when you are already three games without losing against a team like Arsenal, just shows again what we have been doing so far the last few seasons, and how we have been consistent against a side that have been fighting always to be champions in this competition, and we have been able to get good results against them.
“And again, as I mentioned before, we have to be Fulham Football Club, and that means a lot of things.
“That means that we are brave, our courage is going to be there, our quality as well, our organisation, and of course we have to be able to match their physicality that is going to be in the game, for sure.”