Premier League: Marco Silva hails ‘almost perfect’ performance as five-star Fulham rout West Ham at Craven Cottage

Marco Silva described the way his Fulham side dismantled West Ham 5-0 as “almost perfect” after the Craven Cottage faithful were treated to a second successive five-star performance.

Fulham thrashed Nottingham Forest 5-0 at home on Wednesday night and backed that up by beating the Hammers by the same margin, a result that moved them into the top half of the Premier League table.

Silva hailed his players for the way they stuck to the gameplan and shut out David Moyes’ side to register back-to-back clean sheets for just the second time this season.

“The players understood the plan and they expressed themselves on the pitch,” Silva told BBC Sport. “They executed it on the pitch, and this is the best feeling for a football manager.

“The main thing is always the three points, that’s clear. Keeping a second clean sheet in a row is really important for us to have this feeling. Of course, scoring goals in many ways, nice goals from us and [we] had even more chances to score.

“We didn’t give anything to our opposition apart from the last minutes of the game when we were a little bit sloppy. To control a team like West Ham in the way we did was almost perfect, so congratulations to the players.”

Raul Jimenez continued his fine run of form to open the scoring in the 22nd minute when he got on the end of Joao Palhinha’s cross to head past Lukasz Fabianski, before Willian doubled the hosts’ lead just after the half-hour mark.

The game was as good as over at the break after Tosin Adarabioyo made it 3-0 in the 40th minute, but Fulham kept the hammer down.

Substitute Harry Wilson made it four with a stunning strike into the top corner on 60 minutes before he turned provider, squaring the ball to Carlos Vinicius for the simplest of finishes to round out the scoring.

After a barren spell, it was a fourth goal in five games for Jimenez, who suffered a career-threatening head injury three years ago while playing for Wolves, and Silva insisted he always had faith the Mexican would rediscover form.

“I never had any doubts about his quality,” Silva added. “He wasn’t with us but he did recover well from the bad injuries. It’s not really easy to come from that moment and to become again the top player that he was before that moment.

“He was playing with a weight on his back. When you are eight, nine, 10 months without a Premier League goal it is always really tough.

“We never lost trust in him. He started well this season even without scoring. We were not providing for him but after all the noise that the team was not achieving good results, the fault was always on the striker because he is not scoring.

“We have to provide and we did it. Last Wednesday [against Nottingham Forest] was a crucial game for him when he scored two great goals, and again, a decisive player this afternoon with a great first goal.”

Fulham travel to Newcastle next in the league, while West Ham host SC Freiburg in the UEFA Europa League on Thursday night before the visit of Wolves on Sunday.

The West Ham manager had no complaints about his first defeat since the start of November, admitting his side couldn’t match Fulham physically at Craven Cottage.

He told BBC Sport: “Probably the [2-1 win against] Tottenham game played a big part in today. Mentally and physically, we found it tough.

“We got a good win at Tottenham. If you had given me two draws in the two away games at Tottenham and Fulham I would probably have taken it, so to get three points is not bad.

“Today, I think we were below it physically. It was just what we had.

“Nevertheless, Fulham played well. It went from bad to worse. We'll pick ourselves up and go again on Thursday.”

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