Fulham boss Marco Silva made sweeping changes for his side’s FA Cup fourth round win over Stoke then praised his replacement players for proving their Premier League quality.
Silva swapped out 10 of the team that lost to Manchester City in midweek, with Alex Iwobi the only survivor as they took on out-of-form Championship outfit Stoke at the bet365 Stadium.
It threatened to backfire when Bae Jun-ho finished off a smooth attacking move to hand the hosts a first-half lead, but a much-improved performance after the interval saw an equaliser from Brazilian winger Kevin and a pick-pocket’s effort from stand-in skipper Harrison Reed.
Speaking after the 2-1 win, Silva felt vindicated by his decision to rotate the squad.
“It’s always tricky, we knew we had to come here to prove our quality against a good side. This type of competition always has some magic, anything can happen,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re home or away, or if it’s (against) a Premier League, Championship or League One, League Two side, it’s always difficult.
“Even with 10 changes in 11 for us it doesn’t matter, we know many of the players are more than capable to start any Premier League game. This afternoon we needed more energy, some fresh players.
“For us to be in the next stage is more than fair, to be honest, we deserved to win the game.”
On his goalscorers, Silva added: “It was a good game from Kevin. He had some missed chances, okay, but he kept going, he scored one goal and created many very good moments from our left-hand side.
“Of course with Harrison, every time he plays he can perform well. He knows everything about our identity, what we want in a game and he did perform.”
Stoke boss Mark Robins was aggrieved by the manner of the decisive goal, which came after a communication breakdown between goalkeeper Tommy Simkin and Tatsuki Seko.
With just six minutes remaining of the 90, Simkin’s short pass out caught the Japanese midfielder unawares, allowing Reed to sneak through for the winner.
“The second goal has to be a massive learning curve. I don’t care if it goes out of the stadium to be honest, just put your foot right through it,” said Robins.
“We want to play football, we don’t want to be back to front and smashing the ball but at times you’ve got to get rid of it and ask questions later. It’s 84, 85 minutes, there’s no time to come back from it.
“I can be really critical of him but he’s a young keeper and he doesn’t need that. If he puts his foot through it we’re probably still playing now and we’re taking penalties. He’s got to learn from that because you can’t give goals away like that.”
