Silva eager to avoid ban over referee comments as Moyes says Fulham miss ‘galvanised’ his side

Fulham boss Marco Silva wasn’t pleased with referee Chris Kavanagh as his side were beaten 3-1 by West Ham in the Premier League.

Silva congratulated the Hammers for picking up the three points but specifically pointed out what he believed to be a handball in the build-up for their third goal which was scored by Michail Antonio.

The Portuguese didn’t say too much, however, as he was keen to avoid a touchline ban or fine.

“I will not speak about the referee, sorry, because they will probably come after me and I’ll be off the bench or pay a fine,” he told BBC Match of the Day.

“I am not here for that, I am here to manage my players.

“I will not say to you what I think. Can I ask you what you think? Even for the third goal there was a handball about five seconds before. Congratulations to West Ham, they got the three points.

“Until the penalty we were clearly the best team on the pitch. West Ham have a lot of quality and come from two really good seasons but Fulham Football Club were clearly the best team of the pitch.

“We showed personality, character and we like to control the game on the pitch and the penalty changed the balance of the match. We lost some focus and confidence after the penalty.

“The game showed that we have to keep learning and improving. I will keep demanding more from my players and more maturity to manage periods of the game better.”

West Ham manager David Moyes was a lot happier than Fulham boss Silva.

“I thought we deserved the win,” Moyes said. “We started slow, maybe an impact of playing on Thursday, but we grew into the game as it went on.

“Dan James hitting the bar galvanised us and the crowd. We’re still trying to improve a lot of things, but we’re doing a lot of good things as well.

“I thought for the penalty that the referee had warned them two or three times, but in truth he should probably have given it the first time.

“We had a chat in the managers meeting to say you couldn’t put two arms round the player. It was a stonewall penalty – it was more of an American Football challenge.

“I thought when Gianluca [Scamacca] didn’t celebrate I thought he thought it was offside not handball, but I didn’t see his hand involved in it in any way. It shows he can score different goals – he had two great chances with his head – and he may have taken the hardest of them all. It was a deft finish.

“Sometimes when you are possible offside centre forwards don’t often go and finish the…