MARCO Silva was left shaken and stirred after encountering a real-life Bond villain at Craven Cottage at the weekend.
Raul Jimenez rescued a point for Fulham with a stoppage-time penalty to deny Ipswich Town in a 2-2 Premier League thriller in West London.
Silva’s Cottagers twice had to come from behind after goals from Sammie Szmodics and a Liam Delap penalty either side of Jimenez’s spot-kick after referee Darren Bond was advised to review the pitch-side monitor following Sam Morsy’s trip on Harry Wilson.
Wilson was involved in the moment of controversy in the first half when he went through on goal and was taken down by Leif Davis. Bond gave Davis a yellow card when Silva felt it should have been a red. The referee judged Davis wasn’t the last man.
“I cannot understand it,” Silva said. “It is clear. When Harry Wilson touches the ball, without the tackle he will be one-on-one with the goalkeeper.
“They found a way to explain to us that a player is a little bit close and can cover. Okay, I don’t see it that way but that’s the decision, you cannot control that.”
Silva added: “What I can control is not giving away the goals that we did, not giving away the penalty as we did. Of course, the emotions of the game can happen. At half-time the players were not understanding the decisions from the referee, all 50-50s were not in our favour. But that can happen.
“Just as we can have some disappointing moments, the referee can have a really disappointing performance like he had in my opinion.
“The first penalty, we can all agree it is a clear penalty. The referee was in a top position to decide. It was the VAR which called him to give it. All three penalties were clear.”
Fulham dominated the opening half an hour but couldn’t take their chances.
“About ourselves, we are disappointed with the performance,” Silva said. “It was a very good first 30 minutes, the game was completely under control. We two, three chances to score but there was not much for them. We were winning the ball high up and not allowing their quick players to counter. Before 1-0 they didn’t create anything.
“But then we lost control after conceding the first goal. It was too soft and it was the same story in the last game against Bournemouth.
“We lost emotional control. The referee’s decisions did not help but we should have kept control. In the end the fighting spirit was there, we showed character to equalise.
“If someone should have won, it should have been us. We created more chances, we were more on the front foot.”
