'Silva's rehabilitation complete with historic Fulham win'

Image caption, Fulham manager Marco Silva celebrates during the victory at Stamford BridgeMarco Silva spent Christmas five years ago recovering from his brutal sacking at Everton after only 18 months at Goodison Park.

Silva's promising first season, in which he took Everton to eighth while often playing eye-catching attacking football, was quickly forgotten as he struggled into December before then-owner Farhad Moshiri pulled the trigger with the Toffees in 18th place following a 5-2 thrashing at Liverpool.

In those closing weeks at Everton, Silva cut a haunted figure fighting a losing battle, the pleas of director of football Marcel Brands ignored as the Portuguese lost his job, eventually…