Fulham must treat every Premier League match as a final as they aim to push on for European qualification, so says Marco Silva.

The Cottagers hit back from a goal down to beat lowly Southampton 2-1 on Saturday.

Jack Stephens' early goal put Southampton ahead, but Emile Smith Rowe's equaliser paved the way for Ryan Sessegnon to head home a stoppage-time winner.

Fulham sit eighth, level on points with ninth-place Brighton and six behind seventh-place Aston Villa, though there is a chance the top eight could qualify for European football next season.

“We have to do our job and that is to play each game as a final and win every game that we can,” Silva told Premier League Productions.

“We know to be in the position we are in right now and to be fighting for something important means that this group of players have been doing something very good.

“We have been consistent in our position, most of the time in the top half of the table, and we have to really embrace the challenge to be in our current position.

“It is always hard to break down these sorts of teams because they have nine or ten players around the box.

“They did not want to come and play in our faces, so we had to be patient to break them down, but we did create enough.

“We scored the second goal late, but the reality is that we clearly deserved the three points.”

Opta's supercomputer makes Fulham favourites to finish ninth, with the Cottagers having a 26.7% chance of doing so.

Sessegnon has now had a hand in six goals across his last eight Premier League appearances for Fulham (four goals, two assists) – as many as in his previous 59 games in the competition combined.

Silva said: “[Ryan] is a player that always does extra work in terms of finishing and crossing and all of that stuff. But I think it is something natural, he always has the right timing in the box.”

Sessegnon's goal could not have come at a better time for the Cottagers, who have now scored three 90th-minute winners in the Premier League this season – more than any other team.

Southampton's interim boss Simon Rusk, meanwhile, refused to be too downbeat about his side's late capitulation. 

He said: “It’s a feeling of disappointment. We scored a late goal last week to get something out of the game and this week we lose a late goal that takes the game away from us.

“That is the balance involved with the joy and pain of football. It's a sore one to take so close to the end of the game.

“The game is not always science, it is about emotion and feeling. It is common sense that you want to protect a lead when you get in front.”