Fulham chief: I’ve learned so many lessons from last Premier League adventure

By Richard Cawley
richard@slpmedia.co.uk

Tony Khan reckons he learned so many lessons from Fulham’s relegation from the Premier League – and is no doubt they are better equipped to secure survival this time around.

Joe Bryan’s double at Wembley in the Championship play-off final ensured the Whites returned to the top flight at the first time of asking as they beat Brentford 2-1 after extra time, writes Richard Cawley.

When they gained promotion in 2018 they reportedly spent £100million on players but suffered a harrowing relegation.

Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Jean Michel Seri – two of their biggest outlays – are back on the payroll after loans at Villareal and Galatasaray. The west Londoners will not do cut-price deals for the duo, who could get a second chance under head coach Scott Parker.

Fulham vice-chairman Khan, also director of operations, told Fulham’s website: “I learned so much from failure.

“Since you can’t go back and change that now, the best thing I can do is learn from it.

“That’s why I wanted to make sure if we got up again we wouldn’t be in this position where we were so dependent on players that were loaned to us and we almost need to buy a whole new squad from scratch once you get up. We have a squad which is together.

“People are ridiculous at the start of the [transfer] market – the price people quote is more than double what they’ll quote you at the end of the window. We’ll be able to field a very competitive squad now. We’ll make additions but it won’t be building a whole new squad from scratch.

“That’s why the work we did last summer was important – that we had the ability to keep the players.”

Fulham turned loan deals for Anthony Knockaert, Ivan Cavaleiro and Bobby Decordova-Reid into permanent stays before the Championship campaign concluded. There is also understood to be an £8m fee already agreed with Southampton for Harrison Reed, who was one of the star performers for Scott Parker’s side post lockdown.

Parker has already said that Fulham cannot afford the same kind of high player turnover as they experienced after going up last time. Khan said: “I think it will be less crazy than two years ago and more successful than two years ago.”