Well, it's safe to say that could've gone better. I'm not going to dwell on what is now last season too much, simply because everything worth saying has already been said multiple times over. Especially since the Watford game, and it's for that reason (and that this blog will be long enough as it is) that I'd rather look ahead to next season.
I had actually written a version of this post about a month ago in the direct aftermath of the Watford game, but I thought with so many things up in the air I'd let things breathe for a month and keep this blog until after the season was over. At least we know who's going to be in charge going into next season, so you're saved a paragraph of me talking about Mikel Arteta and Oscar Garcia as well as my ambitious "wildcard" (in every sense of the word) option of trying to get Jorge Sampaoli.
Looking ahead to this summer, I do think something important has to be said about the Khans. They've shown multiple times over that they're not the "take the money" types of owners, and as such I'm expecting to retain the core of a very good Championship team over the summer. Going all the way back to when we kept McCormack and Dembele in January 2016, the Khans are far from "selling owners". They could've taken the money for Cairney and Sessegnon multiple times over, but they didn't because it didn't benefit the team.
There will be sales over the summer of course, but I'm not expecting the fire sale that I've seen some people talk about. We've already seen evidence of this with Cairney signing a new deal, and while we may be saying goodbye to some players I'm expecting us to reinvest a reasonable amount of money back into the squad to replace the players we're losing.
Anyway, let's dive into the blog. As usual, I'm not necessarily expecting to sign these exact names- but it's the sort of profile of player I'd look at. Basically what my shortlist would be if I was in Tony Khan's shoes based on what I think we need over the summer.
Ins
Goalkeeper
We don't need to sign a Keeper this summer. We've got three very capable Keepers for the Championship at the club in Bettinelli, Fabri and Rodak, and given we'll need to spend on other positions there's really no need to spend on a new Keeper this summer. Even in the likely event that we lose one of them (more later).
Defenders
It's funny in a way, because in January we needed to pretty much sign Defenders exclusively and we ended up signing two wingers. Whereas this summer, I'm pretty relaxed about the defence. Bar Right-Back, you could even make a case for saying that our likely defence next season without any signings/departures is stronger than the one that got us up.
A lot of what I'm going to talk about in regard to signings is system dependant, because we don't really know what sort of Manager Scott Parker is yet and what his preferred formation is. As such, I've tried to choose players who would be comfortable playing in a three and four-at-the-back. Personally I'd look to sign a Right-Back to replace Cyrus Christie and a right-sided Centre-Back because Mawson, Le Marchand and Ream are all more comfortable on the left.
Fikayo Tomori (Chelsea)
Loans will always have their place in the Championship, it's just being overly reliant on them that can do you in- as we proved last summer. I hope Tony Khan's learned his lesson on this front, and we aim to "just" sign two or three players on loan to supplement a core squad of permanent, contracted Fulham players.
This specific loan suggestion could be completely moot if Derby can overturn Leeds' 1 goal advantage from the 1st Leg of their Play-Off match and then go on to win at Wembley. Tomori's had an absolutely exceptional season on loan from Chelsea, and should Derby manage to go up I'd imagine he stays with Derby on loan in the Premier League next season. However, if they don't go up his future may be a bit more up in the air. He might even end up staying at Chelsea with Gary Cahill leaving and Chelsea's transfer ban seemingly holding for this summer at the time of writing.
If Tomori was available though, we should be doing everything to be at the very front of the queue. The other potential loans for Centre-Back I was looking at were Michael Hector (Chelsea) who we've already been linked with, Mason Holgate (Everton) and a potentially unrealistic one in Juan Foyth (Spurs) who we could hypothetically try and sign on loan as part of a deal for Ryan Sessegnon with Parker's Spurs connection possibly coming into play.
Timo Letschert (Sassuolo/Utrecht)
Looking at permanent options now, and it's our first trip to the continent. I actually suggested signing Letschert before he signed for Sassuolo when he was first at Utrecht. An underwhelming spell at Sassuolo later (not helped by injuries) he was back on loan at Utrecht this season and he's had another pretty good season which has made me keen on signing him again.
Funnily enough, the moment that put him over the edge for me was actually something Letschert ended up getting subbed, dropped and fined for in a game that Utrecht lost 5-0. Utrecht were 3-0 down at Half-Time, and Letschert went into the dressing room and absolutely went off at his teammates. I want players in the dressing room next season who will hold other players accountable- because we had too many passengers this season. While it's clear Letschert went too far, I don't mind having players in the dressing room who will demand a certain standard from their teammates.
Utrecht have an option to buy as part of the loan deal with Sassuolo, but as Wolves and Stoke proved last summer with Benik Afobe activating a buy clause isn't a completely closed door in-terms of the player making another move in the same window.
Nazim Sangare (Antalyaspor)
Moving on to Right-Back now, and I've simply looked for someone who fits the "Ryan Fredericks profile". In that they're comfortable carrying the ball forward, comfortable overlapping and running in behind the defensive line, not afraid to take a player on and most important absolutely rapid.
The last time I suggested a full-back from the Turkish League in one of these was Barry Douglas two years ago. Douglas of course went on to have an absolutely exceptional season with Wolves. Introducing Nazim Sangare, who is pretty much as close to Fredericks as we could realistically look to get.
Sangare's on 2 goals and 4 assists for the season- and he's pretty much everything I'd look for in an attacking Right-Back (in my initial writing of this post a month ago I had a joke here about Sangare actually being able to score a goal, but then Fredericks went and scored for West Ham and blew that one). Sangare's one I'd hope we can act quickly on, because I've seen him being linked with a move to Fenerbahce and with only a year left on his contract making him very affordable I would imagine there'll be other suitors for him as well.
Falaye Sacko (Vitoria Guimaraes)
Sacko's similar to Sangare in a lot of ways. They both fit the "Fredericks profile" and they've both been linked with moves elsewhere already. In Sacko's case he's been linked with Reims in Ligue 1, and the price for him is again very good with 2-2.5 million Euros being the quoted price for him.
My personal preference of the two is Sangare, even with Sacko being pretty much a year younger. Simply because AFCON is this summer, and Sacko's going with Mali. While it may be naive of me to expect us to change the habit of a lifetime and get the majority of our transfer business done early, I'd like to avoid signing players going to AFCON when there's a very viable alternative like there is with Sangare who'll be available to us the day Pre-Season starts.
James Justin (Luton)
Justin's had an absolutely exceptional season with Luton, and he's one of the big reasons that we'll be playing them next season. There's a lot of upside with Justin in that he's 21, English and showing a lot of potential. I also believe that for the right price Luton would sell Justin, and I'd look at signing him if we could.
There's two ways we can go with the Justin signing. We could either sign him to be our starting Right-Back, or we could sign him as a cover full-back in addition to one of the two names mentioned above and ease him into the first team over the course of next season. The reason Justin would be ideal in a cover sense is that he's had his real breakthrough season at Left-Back, but he's naturally a Right-Back and he can play both comfortably.
Midfielders
As in the Defenders section, I've tried to cover a few bases in-terms of the type of Midfielder I've looked at- simply because we don't really know what system Scott Parker will favour. Tying Cairney down to a new deal is big, because it means we're pretty much set in-terms of having the #10 type player. As such I've looked to more defensive-minded Midfielders, because my assumption based on what we've seen so far from Parker is that he favours playing with a defined #10 and two defensive-midfielders behind.
I'd look at signing two defensive-mids to take us to four total with McDonald and Anguissa, and that then extends to three if we say goodbye to Zambo over the summer. Depth is important in the midfield area. Especially as even if we keep Zambo, he won't be starting for us on the first weekend of August because of his involvement with Cameroon at AFCON. Looking at the way the draw's fallen, I've got Cameroon getting to at least the Quarter Finals which takes his involvement there up until the 10th/11th of July as an absolute minimum. He'd then need a two or three week break after that before being brought back up to speed.
Oscar Lewicki (Malmo)
In direct contrast to Zambo in the sense that he won't be ready for the start of the season, you won't find someone more ready than Oscar Lewicki. Malmo are really in the infancy of their season, with the Allsvenskan played between April and November. As such, there wouldn't be any concerns about fitness levels and match fitness with Lewicki and he'd be the ideal player to sign with making a fast start to the season in mind.
Lewicki's fitness would have to be managed over the course of the season, because he can't essentially play Football for 12 months straight- but that goes back to depth and wanting four defensive-mids to use over the course of the season.
Lewicki's a very good player- to give an idea of his "level" he was being linked with Cardiff last summer and generally speaking most of Cardiff's signings last summer could be described as "top-end Championship" level signings. He's also shown so far this season that he's not a selfish player, he's a defensive-mid by trade, but he's ended up playing as the right Centre-Back of a three for Malmo so far this season.
Taras Romanczuk (Jagiellonia Bialystok)
For my money, Romanczuk is the best player in the Polish League. Romanczuk is pretty much everything I'd look for in a defensive-mid signing this summer. Going back to my point with Letschert, I want more leaders and characters in the dressing room next season and based on the player he was I think Scott Parker will too.
Romanczuk fits the bill perfectly in that he's a genuine leader in the midfield. He's similar to McDonald in that sense, but Romanczuk is a lot more mobile and covers a lot more ground. I think the phrase "captain's performance" is back in fashion after Vincent Kompany's goal last Monday effectively won Man City the title- and Romanczuk has had games like that throughout the season with his most notable performance being scoring twice in a Polish Cup Semi-Final (including a 90th minute winner) to take Jagiellonia to the final.
Ryan Woods (Stoke)
Closer to home now, Stoke need to be our example of what not to do this summer. They probably thought they were all but guaranteed to go up by keeping the likes of Joe Allen and Jack Butland and adding to them with some "big" Championship players like Benik Afobe and Ryan Woods (among others). It's not as simple as "just" keeping most of your best players and adding some Championship experience like a Harry Arter for instance. The mentality has to be right, the balance has to be there and the hunger has to be there- and in Stoke's case I think they just went for names.
Ryan Woods is one of the players where I'm not sure his face ever really fit at Stoke. He moved from a very possession-based Dean Smith Brentford team to a Gary Rowett Stoke team. I'm not sure how much possession Stoke averaged under Rowett specifically but over the course of the season they pretty much averaged 50% compared to his Brentford team the season before averaging around 55%.
Based on what we've seen so far it looks like Parker wants us to move back to a very possession-heavy style, and as such I think Ryan Woods would be a very good addition. He has Championship experience and he's almost definitely available given he wasn't even in most of Stoke's matchday squads towards the end of the season, most likely for less than Stoke bought him for as well (or maybe even on loan).
Andreas Geipl (Jahn Regensburg)
Stuart Webber's shown over the last three or four years with Huddersfield and Norwich that there's a lot of value in the Bundesliga. 2 if you know where to look.
This one is a very stats-based recommendation. For me, one of the big problems our midfield had was that it was just too passive. So how to rectify that? Look for a player who makes a lot of tackles. Geipl's averaged 3.9 tackles a game (our highest Midfielder this season averaging 2.1) for Regensburg over the last two seasons. To me he's the ideal squad player in the sense that he'll be cheap and offer us something completely different in that he's a "Kante" type defensive-midfielder whereas the other two we currently have in McDonald and Zambo are more suited to playing with the ball.
Geipl can take set-pieces as well which is a nice added bonus given we don't really have anyone who you'd call a "set-piece specialist" at the club.
Forwards
As I've already talked about, in January we needed to sign a load of new defenders and we ended up signing two wingers. Whereas this summer we're looking at losing pretty much every forward that's been relevant to the season, so watch us sign a whole new back four this summer and have Stefan Johansen back as a False-Nine in August.
There's two ways to approach this section. One where the Khans dig in on selling Aleksandar Mitrovic and Mitrovic doesn't agitate for a move- and the other more realistic one where we say goodbye to Mitrovic and have to replace him this summer. I've tried to cover a few bases in this section, because as I've already said we don't really know what system Parker wants to play. As such I've looked at wingers as well as different options depending on whether we want to play one or two up-front.
Personally I'd look to sign a new Winger to add to Ayite and Kebano, a new Target Man depending on where Mitrovic is playing his Football next season and a pressing forward who can either play up-front in a two, up-front on their own or on the wing. I want tactical versatility and different options simply put.
Darwin Machis (Udinese)
I primarily see Machis as a Winger, but it shouldn't be ignored that he's had probably the best run of his career primarily playing up-front in a two on loan from Udinese at Cadiz in Liga Adelante in the second half of the season. As I've already mentioned I want that versatility with our forward line next season, because I felt like we were too predictable a lot of times over the course of what is now last season and even in the first half of our promotion season.
Machis has scored 8 goals in the second half of the season with Cadiz after being a bit-part player for Udinese in the first half. To me, Machis is the ideal sort of player we should look at this summer in that he's a decent player, knows where the goal is, can play multiple positions and he should be reasonably affordable given he is just a bit-part player with his parent club.
The one downside with Machis is that he'll be going to the Copa America (featuring such South American teams as Qatar and Japan) with Venezuela this summer, but given he'd (hopefully) not be our only forward signing combined with the fact that Venezuela aren't likely to go far in the competition (famous last words) I'd still be pretty keen on signing him.
Fredrik Gulbrandsen (RB Salzburg)
When looking for value, Gulbrandsen is the absolute top of my list player for this summer. I've seen a lot of talk on forums and on Twitter about potential free agents- and it's the usual wanting to sign Premier League cast-offs or even with one name that I've seen mentioned in Gary Hooper Championship cast-offs. But generally speaking with those names there's a big reason to not sign them whether it be age, wages or just lack of quality.
Gulbrandsen is genuinely my ideal signing this summer. He's on a free from Salzburg, and he's everything we didn't have from a Forward in the season that's just finished. Gulbrandsen's primarily a Striker who can play on the wing if required, and for want of a better way to describe him he's a Jamie Vardy type player in that he's a "pressing" forward who also has the pace to run in behind a defence. Given he is on a free we wouldn't be the only team in for him of course. I've seen Gladbach and Fenerbahce as two potential destinations for him, but if the wages were right I would hope we could convince him to join.
Adrian Dalmau (Heracles)
Adrian Dalmau is similar to Gulbrandsen in the sense that he's a "pressing" forward, but he doesn't have the outright pace that Gulbrandsen does. In-terms of goals though, Dalmau is having a better season. At the time of writing this Dalmau has 19 goals (making him the 3rd top scorer in the Eredivisie), and is coming off the back of scoring a Hat-Trick and getting MOTM in a 5-4 defeat at the weekend.
Dalmau is a good player to look at signing because he'd be suited to either playing up-front on his own or with a partner. Dalmau wouldn't be extortionate in-terms of price either given his contract is up in 2020, with that said however I'd still prefer Gulbrandsen if it was a choice of the two given Gulbrandsen's quicker and he's on a free.
Oli McBurnie (Swansea)
Moving on to potential Aleksandar Mitrovic replacements now, and in my mind there's only one real option. McBurnie is about as close to Mitrovic as we could realistically get this summer. He's coming off the back of a 20+ goal season with Swansea, he knows the league, he's a good age and he's pretty much the ideal Target Man replacement. He's not as good as Mitrovic of course, but McBurnie wouldn't score significantly less goals than Mitrovic would for us next season and we could probably buy him for half (maybe even less) of what we sell Mitrovic for.
In fact, the only real problem I have with McBurnie is that he wears his socks low.
Vedat Muriqi (Rizespor)
McBurnie is my absolute #1 when looking for a Mitrovic replacement. There's no real debate about it as there is in my mind between Nazim Sangare and Falaye Sacko for instance. With that said, we won't be the only ones in for McBurnie this summer and if say a Sheffield United come in for him- we can't compete. In simple terms we could be on the other end of what we did to Villa with Joe Bryan last summer. As such, we do need to look at alternatives- and in doing so we're taking another trip to Turkey for another Fenerbahce linked player. I swear I haven't just gone on Fenerbahce message boards and made a list of all the players they're supposedly in for.
Muriqi is still a very good player, he's another Target Man and he's scored 15 goals for mid-table Rizespor this season with two games to go. The added thing to me with Muriqi is the fact that he's also on 7 assists which indicates his general play is very good. You would imagine Muriqi would be much cheaper than McBurnie this summer as well, so factoring that in- I definitely wouldn't turn my nose up were we to sign Muriqi this summer despite my preference of McBurnie.
Outs
Before diving into the players who are contracted to Fulham beyond the end of the Newcastle game, it goes without saying that we're saying goodbye to Sergio Rico, Havard Nordtveit, Timothy Fosu-Mensah, Calum Chambers, Andre Schurrle, Luciano Vietto, Lazar Markovic and Ryan Babel.
The only two I'd have a genuine interest in keeping are Chambers and Babel, and in Chambers' case he won't want to drop down to the Championship and we most likely couldn't afford him even if he did.
With Babel, I wish we could keep him- but I fully understand why we won't. Euro 2020 is most likely Babel's last chance of going to a major tournament. As such, he'll want to stay in a visible league to stay in Ronald Koeman's thoughts given he's competing with the likes of Quincy Promes and Steven Bergwijn. It seems Babel's going back to Turkey and is signing for Galatasaray. Which is fair enough in my book, it's a league he knows, and if Galatasaray win the Turkish League (currently 1st on goal difference) they'll be going straight into the Group Stage of the Champions League which again helps him in-terms of visibility.
Right then, let's move on to the players who could hypothetically be here next season.
Jean-Michael Seri
To give an idea of just how out the door Seri is, I'm 99% certain he wasn't even at the ground for the Newcastle game on Sunday. Given he's 5ft 6 he is very easy to miss, but I'm almost certain he wasn't there for the "lap of honour" after the game. I don't mind that though, especially with AFCON this summer I'd rather have Seri leave early than have him hanging around Motspur Park with no intentions of playing in the Championship in late July.
In Seri's defence, I don't believe he's a bad player. He just wasn't the right signing for us. Seri to me is the perfect example of the phrase "would've been better in a better team". Because Seri did have sporadic moments in the season where we saw the player that Xavi said had "Barcelona DNA", but through a combination of us being generally woeful (Seri included) and Seri being played so deep he couldn't really affect the game in the final third it just wasn't to be.
I don't think anyone really knows how much Seri cost us because of the way the deal with him and Le Marchand was structured, but I'd be disappointed if we didn't get 20 million for him- which is a massive amount for us in an FFP context.
Ryan Sessegnon
I think from a sentimental perspective, Sessegnon is the one who'll hurt the most when he's sold this summer. I've personally expected Sessegnon to be sold this summer since August last year, even if we did stay up. For the simple fact that while all of the other players key to our promotion signed new deals, Sessegnon's signature was always absent. It's also why I don't think Jokanovic would've been in charge with us next season in the hypothetical world where we didn't sack him, because even with his contract up this summer he was putting off signing a new deal.
I've seen a lot of criticism of Sessegnon this season, and it is true that he's had a very hard time of it. I pretty much expected it though, it's unfair to expect an 18 year old to go into their first ever year of top flight football and instantly rip the league up. Especially in a team as bad as we were.
For Sessegnon's development he needs to stay in the Premier League and just keep slogging away and improving playing at the top level. As I mentioned earlier, all signs point to Sessegnon going to Spurs- and I think that's the best move he can make at this stage of his career. Especially as Pochettino plays a three-at-the-back at times, he could find a home as an attacking left Wing-Back as he's rotated throughout the season. My hope is that we can get someone on loan as part of the deal, whether that be Juan Foyth as mentioned earlier or someone like Georges-Kevin Nkoudou if we wanted to go like-for-like.
Aleksandar Mitrovic
However unlikely it is, I do genuinely think there's a small chance of Mitrovic staying this summer. Mitrovic is pretty much the last player we can blame for how our season's unfolded, but with that said he's scored in three games since the end of November. That's not all his fault, because especially under Ranieri he was starved of service in quite a few games- but it's a fact. Especially towards the end of the season Mitrovic was missing easy chances as well, and that might have made a few Premier League teams think twice about spending the 30+ million we'll be asking for him.
I do think we'll sell Mitrovic this summer, and it's hard to be angry with him wanting consistent Premier League football when he's in the prime of his career.
Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa
Of all the potential outgoings this summer, Zambo is the only one where I'm genuinely not sure if they'll be staying or not. I'm working on the assumption that we'll be selling the three names above, and that should bring in at least 75-80 million and that in turn will put us into a position where we don't "have" to sell anyone else this summer.
As such, I'm not really sure what we have to gain by taking a loss on Zambo. We've seen glimpses of the player he can be, but not nearly enough to where we can expect to get anything close to what we spent on him. I think in Zambo's case it just comes down to how much the Khans dig in on keeping him, and how much Zambo and his agent agitate for a move. I personally really want us to keep him and think he can be a big player for us, but if he ends up refusing to train, play etc. then there's not much point.
Alfie Mawson
It's worth mentioning Mawson, just because I can see there being some interest in him. Particularly in my mind I can see Sheffield United being interested in him given he's pretty much the ideal central Centre-Back for a three given how comfortable he is on the ball and playing with both feet. With that said, I highly doubt he's sold this summer. Primarily because I can't see anyone putting in an offer that will make us want to sell him given he's spent about two-thirds of this season injured and he has back-to-back relegations on his CV now.
Fabri
I personally think Fabri had a pretty raw deal. He's never played in the Premier League before, he plays two games (one being Spurs away), behind an absolutely shambolic defence, makes an absolute boat load of saves and then he's never seen again.
The main criticism of Fabri was that he never really commanded his area, and that comes with confidence as much as anything else which you can understand his lack of given who was playing in front of him. I do think Fabri could be our #1 next season, and I personally think he's better than Bettinelli. With that all said, we can't keep Fabri and Bettinelli this summer, Bettinelli only signed a new deal in October and he has tenure with the club. It doesn't take a genius to work out which one of the two will be moving on this summer.
Cyrus Christie
I genuinely believe Christie could do a job for us in the Championship next season. However, I think Christie's now in the position Jazz Richards was in after Brentford away a couple of years ago where his position with the fans has gotten to the point where he can't carry on in a Fulham shirt. There's genuine groans whenever he gets the ball, and the ironic cheers I heard when he got taken off on Sunday tell the whole story. He got so much abuse after Palace away that he ended up deactivating his Twitter account for the best part of three months (and as of writing this blog he's deactivated it again).
I do think there will be takers for Christie this summer though, and I'd look at getting around 2 million for him which would essentially fund his replacement if we looked at Sangare or Sacko. Alternatively, we could use Christie as part of a deal for someone else. Specifically in my mind we could offer Christie plus money for Oli McBurnie- because I can see Swansea cashing in on Connor Roberts this summer leaving them needing a Right-Back.
Aboubakar Kamara
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but to see some people on Twitter talk about wanting Kamara back next season genuinely baffles me. He has pace, and that's pretty much it. We can find someone with pace pretty much anywhere, and none of those players will have been arrested at Motspur Park.
It's not just the incidents with Mitrovic and the one that got him arrested, I can also remember an interview with Cairney where he mentioned in a joking way that Kamara's always late to training. He just seems to be very unprofessional/immature, and he's not good enough to get away with it. While I will of course back him if he's lining up in a Fulham shirt next season, I just think he's burned his bridges with us too badly to make a return.
Rui Fonte
I'm genuinely not opposed to keeping Fonte next season. As I've already talked about, the dressing room balance has to be right next season- and Fonte showed in our promotion season that he's a very team-oriented, unselfish personality.
Especially if some of the stuff I've seen rumoured about Matt O'Riley and his agent are true, I'd look at using Fonte as Cairney's back-up in the #10 role next season.
Ibrahima Cisse
Ranieri clearly saw something in Cisse seeing as he was involved in some of his matchday squads and even got a start at the Emirates. So if Parker fancied him and wanted him involved in the sort of "4th" defensive-midfielder role I talked about with Andreas Geipl earlier then fair play.
I just can't see it though, and with his contract up in 2020 (albeit with a 1 year option) we should just cut our losses and try and get as much as we possibly can for him this summer.
Stefan Johansen
Talking of 1 year options, the news came out on Sunday that we'd activated the extensions in Kebano, Ayite, Odoi and Johansen's deals so they don't leave us on a free this summer. In the first three cases I think they'll be squad players for us next season and have been kept around because of their experience in the Championship as much as anything else.
In Johansen's case however, I think we've activated the option in his deal to sell him. Personally I can't see Johansen wanting to stay next season, for the same reason I didn't suggest signing Kalas and Piazon earlier. We effectively said to the three of them last summer that we'll let them do all of the hard work and the Burton Albion away on a Tuesday night games, and then when we reach the "promised land" we'll bin them off straight away in favour of more "trendy" players.
Especially in Johansen's case, considering Seri was literally the first player we signed- after we'd already tried to sign Thomas Delaney before that. I just can't see Johansen's mentality and commitment being right with us next season and with that in mind I'd look to move him on this summer. We should be looking to get 3-4 million for him though, because he is a very good Championship player- and it will be sad to see Johansen go given how big of a contribution he made to the two seasons prior to the Premier League one.
The Championship is going to be very tricky next season, the three relegated teams could all be challenging for the Top 6 next season in addition to three of the Play-Off teams and then Stoke, Sheffield Wednesday, Boro, Bristol City, Forest and Preston in particular could all have serious goes at the Top 6. And that's not even including the "surprise package" there always is in the Championship whether it's Millwall in our last season in the Championship or Norwich in the Championship season just gone. As such we need to get our business right this summer to stand a chance of going back up next season, and it's down to Tony Khan and Scott Parker to get that business done.
Thanks for reading as always, it's not the season anyone associated with Fulham hoped for of course- but I am still reasonably optimistic for next season. There was a level of naivety at every level of the club when we went down last time, but this time we're going down with our eyes wide open to what needs to be done to achieve promotion out of the Championship. At the very least we're not going to be signing Dino Fazlic, Adil Chihi and Mark Fotheringham level players this summer. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you have a good summer where you can forget this season ever happened before we go again in August.
