Over 18,000 fans piled into Craven Cottage at the weekend to watch a lacklustre Fulham side fall 3-0 at home to a clinical Hull City. Fulham boasted a whopping 75% possession but a clear game plan enforced by Hull manager Grant McCann limited the London side to just one shot on target as the Tigers romped home to victory.
Goals from Josh Bowler, Jarrod Bowen, and Tom Eaves handed Fulham just their fourth loss of the season but has led to fans calling for Scott Parker’s head after a devastatingly disappointing display.
The result saw Fulham slip to eighth in the table, but remain in touching distance of the play-off spots, two points behind sixth place Bristol City. Are complaints about Parker’s ongoing tenure too soon or does the former England international deserve his critics?
Underperforming?
This season marks the ex-West Ham United and Chelsea player's first foray into management, taking charge of the side he made over 100 appearances for.
Over the summer, Fulham recruited well. Wingers Ivan Cavaleiro and Anthony Knockaert joined from Premier League sides Wolverhampton Wanders and Brighton and Hove Albion respectively. Bournemouth’s Harry Arter also dropped down a division, along with Tottenham Hotspur academy product Josh Onomah and Southampton’s Harrison Reed. In addition, Bobby Decordova-Reid, who found the net 19 times in the 2017/18 Championship season, joined on loan from Cardiff City.
Perhaps more impressively, Fulham held onto £20m striker Aleksander Mitrovic and captain Tom Cairney.
The impressive squad assembled led to many predicting Fulham would be among the league’s frontrunners for the season, more than likely achieving a return to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
However, things haven’t been quite so simple for Parker’s Fulham side.
Fifteen games into the season the Championship table begins to take shape. It is clear which sides are showing promotion credentials and which sides are struggling to cope with the competitive chaos of the division. With Fulham sat in eighth, fans are now debating whether Parker is the right man to lead one of the strongest squads in the division to their rightful destiny.
The loss against Hull marked Fulham’s heaviest defeat of the season with Fulham fans beginning to vent frustrations towards their manager and his style of play. The stats from Saturdays game clearly demonstrate an inability to turn possession into goalscoring opportunities; is Parker’s possession football the way forward for Fulham?
The Cottagers have won just one of their last five fixtures, including a loss to bottom of the table Stoke City and a draw against a substandard Middlesbrough side. With the London side positioned outside the top six and struggling to get points on the board recently, does Parker deserve more time?
Parker Needs Patience
Things aren’t as bad as they seem for Fulham. At this point last season, eventual play-off winners Aston Villa were sat seventeenth in division, seven points off the play-off spots.
Fulham sit one victory off fifth place, five points off the automatic places and seven off West Bromwich Albion in first. A gap which, in the Championship, means very little for the duration of the season.
As evident in recent performances, Fulham are keen to dominate possession, averaging 63% over the course of the season, the highest in the division. The criticism of Parker is that they fail to turn their dominance into goal scoring opportunities and shots on goal. However, the stats tell us Fulham average over fourteen shots per-game, ranking third in the division behind West Brom and Leeds United.
In addition, they are the joint third highest scorers in the league with twenty-three goals and have the joint fifth best defence conceding just seventeen, making pleasant reading for Fulham fans.
The result against Hull was sure to cause discontent amongst Fulham supporters, yet the board mustn’t panic too soon. Mitrovic leads the division in goals scored and if Parker can motivate his flair players, Cavaleiro and Knockaert, to perform, whilst remaining fairly solid at the back, Parker's possession football will come good over time.
With the unpredictable nature of the Championship, all it takes is a short run of form to propel a team from mediocrity into promotion challengers, Parker will be hoping his Fulham side can manage this feat soon otherwise his future at Fulham may be in jeopardy.
