Nobody should forget the incredible job that Slavisa Jokanovic did at Craven Cottage.
When he took over in December 2015, he inherited a listless, directionless squad and the fanbase were extremely restless. There was disruption behind the scenes, which he handled with quiet determination and dignity.
From that, he built a team who played some of the best football the Championship has ever seen and gave Fulham fans one of the greatest days in memory earlier this year — the Play-off Final victory over Aston Villa at Wembley in May. Members of the Supporters’ Trust met Alistair Mackintosh, the club’s chief executive, earlier this week.
While we were aware of the speculation about Jokanovic’s future that had followed the run of poor results, there was little sense from that meeting that he was about to lose his job.
So today’s news has come as a bit of a surprise.
Claudio Ranieri has a big job to do to try to keep Fulham in the Premier League. He was a likeable, popular manager of Leicester, who led them to the Premier League title and was surely sacked too soon the season after he achieved that.
This is a good chance for him to demonstrate that he is still a top-level manager, so I hope he can show he is and that we can survive in the Premier League this year. Yes, it is a gamble, as he has not worked in English football since his sacking in 2017 but he has shown he is adept at assessing a squad and building a competitive team.
We have some good players at Fulham but they just haven’t managed to gel this season. That is Ranieri’s first challenge.
Whatever happens, though, we should all be grateful to Jokanovic.
