Autumn is not a great time to be a Premier League manager. As the leaves turn, so the optimism of summer begins to fade and chairmen of struggling clubs start getting twitchy. November is the most dangerous month of the season for sackings, and Slavisa Jokanovic heads into it facing two crucial games.
Fulham host Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon, before travelling to Huddersfield on 5 November. Jokanovic, who did so well to get the club promoted last season, could do with his team having caught fire by Guy Fawkes night.
So far, Fulham’s numbers make for troubling reading: 18th in the table with five points from nine games, they have won just once, against Burnley. In losing their last three matches, the Cottagers have given up 12 goals in the process. The total conceded to date is 25, the worst in the Premier League this season and the second-worst ever.
Jokanovic is not prone to getting emotional but with each passing match his expression has become more crestfallen as he repeats the message that his squad can work things out given time. “I’m happy with all the pressure,” he insisted this week. “This is part of my job and what I need is to give some kind of freedom to my players to clear their minds and understand what we must do in the next game.”
First item on the list is obvious: defend better. The numbers do not improve if you break them down: 22 goals conceded from inside their own box, 21 from open play; third in the league for shots conceded and 15th for tackles made; Fulham have been robbed of possession 106 times.
There are differing explanations as to why it is going wrong. The first is a lack of continuity. Jokanovic has yet to play the same defensive line-up twice, but those around the club argue it is not out of choice. Tim Ream, Joe Bryan, Alfie Mawson, Timothy Fosu-Mensah and Calum Chambers have all been injured at various points while Denis Odoi has missed matches through suspension. The three Fulham defenders with Premier League experience, Chambers, Mawson and Fosu-Mensah, have played just 934 minutes so far. Contrast that with Bournemouth’s centre-half pairing of Steve Cook and Nathan Aké, ever present with 1620 minutes between them.
A defence in flux has been undermined further by a number of individual errors. Both Chambers and Ream had a torrid time against Cardiff City last Saturday, with the latter’s botched clearance leading to Cardiff’s third goal, before he slipped on to his posterior in the build up to the fourth. Ream is Fulham’s current player of the year and in recent weeks Jokanovic has turned to him, alongside last season’s partner Odoi, to restore some stability. It has not worked. They are not alone. Ryan Sessegnon and Marcus Bettinelli have also struggled to translate their Championship form to the Premier League.
The manager’s tactics have come under scrutiny too, with Jokanovic’s commitment to possession football coming up against the higher technical demands of the top flight. Fulham have lost the ball too easily, too often this season, and when they do they are open. Again absences are cited in mitigation: club captain Tom Cairney, the team’s passing fulcrum, has made only three starts so far.
Every team has injuries and Fulham spent £100m in the summer, a record for a promoted side, to cover themselves for such eventualities. Recruitment is led by the owner’s son and sporting director Tony Khan, but several signings have yet to make an impact. The £30m defensive midfielder André-Frank Zambo Anguissa has barely featured, amid concern he is struggling to adapt to the Premier League. Jean-Michaël Seri, who nearly joined Barcelona a year ago, was also signed to toughen up the midfield but while he has contributed assists to the team, defensively he has made only 17 tackles and nine interceptions (over half of both totals coming in his first match against Crystal Palace).
With five goals to his name, Aleksandar Mitrovic is the one signing to hit the ground running and, also, the only name Jokanovic himself pushed for. But the Serb will not get much sympathy if he fails to integrate the other parts of an expensively assembled squad.
Right now Fulham look uncertain, both during crucial moments in matches and in their identity as a team. The owner, Shahid Khan, released his programme notes early this weekend, declaring rumours Jokanovic was out if he failed to win these next two games as “sensational and fictional”. But in giving a vote of confidence Khan appeared also to set a deadline for his coach that was only marginally longer.
“We have a head coach who understands and appreciates the honour of representing Fulham,” Khan wrote. “In the past two seasons he has found the right formula with his personnel to hit our stride in time for the holidays and a strong run in the second half of the campaign.”
As autumn moves towards winter, there are only 58 coaching days left till Christmas.
