Pod interview with Tony Khan

[Jonnoj]

I see the Fulhamish pod have done an interview with Tony khan, should be interesting when it comes out. Apparently he's very honest about transfers etc.

[General]

I'm less interested about transfers. More interested in how he views the right way to manage a club, his roles and responsibilities to hiring and firing managers and expectations of them... and why he thinks he's done so poorly.

Plus why he didn't address our weakest area - our defence - in the summer we went up and which subsequently saw us get relegated.

Buying two keepers and an injury prone CB and one good CB who turned into a cm does not count as addressing the quality of those that stayed from the Championship or who are championship quality.

[Statto]

I think it will be very interesting.

Aside from the obvious criticisms about his lack of knowledge/experience and various questionable transfers, decisions etc., he has also been very poor at PR.

Telling fans to go to hell on Twitter, his lack of contrition, humility and self-awareness in the FST interview, etc, have made him almost universally disliked by fans, which is particularly poor considering his dad is relatively popular at the moment.

Is giving this interview an acknowledgment of that? Will he show a bit of humility this time?

Or will he be as obnoxious as last time and tell us how stupid we are for not realising how good his signings are?

[Andy S]

I love the way some people don't like Tony Khan and quantify their dislike by saying things like Khan is universally disliked. That is poppy cock. I have no dislike for the guy and dislike some peoples attitude on here much more. Yes Khan has made mistakes but so have a lot of people in their working life. It doesn't make them bad people

[@jolslover]

I love the way some people don't like Tony Khan and quantify their dislike by saying things like Khan is universally disliked. That is poppy cock. I have no dislike for the guy and dislike some peoples attitude on here much more. Yes Khan has made mistakes but so have a lot of people in their working life. It doesn't make them bad people

+1

[Statto]

I love the way some people don't like Tony Khan and quantify their dislike by saying things like Khan is universally disliked. That is poppy cock. I have no dislike for the guy and dislike some peoples attitude on here much more. Yes Khan has made mistakes but so have a lot of people in their working life. It doesn't make them bad people

I love the way some people ignore qualifying words like "almost"   

[west kowloon white]

+2

[Sting of the North]

I'm less interested about transfers. More interested in how he views the right way to manage a club, his roles and responsibilities to hiring and firing managers and expectations of them... and why he thinks he's done so poorly.

Plus why he didn't address our weakest area - our defence - in the summer we went up and which subsequently saw us get relegated.

Buying two keepers and an injury prone CB and one good CB who turned into a cm does not count as addressing the quality of those that stayed from the Championship or who are championship quality.

I will never understand why people seem to believe that TK didn't address our defence last summer. Signing 5 defenders and 2 goalkeepers would count as addressing our defence in my book. Ultimately not successfully, but that is surely only partly down to the actual acquisitions. Of course, if we conveniently and arbitrary don't count any actual acquisitions he made, then he didn't address defence.

[ALG01]

I love the way some people don't like Tony Khan and quantify their dislike by saying things like Khan is universally disliked. That is poppy cock. I have no dislike for the guy and dislike some peoples attitude on here much more. Yes Khan has made mistakes but so have a lot of people in their working life. It doesn't make them bad people

strangely O agree with you 100% but there is always a but and it is this
we all know (or at least i believe the majority of us are of the very definite belief if you prefer) that Mr Khan jnr would not get a job at any other top professional club and even if by some miracle he did, he would have been thrown out ages ago.
I think that really is the problem. I am sure he wants what is best, and he probably believes he knows what he is doing but the evidence would suggest otherwise.
I do not think anyone dislikes him per se, just he is in the wrong job.

[Twig]

Exactly. How could I dislike the guy, I have never met him. I do however take the view that he is ill qualified for his job and, unsurprisingly, has done pretty poorly so far.

[..FOF..]

I love the way some people don't like Tony Khan and quantify their dislike by saying things like Khan is universally disliked. That is poppy cock. I have no dislike for the guy and dislike some peoples attitude on here much more. Yes Khan has made mistakes but so have a lot of people in their working life. It doesn't make them bad people

Mr Khan jnr would not get a job at any other top professional club and even if by some miracle he did, he would have been thrown out ages ago.

This is true, not for him as a person and just purely on the work done.

In the Data Science community, Fulham's recruitment policy is very far away from the machine learning or deep learning process that can produce a close to perfect theoretical result.

Data Science cannot work on its own.

They are there to help an already good (no need to be great) team of people who understand their non-tech craft.

We need to fill up those scouting jobs (and other relevant backroom staff positions) at Fulham first and not downsize it.

I can say a lot of thing about effective Data Science but the resources are a lot out there if you guys want to read about it.

I think a further solution is to invest in a team of Top Notch Data Scientists, and not depend on the knowledge of recently graduated or untested practitioner.

Even Google needed to put in USD500million to acquire a London based AI company called Deepmind before being able to skyrocket their prominence in this new technology.

[The Rational Fan]

I'm less interested about transfers. More interested in how he views the right way to manage a club, his roles and responsibilities to hiring and firing managers and expectations of them... and why he thinks he's done so poorly.

Plus why he didn't address our weakest area - our defence - in the summer we went up and which subsequently saw us get relegated.

Buying two keepers and an injury prone CB and one good CB who turned into a cm does not count as addressing the quality of those that stayed from the Championship or who are championship quality.

I will never understand why people seem to believe that TK didn't address our defence last summer. Signing 5 defenders and 2 goalkeepers would count as addressing our defence in my book. Ultimately not successfully, but that is surely only partly down to the actual acquisitions. Of course, if we conveniently and arbitrary don't count any actual acquisitions he made, then he didn't address defence.

Fulham conceded 18 goals in the last 26 league games of 17/18 (with Betts, Odoi, Ream and McDonald), but we conceded 59 goals in the first 26 games of 18/19. While recruitment can explain why we didn't improve or weaker at FB, I really would love to know how any team can go from 18 to 59 goals per 26 games.

If main reason for the rise is the two leagues are just enormously different, then we can be very optimistic that we can repeat close to 17/18 form, because if we only conceded 18 goals in our first 26 games this season, we are well on track for gaining automatic promotion.

[The Rational Fan]

Mr Khan jnr would not get a job at any other top professional club and even if by some miracle he did, he would have been thrown out ages ago.

Yes he would get a job at another club, as Tony Khan is working for free, its pretty easy to get a job at zero wages and most non-profit jobs get a fancy title like "Director of Football". I also think many other Championship Clubs would let him buy players as he was probably the only person able to source money for new players. Many clubs in Championship failed to source money last season, with only ten championship clubs having net transfer budgets over £4m (with only six of the ten over £10m) and nine clubs even had negative transfer budgets.

I have no doubt a DOF that works for free, that can source £10m+ every season would get a job at most Championship Clubs. Other clubs are surely jealous.

[Twig]

Mr Khan jnr would not get a job at any other top professional club and even if by some miracle he did, he would have been thrown out ages ago.

Yes he would get a job at another club, as Tony Khan is working for free, its pretty easy to get a job at zero wages and most non-profit jobs get a fancy title like "Director of Football". I also think many other Championship Clubs would let him buy players as he was probably the only person able to source money for new players. Many clubs in Championship failed to source money last season, with only ten championship clubs having net transfer budgets over £4m (with only six of the ten over £10m) and nine clubs even had negative transfer budgets.

I have no doubt a DOF that works for free, that can source £10m+ every season would get a job at most Championship Clubs. Other clubs are surely jealous.

Irony?

[The Rational Fan]

Mr Khan jnr would not get a job at any other top professional club and even if by some miracle he did, he would have been thrown out ages ago.

Yes he would get a job at another club, as Tony Khan is working for free, its pretty easy to get a job at zero wages and most non-profit jobs get a fancy title like "Director of Football". I also think many other Championship Clubs would let him buy players as he was probably the only person able to source money for new players. Many clubs in Championship failed to source money last season, with only ten championship clubs having net transfer budgets over £4m (with only six of the ten over £10m) and nine clubs even had negative transfer budgets.

I have no doubt a DOF that works for free, that can source £10m+ every season would get a job at most Championship Clubs. Other clubs are surely jealous.

Irony?

I am "dead serious". Do you think if someone walked into Blackburn Rovers (whose entire squad was bought for £4.05m of which £1.71m was spent last year) and said "they want to work for free as DoF and have access to billions of pounds of capital", that Blackburn Rovers would say no?

Please suggest a DoF that would do a better job at Blackburn Rovers than Tony Khan. If Slavisa Jokavoic was DOF there, he'd have a transfer budget of around £1.7m, but it wouldn't go far with his own wages of at least £1.5m. Clearly, Tony Khan would be a better DoF than Slavisa Jokavoic.

Blackburn Rovers left the Premier League just before us and without funding, probably won't be back in the Premier League for a long long time. The reason Blackburn will not get in the Premier League is their DoF cannot get any money.

Last Season in the Championship, the Eleven DoFs that managed to get the most funding made up nine of the top ten places in the Championship (Sheffield United, Hull City and Stoke being the exceptions).

[Statto]

Mr Khan jnr would not get a job at any other top professional club and even if by some miracle he did, he would have been thrown out ages ago.

Yes he would get a job at another club, as Tony Khan is working for free, its pretty easy to get a job at zero wages and most non-profit jobs get a fancy title like "Director of Football". I also think many other Championship Clubs would let him buy players as he was probably the only person able to source money for new players. Many clubs in Championship failed to source money last season, with only ten championship clubs having net transfer budgets over £4m (with only six of the ten over £10m) and nine clubs even had negative transfer budgets.

I have no doubt a DOF that works for free, that can source £10m+ every season would get a job at most Championship Clubs. Other clubs are surely jealous.

How many times can you rehash and repeat the same argument? "Tony Khan is a great DoF because he has a rich dad"....

Surely it's crossed your mind that most posters are saying his dad's money is not soldered to TK's arse and as such could be, and would be much better off, spent by a more competent, alternative DoF.

In any case, disregarding non-football spending on the ground etc, I'd rather have another DoF even if it meant losing his dad's contribution to the transfer budget. Under FFP, that contribution was limited to £13m in 16/17 (Sigurdsson, Jozabed and Kebano), £13m in 17/18 (Fonte and Kamara) and £35m in 18/19 (Anguissa and Seri's left leg). I suspect a competent DoF would have been able to find better players than that lot in the loan and free transfer markets.

[I Ronic]

I love the way some people don't like Tony Khan and quantify their dislike by saying things like Khan is universally disliked. That is poppy cock. I have no dislike for the guy and dislike some peoples attitude on here much more. Yes Khan has made mistakes but so have a lot of people in their working life. It doesn't make them bad people

I love the way ::off_Topic:: some people ignore qualifying words like "almost"   

And what do you base "almost" on? The people that post on here, friends those you sit next to at games?
Some of our transfers and loans have worked some haven't. That hasn't changed since I started going back in the late 60's. Just the amounts spent. I'm interested to see what he has to say.

[The Rational Fan]

Mr Khan jnr would not get a job at any other top professional club and even if by some miracle he did, he would have been thrown out ages ago.

Yes he would get a job at another club, as Tony Khan is working for free, its pretty easy to get a job at zero wages and most non-profit jobs get a fancy title like "Director of Football". I also think many other Championship Clubs would let him buy players as he was probably the only person able to source money for new players. Many clubs in Championship failed to source money last season, with only ten championship clubs having net transfer budgets over £4m (with only six of the ten over £10m) and nine clubs even had negative transfer budgets.

I have no doubt a DOF that works for free, that can source £10m+ every season would get a job at most Championship Clubs. Other clubs are surely jealous.

How many times can you rehash and repeat the same argument? "Tony Khan is a great DoF because he has a rich dad"....

Surely it's crossed your mind that most posters are saying his dad's money is not soldered to TK's arse and as such could be, and would be much better off, spent by a more competent, alternative DoF.

In any case, disregarding non-football spending on the ground etc, I'd rather have another DoF even if it meant losing his dad's contribution to the transfer budget. Under FFP, that contribution was limited to £13m in 16/17 (Sigurdsson, Jozabed and Kebano), £13m in 17/18 (Fonte and Kamara) and £35m in 18/19 (Anguissa and Seri's left leg). I suspect a competent DoF would have been able to find better players than that lot in the loan and free transfer markets.

Yes, Tony Khan was responsible for obtaining the money and wasting the money on Sigurdsson, Jozabed, Kebano, Fonte, Kamara, Anguissa and Seri. So, another DoF would have to do better for 60m than Fabri, Christie, Bryan, Odoi, Mawson, McDonald, Jonasen, Vietto, Atyie and Mitrovoic. The Top 20% of DoF could do better than that with 60m, but most DoFs wouldn't. I am certain we won't get the top 20% of DoFs, they probably won't apply, but if they do they won't get selected.

And, you may have noticed we probable have one of the worst selection committees for selecting a new DoF so don't expect a quality DoF replacement. If Fulham ever get to Newcastle position, our owners unlike Mike Ashley have enough available free cash flow (i.e. money) to get to the next level including the Europa League.

[toshes mate]

I love the way some people don't like Tony Khan and quantify their dislike by saying things like Khan is universally disliked. That is poppy cock. I have no dislike for the guy and dislike some peoples attitude on here much more. Yes Khan has made mistakes but so have a lot of people in their working life. It doesn't make them bad people

What do personal 'likes' and 'dislikes' or 'good' and 'bad' have to do with expressing opinion or comment about A.N.Other?  I am totally indifferent about the Khans apart from our common interest in a football club that I had before either of them knew Fulham was even a place on the planet.

[Statto]

And what do you base "almost" on? The people that post on here, friends those you sit next to at games?

Yes

I'm interested to see what he has to say.

So am I. That was the first line of my post.