Am I the only one happy with this appointment?

[RidgeRider]

Magath is hated throughout the bundesliga and has been sacked by 7 clubs in Germany. How is this a good appointment?

Its good only if he keeps us up this season, maybe not so good if he sticks beyond this season. Just based on the small amount I've read he seems to come in, shakes things up, ruffle players feathers, gets them to be tough minded, gets results, and then wears everyone out at the clubs he is at till they won't play for him anymore.

Not someone to build a program around, more like someone to save you from relegation. I still like Rene.

[RidgeRider]

I cant say if I am happy or not, he is a good manager, done well in Bundesliga, but, I am not sure if this was the right time....

Welcome back!

[MiltonBurrows]

Another thing im skeptical about is the Magath and Holtby relationship. He has played under magath before and there relationship from ive read was strained to say the least, with magath ending up loaning holtby out to clubs becuase 'he did not trust him'. When Holtby looks key for our survival, this is a little worrying...

[rogerpbackinMidEastUS]

I like Rene as well but...
I can't understand how a lot of people say we played well against Man Utd and Rene got our tactics right and that their tactics were 'predictable' or whatever he said.
Any team that allows the opposition to get 82 crosses into the box, most of them quality, hasn't played well. They've predominantly relied on a 5' 7" 'newbie centre half" (although in his defense he was superb)
It also requires an awful lot of luck.
To me a cross and a corner are similar and if they are not too close to the keeper should effectively have a 50/50 chance of whoever gets a header and similar to the '2nd ball'
It was inevitable that Utd would score eventually, you can't keep pumping the ball out of defense to (in the case) Bent who was actually playing most of the time in our half, in fact behind Holtby. No one is taking the pressure off the defense, and back comes the next cross.
Terrible tactics and even worse against Liverpool who are far more capable then Utd at the moment.
I defy anyone who was watching either game (when we went 1-0 up and 2-1 against LPL) who honestly thought we would go on to win, there's hanging on and there's hanging on. A more confident Utd after going 2-1 up would have exceeded Hulls tally, instead they got their tactics ridiculous wrong and let us back in.
Bent's last minute effort was a miracle.
Team selection and substitutions have been awful, No Dejagah, persisting with Kaka and others. No forwards on the Bench on Wednesday ?
Oh Dear
I agree the timing is wrong but the 'excuses' were becoming as bad as Jol's
"I didn't see that coming"  - Hull 
"I didn't see that coming" Sheffield Utd.
"I didn't see that coming" Southampton. 
"I didn't see that coming"  Sunderland
These were all games we could and perhaps should have won.
4/5 points and a game against Notts Forest - those are what brings confidence and hope. Not 1-10-0 against 2 teams that we have beaten in the past and results have not been t0o bad.  I appreciate that Sturridge and Suarez are exceptional but so are Rooney, Van Persie etc.
Wrong selections and tactics
Goodbye Wilks and Curbs
Rene you will be missed but perhaps not for the right reasons

[Forever Fulham]

We played ManU away and eked out a tie.  They ran away with the league, remember?  They are loaded with high priced talent.  They were predicted to beat Fulham five to nil.  But the boys put on ninety minutes of 'not today' heroics.  I was glued to my seat, weren't you?  Are you all so quick to discount or rationalize that away?  And Rene did it with a patchwork of players many of whom had never played together.  He made them believers.  And that made me a believer in him.  ManU HAD to win that game.  They had all of the pressure on them.  Certainly the might Man U could beat the last placed Fulham with its atrocious goals against record.  But, no...   Then came Liverpool, which exploded out of the gate this season on a goal scoring tear.  Regaining its form of old, a bit of a swagger now, and a team sure to bury lowly Fulham.  Look what they did to Arsenal.  But again Fulham rose to it, scrapping and fighting.  No one had to empty their water bottles or make them run suicide drills or berate them.  Inspiration and belief and tactics win out over grind you into dust cruelty.  They came so close to another tie, maybe even winning.  But Reither was exhausted in the dying minutes of the game and, well, there you go.  I tell you this team was turning the ship around.  And now this.  Not good.

[RaySmith]

But the same players can still turn it round - and maybe Felix will  make them more effective and games less fraught than under Rene, who had nothing to do with the signing of Mitroglue I was just reading.

Who knows? I understand why the club has done this - fear of going down with an awful record  under Rene, as bad as Jol, even though we, as fans, were pleased with the recent performances.

All we can do now is keep getting behind the team.

[GloucesterWhite]

Not happy with Khan. If Magath is such a catch why wasn't he appointed in place of Jol? He was available then.

Khan's record to date is worrying:

1) No spending when he took over - he fell for the 'sustainability' con by MAF.
2) Took too long to replace Jol.
3) Rene was a gamble that did not come off.
4) Panic sacking of Rene and appointment of Magath.

Time will tell whether the new guy will save us, but Khan's decision making so far is not encouraging.

[Slaphead in Qatar]

I am happy with felix appointment. Despite what everyone is saying cold analysis will tell you we did not play that well against man u and Liverpool.  Lets get behind the new man.

[MrProphet]

Although initially shocked I agree that he is a very good appointment. He loves teams to be organised,disciplined and very fit

I can see the first team meeting though:

Felix: I want you all to run yourselves in to the ground
sidwell: Yes boss
Felix: Bent...
Bent: Yes gaffer
Felix: You cut pork life get some exercise!

[Neil D]

  Maybe we just got carried away because we weren't quite as rubbish as we were under Jol?

That just about sums it up and it wasn't much of a foundation for staying up.  Renee represented the triumph of form over substance - he looked and sounded the part but results suggested otherwise.  He may have proved successful in the medium term - i.e. got us back into the Premiership after a season or two in the Championship but few are willing to wait that long.

[itombomb]

Magath is hated throughout the bundesliga and has been sacked by 7 clubs in Germany. How is this a good appointment?

He's hated but respected.

There is a pattern to most of his tenures; has immediate success, buys loads of players (in a quite haphazard fashion), then after a while everyone gets fed up of working so hard and rebels.

Barring a miracle, I don't think there is any expectation this is a long term gig. If we stay up I think he is gone with a nice bonus, and if we go down, he will get a year to turn a bunch of talented kids into an efficient and hard working team to try and get promoted.

[Burt]

I didn't respond last night when the news broke as I am not one for giving immediate reactions.

Although my immediate reaction would have been along the "erm...is this really such a good idea?" lines.

There is a loyalty to Rene, because he wasn't Jol, he quickly ditched the crud that was being served up by that regime, h showed he was prepared to experiment with youth, and there were some good signings in the last window that look like they were starting to make an impact (and that is even without the Trog starting for us yet).

From the club's perspective, the fact of the matter is we need points to survive and they have just not been coming in. And despite the last two performances, where we have shown guts and resilience, there have been some awful results and naive performances.

Having slept on things I think my main issue is not so much why the club have done what they have (I kind of get it, conceptually) but that it seems such an "un-Fulhamish" way of doing things, against our culture and values. Rene never got the chance to prove himself. We are normally more patient than that.

Oh well. The deed is done. We have to get behind the new man and hope that the change doesn't put back the signs of progress we were starting to see, and that we still have enough games left to get out of the bottom three.

Keep the faith. The players need us now more than ever.

[SuffolkWhite]

Firstly, Welcome Felix Magarth...I hope I spelt that right?

I wanted Rene to be a success and was encouraged by the last two games. I think the club should have brought in the new manager at the beginning of the transfer window and so this smacks of headless chicken decisions.

We are odds on to go down and so either Rene or Felix would have been in the position to get us back up! So which one would have been best for the job?  Maybe neither!!!

I just think timing is wrong and Rene should have had until the end of the season come what may. But we are where we are and our entertaining Fulham carry on being Fulham'ish as ever.

Sit back and enjoy the roller-coaster ride folks and if nothing else get behind the team as it's whats on the pitch that matters.

[itombomb]

Another thing im skeptical about is the Magath and Holtby relationship. He has played under magath before and there relationship from ive read was strained to say the least, with magath ending up loaning holtby out to clubs becuase 'he did not trust him'. When Holtby looks key for our survival, this is a little worrying...

He was 18/19 at the time. I like Holtby a lot as a player, but he still loves his flicks and tricks (even infected Sidwell on Wed when he tried to do a Marseille turn), and it isn't hard to imagine he was even more prone to doing them back then.

[Nero]

Where rene went wrong wikins ans curbishly since they joined he seemed lost. Has he done much coaching since they joined all you read in papers is curbs doing it.        

More fitness great we might close down quicker and stop them deflected goals that are costing us.

I liked rene ghe man but was he trying to be liked to much by his players !! Come on who likes there bosd really at work if you do its probably cos you can slack ofc and get away with murder

[itombomb]

Not happy with Khan. If Magath is such a catch why wasn't he appointed in place of Jol? He was available then.

The Guardian story today suggests that Khan was actually decisive in appointing Muelenstein. Had met him and was impressed by his chat so gave him the job.

The Magath thing is opportunistic. For ages it seemed like he was taking the Hamburg job, that broke down as he was fed up of the club's internal politics, and Mackintosh - presumably rolling the dice on his job as well (I expect he is off if we go down) - convinced Khan to splash the cash on an expert at avoiding relegation.

[Peabody]

Like Burt says, we should have all slept on it, unfortunately, I.did not and whilst I was shocked and a little upset because, I liked Rene, was that enough to think that we could survive. I still think we are the most likely to be relegated but you never know.

As for the relationship between the new man an Holtby, well does anyone remember the relationship between Roy and a certain Jimmy Bullard, seems to me to the same sort of thing.

Anyway we have what we have got and we as fans have to get on with it.

[grandad]

What will be Magath´s communication skill. Is he fluent in English? Will he have to use our German speaking players to translate? Will it be a bit of Raus,Raus dommkopf.

[Tonywa]

Can't help wondering how Berbatov would have reacted to a disciplinarian like Magath if he had still been around;-)

[Artful Dodger]

I am a little disappointed given we were starting to see the U21s get in to the team and with Tunnicliffe and Cole we have a nucleus of a young team that could develop over the next few years. However.....

...the first thing RM should have done was make us hard to beat but after an initial 3 or 4 games where we looked better, we seemed to go the other way and be even worse at the back shipping goals and not looking very good going forward either. Look at what Roy did when he arrived and what Pulis is doing at Palace....eeking out 1-0 wins and being hard to beat. I am not sure RM had a real plan as to how we were going to survive, so whilst I liked the guy, I am not sure the club were convinced and have acted. The disappointing thing is that, as has been poined out, it has been very unfulhamish.