I'm not anticipating us staying

[The Rational Fan]

Scott Parker's job is to keep us up this season with existing players and if we go down get us promoted. But the Recruitment team's first priority is buy players thinking 2 to 5 years in advance and their second priority is to fill any gaps for this season with loans.

I think Parker's job is currently to ensure that he has what he needs as a squad to consolidate and improve upon what he has achieved already.  Recruitment need to be on that exact same wavelength as Parker because nothing is ever certain in football whether it is success/failure measured by the second or by the decade.   Senior Club personnel were well warned about how fickle success can be in 2018 and a repeat this time around will suggest that something is very wrong with personnel in the upper echelons of the Club.  I would hope that when Parker and Khan Junior discuss things it isn't just about the here and now but also covers the potential to build upon success and that means having a plan with sufficient latitude to cover all the bases.  There is not a lot of evidence of that having happened in the past and so I am anticipating a big sea change this window and the next one.

The Manager should never do the recruitment, the conflict of interest is too great and clubs that do it typically fail to plan long-term like Fulham did from 2009 to 2015. Predictably, managers have to achieve success in the next six months to two years, but they invest in players over five seasons. So they invest in players that deliver over the next two years, even if there are doubts over the player to deliver for the duration of their contract say four years.

If a manager was given £42m to buy players, then research shows managers tend to choose older players like Coleman £10m, Luiz £8m, Cahill £6m, Fernandinho £8m, Giroud £8m and maybe a youngest like Robinson for £2m too, because top older players will virtually guarantee a club to stay up for one season, but it will cause him begging for a fresh injection of talent the next season just to stay up again and once a squad like that goes down it will not return.

Parker needs to focus on his immediate goals which are important and must provide input into the longer-term direction of the club, but Parker must either be the manager for the season or the director of football for five seasons doing both is a disaster. Imagine Coleman, Luis, Cahill, and Robinson as our backline in four years it would be terrible.

If the Manager does the buying we are much more likely to stay up, but if we go down FFP will cut our budget and we cannot reinforce, so we will stay down forever. The effect of DOF is more likely to be a bit of a yo-yo club, that achieves a better longer term outcome than manager buying player as he has a five year focus.

Probably the only thing Shahid Khan knows about football is how bad not having an "independent director of football" and our financial results have benefited as we are passing FFP something MAF would have never been able to do.

Despite all the money people say we wasted, in the premier league season that Tony Khan was in charge we only lost £20m (i.e. 20% of TV revenue for that season), which is better than Tiganas's first season in the premier league with £33m of losses (i.e. 150% of TV revenue for that season).

Tony Khan is a far better DOF financial than Tigana ever was already based on past financial performance. So let's continue with the current method with a little bit better advice on players from his recruitment advisors particularly medical advisors, which I guess he was planning to do anyway.

[Lyle from Hangeland]

The worst scenario is that we will not be cannon fodder like before, and the dressing room atmosphere and team spirit will be positive as opposed to negative.
Providing we can resolve the current situation at LCB, RB and Harrison Reed as well as another striker.
We have no need to fear the worst. The good situation is that we are very much in the underdogs bracket, so no pressure, and we will be quite capable of picking up points against the Arsenals of this world.
But we do need reinforcements and every single player on the pitch has to be as one.

We should always fear the worst. It's okay really. Getting relegated from the Premier League is not the worse that can happen. There is worse than that in football.

If we play without fear, not only would players play with a lot more confidence but it will also be a springboard to enable Fulham to embrace a system of play that will encourage Fulham to play to their strengths which inevitably will strengthen Fulhams resolve in being the goveners during a game and not just a fight for survival.

I am talking about the fans and not the team. Of course the team should play with confidence and joy.