RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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César Palacios has previously worked with Fulham’s new manager Álvaro Arbeloa at Real Madrid. Photograph: Simon Dael/Shutterstock With Marco Silva leaving after five years can the club take advantage of the links their new coach, Álvaro Arbeloa, has with Real Madrid?
Guardian writers’ predicted position: 15th (NB: this is not necessarily John Brewin’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Marco Silva cutting the cord after five years by the river came as little surprise. If his time at Craven Cottage was successful in re-establishing Fulham as a Premier League club, he rarely concealed his ambitions to manage in European competition. He was frequently explicit in his disappointment that the club’s ownership did not meet him halfway by funding a stronger squad. Silva’s powers of rebadging and replenishing talent will be missed now that he has decamped to Benfica. Under him, Fulham played entertaining football, a collection of ugly ducklings showing their renewed worth for a club that, despite falling short of European qualification, looked upwards rather than downwards at the relegation battle. They were often a pleasure to watch, and ornery opposition for all-comers.
Álvaro Arbeloa is a very different type of appointment, with far less experience than his predecessor in frontline coaching terms, even if he arrives with Real Madrid on his CV. His arrival, though, has opened up a working relationship with the Spanish aristos, Gonzalo García and César Palacios arriving to work with a coach who helped them through the ranks in Madrid. By little coincidence, all three share the same agency as their representatives. There have been links with Endrick and Thiago Pitarch, two further young Real jewels, leading to a sense of Fulham becoming some form of Madrileño nursery, a Santiago Bernabéu on Thames. Should that play out, it would represent another sea change.
Silva preferred to work with hard-bitten pros. A couple of his leading men, Raúl Jiménez and Harry Wilson, have departed. The latter played the best football of his career last season but, like his manager, got a better offer elsewhere, from Leeds. Fulham’s latest approach is to source young players and polish them up. Can they have the same successes as mid-tier peers such as Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth, where the approach is far more data-driven? Will supporters be looking upwards rather than downwards? A previously enigmatic club just got more enigmatic.
In May, the club were runners-up at the football business awards, for stadium experience, as the Riverside Stand’s opulent hospitality completed its first full season in service. Fulham need the Riverside to deliver as a revenue stream, as financial results for the 2024-25 season showed a pre-tax loss for the year at £44.5m, and that was lowered by the sale of João Palhinha in July 2024. There has been no such windfall since. The Khan family ownership continues to back the club, its overall investment estimated at about £900m, with staff costs at 117% of turnover. Therein lies the reasoning behind Silva not receiving the backing he desired.
The most expensive season ticket at Craven Cottage comes in at £3,084 for access to the Riverside’s facilities, the highest in the Premier League. Shahid Khan and his son Tony, the vice-chair and director of football operations, are unpopular among committed supporters for price rises and pandering to tourism. Khan’s boat Kismet was named superyacht of the year in 2025, its main salon inspired by the Palace of Versailles, and can be chartered for more than $3m per week. Though the balance sheets confirm Khan’s outlay in funding a continued Premier League status, fans would prefer he recognised not everyone lives the high life.
Where Silva had an unremarkable playing career, Arbeloa featured among the elite, a World Cup and Champions League winner. He also had the ear of Florentino Pérez, the perennial Real Madrid president asking him to replace Xabi Alonso in mid-season of the 2025-26 campaign. That did not pan out, and he took his first job away from Madrid, where he was a well-regarded youth coach, in south-west London. Khan Sr’s comment that Arbeloa “believes in giving young players a chance” is pertinent for Fulham’s change in direction. Crucially, as befitting traditions at Craven Cottage, the new man from Salamanca believes in open, attacking football, offering some continuity from Silva’s reign.
Gonzalo García’s reputation was made by his performances at last summer’s Club World Cup, where he won the tournament’s Golden Boot. Comparisons were made to Raúl, a considerable accolade at the Bernabéu. Goals followed in the Champions League against Juventus and Borussia Dortmund but García eventually lost out to the star system of Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé. His reputation in Spain is as a hard worker off the ball, necessary for a Premier League player. Last season, Rodrigo Muniz’s injuries meant old soldier Jiménez shouldered the burden at centre forward. García is younger and fresher but the hype surrounding his arrival gives him much to live up to.
Fulham had the oldest side in the Premier League last season, which may help explain why they had arguably the least intense press. Marco Silva’s side recorded the fewest high turnovers, which occur when a team recovers the ball to start a new open play possession sequence in the final 40 metres of the pitch. Real Madrid are hardly known for being a high-pressing outfit but they comfortably outperformed Fulham on this metric. It will be fascinating to see how Arbeloa approaches this.
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