News roundup linkerama
Ray Lewington will stay in caretaker charge for Fulham’s Boxing Day visit to Totten ham as the Craven Cottage board draw up a shortlist of potential new managers.
”It gave me no pleasure to see Lawrie Sanchez sacked from my old job at Fulham last week.
“As managers, we all get the sack sooner or later. But it’s never nice and I remember it hurt to be shown the door at Craven Cottage.
“I joined as a player when they were in the Second Division and it was a totally different club.
“Everybody put in so much hard work to get them where they are now. It would be a real shame to see them slide through the trapdoor.
“When I look back, the time had come for me to leave Fulham. I’d been there for the best part of 10 years, Steve Keane had been there eight and we couldn’t go much further doing things the way we were, not investing much money in the squad.
“I didn’t want to leave at such a critical point in the season. But we ran into our first really bad patch of form in four years and we were out of the door.
“I don’t know who they will appoint but it won’t be me.”
Billy Davies might be interested:
The Scottish tactician has been linked with a number of managerial vacancies, with the Scotland and Fulham posts thought to be on his radar.
The Times has a more chilling take on things. They use the word ‘Souness’:
The front-runners for the job are Martin Jol, John Collins and Graeme Souness.
If the players didn’t like Sanchez….
Danny Murphy suggests that all wasn’t well:
“We did kind of go in to each game thinking ‘here we go again’,” conceded Danny Murphy
Clint Dempsey on the same issue:
“We had a bit more freedom. We were able to play a bit more and pass it through the middle,” explained Dempsey in the Daily Star.
“It was a like a weight lifted off our shoulders. We were able to express ourselves a bit more and the guys enjoyed that.
“We weren’t able to get the win, but I think we were the better side. We weren’t surprised to see Lawrie go.
“We weren’t getting the best results and if that happens there has to be some sort of change.
“Managers are under the microscope and it seem like they are all in and out like substitutions. It is kind of crazy.”
Here’s what Lewington had suggested:
“We all play in a different way and I tried to put my stamp on it,” Lewington said. “I said, ‘Let’s have one pass in between the ones we usually have. Instead of knocking it forward with one pass, let’s see if we can maybe play it into midfield and knock it on after that.’ It was only a slight adjustment, but they tried to do it well. We played some good football in patches.”
