Fulham USA: US Supporters club of Fulham FC

For the third time in five years Fulham has achieved promotion and if you aren’t now a hardened realist about the challenges of staying up in the Premier League then you have a severe case of unfounded optimism that may need professional help. However, Fulham has some advantages this time around that should give them a better shot at staying up.

First, so this ends on a high note, let’s look at some of the marks against Fulham heading into the Premier League:

• Carvalho will no longer be with Fulham. Carvalho was a key part of Fulham’s offensive capabilities and it will be difficult to replace his contributions.
• High-pressing teams consistently caused issues for Fulham in the Championship. The press will only get worse in the Premier League so if Silva can’t figure out how to get his guys to play out from a high press Fulham will be in big trouble.
• The front office has not gotten Fulham anywhere close to safety in the prior two Premier League campaigns, so their past...

With a third of the 2021-22 Championship season behind us it is a good time to take stock of where Fulham is and what it might be able to achieve over the remainder of the season.

Fulham is having its best season since winning the league in 2000-01 when they started with 11 straight wins. That year Fulham earned 101 points with a 10 point margin over second place. In 2021 Fulham is still six points behind where 2000 Fulham was at this point in the season, but Fulham is nine points ahead of where they were in 2019 and 18 points ahead of where they were in 2017 when they eventually missed automatic promotion by just 2 points. This season is clearly the first in a long time that Fulham can reasonably talk about automatic promotion before January.

Looking back at the history of automatic promotion since that 2000-01 season, we can see some clear patterns. The average number of points for the league winner is 94 and every team that earned 94 points or more has won the league. The average...

I suppose it was fate that reinforced our yoyotude relegation, but there were mitigating circumstances -- and I believe it was these circumstances that doomed us from the beginning. Here's some highlights ... lowlights that contributed to our demise.

1. Not finishing second ... Because of the reduced off-season [thanks to operation re-start] we missed several weeks of scouting/signing. By the time we actually won promotion, I'd say about 75% of the players who could have helped us were off the market. Had we not required the playoffs, those two-three weeks of active recruitment could have gleaned us the 2-3 midfielders/strikers we needed. Remember, this was a once in a lifetime weirdness that only really damaged Fulham. Finishing second and avoiding the playoff cone of uncertainty and we're competitive in the market. No COVID and the resulting short off-season, and we're competitive in the market.
2. Olivier Giroud ... Lampard didn't know what to do with him. He wanted to use...