A summer of change is a scary prospect

Or could this be an opportunity?

On Wednesday, Ryan Sessegnon signed a contract extension - or, more accurately, the club triggered the extension clause in the contract he signed in 2024. It will keep at Fulham for a third consecutive season following his emotional return that July.

This deal makes sense for everyone, of course. It’s impossible to overlook the nostalgic element to Ryan Sessegnon’s renaissance at Fulham - one of our own returning to the Cottage. I’ve written before about what this means to the fanbase, and how our starboy returning was never something I thought we’d see.

It makes sense on the pitch too. Ryan Sessegnon is a versatile player who can play in forward positions as well as defensively, and he’s good enough to step into the left-back position when Antonee Robinson is injured or out of form without too much for fans to worry about. (I’m not sure the same can be said for our other defensive back-ups, but that’s a problem for another article.)

And, finally, it makes sense for Ryan. He knows the club and, crucially, knows what it’s like to try your hand at a ‘big six’ move and that not work out. He’s almost 26 now and seems settled in London with his young family.

The Sess extension deserves to be celebrated, but I’m not sure it was ever in doubt. It’s when I look at the rest of the squad that I start to feel uncertain. With the lack of squad regeneration last summer, we feel slightly tired.

Defensive midfield is a great example of this; we haven’t made personnel changes in the squad in the last couple of years, and as much as Silva has experimented with bringing Tom Cairney and Alex Iwobi deeper, it feels like we, as fans, are having the conversations we were having in 2024 when Joao Palhinha departed.

This is all before we talk about the biggest elephants in the room: the futures of the players out of contract this summer. Raul Jimenez is on the cusp of turning 35, and is not getting any younger. On the one hand, it doesn’t feel wise for Fulham to extend his deal because of his age profile and the wages that come along with that. However, replacing him will be a mammoth task: he’s been one of Fulham’s most important and underrated players over the last three years, racking up 31 goals. He has the best penalty record in the history of the Premier League, and after years with Aleksander Mitrovic as our penalty taker, it’s a relief to have a striker who’s so reliable from the spot.

George Cooper wrote this wonderful article recently about why Raul deserves cult hero status at the club, and it’s hard to disagree. Those are some huge shoes to fill in 2026/27, assuming Jimenez departs Fulham this summer. Raul’s intelligence in front of goal would be impossible to replace for the £5.5m we initially spent on him in 2023.

We’ve got to talk about Harry Wilson. Rumours around his expected departure from the club have bombarded Fulham fans for the last six months, as we’re increasingly aware of the ticking time-bomb that is his contract. The latest club on the rumour circuit is Aston Villa - and that seems to fit. He’ll get a chunkier wage packet for sure, and probably Champions League football. I’m hugely concerned about a future without Harry Wilson, especially as we won’t have a fee from a sale to reinvest into the squad. (If he wasn’t in his final year of his contract, we could easily get £40m plus for him, I reckon.)

Wilson is a form player. I still believe he doesn’t have the consistency to play for a big six club - and that sounds like a criticism. But it’s not really; he’s the origin of so many good things we’ve done and results we’ve achieved, because he has the skill and chutzpah to put this team on his back and create a moment. See Spurs Away this season: he clamped on a loose pass from goalkeeper Vicario and guided the ball perfectly into the net from near the sideline. Are any other players in this squad managing that? I’d argue not.

This summer all comes back to the same thing though, wherever we turn. There are still positive talks around Marco Silva’s contract, according to no-one but Marco Silva. It’s 23 April. Six months ago, I thought he was definitely staying, but time is simply running out. If I was a pessimist (some might say realist), I would have my head in hands, thinking about Fulham losing two crucial players and the best manager of my time supporting the club (all for free!).

But, I’m an optimist. The future is uncertain, but this could provide a huge opportunity: who knows what the managerial market will look like in the summer, with so many managers leaving mid-table clubs (Glasner, Iraola - and Liam Rosenior is back on the market, it turns out!) and the small matter of a 48-team World Cup? We could end up with something much better than we ever dreamed.

It’s hard to know what 26/27 will look like at Craven Cottage - but at least we know that Ryan Sessegnon will be there.