Five options to replace Marco Silva if he left

Here are some potential replacements for our manager should he depart in the coming days or weeks.

In recent days there have been many reports regarding Marco Silva’s future. With relatively poor form stretching back to nearly this whole calendar year in the league and a frustration from the board that Marco has yet to commit to the club beyond this coming summer, a replacement for our long-standing boss may be needed. Here, we look at five potential options should that situation arise.

1. Brendan Rodgers

While odds compilers are yet to put forward a market for the next Fulham manager, reports would suggest Rodgers is the early front-runner. After recently leaving Celtic for the second time, Rodgers will be a name on the lips of any mid-table Premier League fan looking for a new manager considering his previous successes in British football. The trophies he’s won at Celtic, plus his title charge with Liverpool a little more than a decade ago, have his reputation quite high within the game.

His work at Leicester is probably the best comparison here. During his time at the King Power stadium, Rodgers oversaw multiple top six finishes, won the FA Cup and the Community Shield, and played - for the most part - an exciting brand of football. All of that would suggest he has the minerals to take Fulham a step further than Marco Silva has managed in in the top flight.

However, there will be concerns about his attitude and his potential to rub people up the wrong way. Not only did he leave Leicester in relegation turmoil by the end of his reign, but both times he’s left Celtic there’s been bad blood, including recently leaving the club eight points behind Hearts in the early stages of the Scottish title race. Everyone at Fulham is behind Silva; we’d need another manager who continues that positive culture.

2. Liam Rosenior

A lot of fans’ first choice would be a nostalgic return for a former player currently plying his trade in France. Since a disappointing spell in charge of Hull, Rosenior has gone from strength to strength managing Strasbourg, who currently sit fourth in Ligue 1. Strasbourg have started the season strongly in the Conference League too, sitting in the top eight spots after three rounds of fixtures, and may have even loftier ambitions of making the Champions League with how they’ve started this season. Inevitably the question would be: is it likely Rosenior would leave that project?

There’s always the appeal of coming to the Premier League, which remains a huge pull. There’s also the restraints that come from working within the BlueCo multi-club ownership model, where squad churn will continue every window and his Strasbourg side will continue to play second fiddle to the blue lot down the road.

Rosenior also probably has unfinished business in England. Hull fans had the opinion that he could have got more from a squad including the likes of Liam Delap, Fabio Carvalho, Tyler Morton, Jaden Philogene and Jean Michael Seri, among others. Rosenior would certainly feel a bit of a pull for the club, but whether he would be a success in the Premier League is unknown.

3. Frank Lampard

Hear me out. No, it would not go down well. Yes, there are chants that we might have to pack in very quickly. But if we are looking for a really good managerial candidate, this doesn’t feel outrageous to me. It feels as if he has at times been grouped in with Wayne Rooney and even Steven Gerrard as managers who get opportunities purely for being part of England’s “golden generation”. However, his bank of work at Derby, Chelsea, Everton, and now Coventry strongly suggests otherwise.

Silva has been criticised for a lack of faith in youth, especially before the Josh King boom. Chelsea and Derby showed that Lampard has a willingness to introduce young players and develop them into first team regulars who fit into his style of play on a frequent basis. Everton also showed that, should this season turn into a dogfight, Lampard knows how to keep a side up. And most recently, his Coventry side is showing that Lampard can put a team together that plays exciting attacking football and frequently creates chances against difficult opposition. It’s a risk, both in terms of his abilities and how the fans would take to him, but I secretly love the idea of Lampard in our dugout.

4. Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer

This is a name that I really don’t think has been spoken about enough as a potential Premier League manager since his reign at Old Trafford came to an end. I’m still yet to see a post-Ferguson Manchester United manager that has the squad playing for them as much as they did for OGS. This is a man who fosters a superb squad dynamic and has his players running through brick walls for him.

He is also another coach who I think could take the shackles off this talented Fulham squad and allow them to express themselves more. It’s a similar sort of approach he took when he originally took on the United job on an interim basis. His first game was a thrashing of Cardiff before eventually securing impressive results in Europe, including that famous win over Paris Saint Germain.

Everything about Solsjkaer’s style of management appeals to what I’d like at Fulham, but whether his tactical approach could push us forward out of mid table and into a cup final or season in Europe is another question.

5. Hayden Mullins

I tend to try to praise Brentford as little as possible - but I’m going to here, for my sins. I honestly saw them comfortably being relegated under the stewardship of Keith Andrews. However, he’s come in with a mix of new ideas combined with a knowledge of the football club and continued to push on a squad that had lost its leader in Thomas Frank, as well as so many of its key players, with the likes of Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and Chrstian Norgaard moving on. So why couldn’t we try something similar with Mullins?

Our U21s manager is held in high regard at Motspur Park. He comes with a wealth of Premier League experience from his playing days and has dipped his toes into management before with Colchester and the Turks and Caicos Islands, as well as two interim stints with Watford.

Mullins has overseen some of the progress made by the likes of Josh King and Callum Osmand, while delivering youth silverware in the form of the Premier League Cup, battering an extremely talented Tottenham side 4-0 in the final. The man knows Fulham, knows the Premier League and knows what it means to be a senior manager, giving him his big opportunity could be an inspired decision.