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Ream speaks out following Fulham’s relegation out of EPL

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Fulham’s ninth-consecutive Premier League loss ended the team’s hopes of remaining in the top-flight for next season. A 4-1 loss to Watford officially relegated the London club to the EFL Championship, where they were aim to rebound in 2019-20.

U.S. Men’s National Team centerback Tim Ream returned to the starting XI under caretaker manager Scott Parker but was unable to help the club fight for one more week. Fulham have lost 24 league matches this season, struggling for any type of consistency and having one of the poorest defenses in recent Premier League history.

“We haven’t shown a togetherness, unity, desire, passion,” Ream said in a post match interview. “We’ve shown it in bits and pieces, in the first half then go dead and flat. We need to find it from somewhere. Guys need to speak up more in training sessions. What we do in the match is a product of what we do between Monday to Friday.”

Slavisa Jokanovic helped the team gain promotion to the top-flight via last May’s EFL Playoff Final. However, he was let go in November before former Leicester City and Chelsea boss Claudio Ranieri was hired. Ranieri also struggled and was sacked in February ultimately seeing former player Parker given the nod.

Despite the arrivals of Jean Michael Seri, Andre Schurrle, Ryan Babel, and the retaining of Aleksandar Mitrovic, Fulham will now need to refuel and reload before fighting for promotion in one of Europe’s more competitive leagues. Ream admitted that there was a lengthy team talk at Vicarage Road after the thumping to Watford and is interested to see how the team responds in their final five league fixtures.

“There were some home truths,” Ream said. “We’ll see if it resonates with the guys. We will approach the remaining games like we have for every game. We will go out to try to get points, albeit meaningless points.”

Ream, 31, is currently under contract with Fulham until June 2020 but could be swayed to depart the club should a Premier League side come begging. He’s totaled 128 appearances for Fulham since joining in 2015 from Bolton Wanderers, winning the club’s Player of the Year award in 2018.

Comments

  1. I don’t know…guy says “we” a couple times. That seems to suggest he includes himself when pointing. Swiss cheese defense sure. But he seems to take some responsibility.

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  2. “We had good offensive players, but somehow, we just couldn’t put it together, stay organized, and let in too many goals. Which is why, as a starting CB, I’m pointing my finger at the rest of the team.”

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    • same thing as when they went down last time. shipped 60 goals, didn’t do much with the defense, shipped 85 the next season. they had 40 GF which was more than a few teams that stayed up. this time they are the worst defense in the EPL by dozens (76 GA so far) and the offense managed 30 where Newcastle and Brighton will stay up currently on 31 or 32. to me you can track it to when khan bought the team which was 2013. people like to talk up the “meritocracy” of pro/rel but the reason Fulham used to be an EPL regular c. 2005 was under al Fayed they spent the money for coaching and talent. if you make a more marginal effort then you are a yoyo team at best and a Championship side at worst. i also think if you don’t “come up” as a defense oriented team you need to do some serious upgrading to unlock EPL defenses.

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      • Well stated IV. Some have argued that this is the true impact of the current system of “parachute payments” introduced in 2015/2016. Effectively, owners of newly-promoted and lower-budget teams such as Fulham have become far less incentivized to make significant investments required to ensure survival in the EPL. Relegation is not feared in the way it was previously, since clubs can look forward to a considerable 3 year windfall which not only softens the blow of relegation but provides a significant financial advantage compared to other clubs in the lower divisions, increasing the probability that the club will make a quick return to the higher division.

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