Fulham seem to be on course to win promotion back to the Premier League, with the appointment of Marco Silva looking like a smart one from the hierarchy at Craven Cottage.
Of course, the Cottagers haven’t always got their managerial decisions right, and the one call that sticks out is Felix Magath.
The former West Germany international arrived for his first spell in English football with a good reputation, having won the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich twice, and, more impressively, with Wolfsburg once.
Whilst that was earlier in his career, the Fulham board hoped Magath’s experience would help the team stay in the top-flight as they battled relegation.
As many will remember, it didn’t happen. The former Hamburg chief didn’t bring an improvement in the team and a disastrous start to the Championship saw him unsurprisingly dismissed.
After leaving Fulham in September 2014, bizarre stories emerged about how Magath had suggested that Brede Hangeland rub cheese on a thigh injury. Magath stated that Hangeland did not have a thigh injury but an inflammation of the knee, and that he suggested the additional use of an alternative treatment with a bandage (dressing) consisting of Quark. Fulham player Sascha Riether later said that the story was greatly exaggerated and that Magath had suggested he use a traditional topfen curd.
As you would expect, those stories, combined with the relegation, had a big impact on Magath’s career, and he would only have one job after leaving the Londoners, which was in China with Shandong Luneng Taishan, although he was thought to have had offers from Spartak Moscow and Austria Vienna.
Nevertheless, Magath would have just one year in China, where he guided the team to a sixth place finish before leaving in 2017. Since then, he has made it clear that he no longer wants to be a manager, but he was involved with football again as a key figure at a Global Soccer company.
Magath’s spell in the capital was a sad way for what had been a successful career in the top leagues to end.