Soccer

I'll beat the drop, says Fulham's new manager Claudio Ranieri

18 November 2018 - 00:00 By the daily telegraph

The inevitable question for Claudio Ranieri, the new manager of Fulham - last of all 20 clubs in the top tier with only one victory in 12 and a goal difference of minus 20 - was a simple one: how did he assess his chances of winning the Premier League?
Not what the usual big managerial name parachuted into a club caught in the jaws of relegation gets asked, but then this is not your usual big manager.
This is the 18th appointment of the 67-year-old's career, and in one particular diversion on his introduction at Craven Cottage he rhapsodised about his first job in charge of the amateurs of Vigor Lamezia.
That was in the southern Italian province of Calabria in the mid-1980s, where no one would have noticed or cared if a young coach had fallen at the first hurdle.
Instead, 30 years on, here is - Ranieri the 2016 Premier League winner, wise, flawed, admired, single-minded and back in English football to save Fulham.
"I came here because I believe," he said. "I'm mad but not stupid. I think I can do this. It's not easy. Nothing is easy, but I believe."
He wanted to remind us that he had saved Cagliari from relegation from the third tier of Italian football in 1988 and subsequently took them all the way to Serie A. His friends had told him he was mad to accept the Parma job in February 2007, but he did so anyway and saved them from relegation.
What did his friends say about Fulham? "Everybody said good choice, good club, historical club, magical club. They all said, 'Come on, Claudio, you can do it.'" What would be his priority? "Fulham concede a lot of goals. I'm an Italian manager. For us Italians it's important to maintain the clean sheet."
PIZZA REWARD
Would he reward his players' first clean sheet with a pizza, as he had done at Leicester? No, he said he would take them for "a McDonald's big burger".
All this is the well-practised Ranieri persona that might make him seem like the absent-minded uncle, but his success has largely been built on his relentless drilling of compliant players. It has its shelf life, but the results can be extraordinary. He comes alive when he describes the demands he will make of his team.
"If you have a very strong fighting spirit - like me - it is 100%. I try to improve the fighting spirit of all my players. The players must show me this - heart. They must imagine, 'Now we have our family on the pitch and we have to save our family.'"
Ranieri will have just two days to prepare his full squad for the critical game against 17th-placed Southampton next Saturday at Craven Cottage, and he is refusing to look beyond that match - even though after that he faces his two former clubs, Chelsea on December 2 and Leicester three days later. Then it is Old Trafford and Jose Mourinho.
Fulham spent close to £100m this summer, signing 12 players. They have not ruled out more players in January.
Ranieri said: "I spoke with the chairman [Shahid Khan] about it and he said, 'Claudio, if you need something then I am here.' But I said, 'I want to see the players because when you change the manager, you change the air in the dressing room.'"..

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