Fulham favors two candidates to replace Silva

Fulham have two candidates “in particular” they are eyeing to succeed Marco Silva, according to the club’s vice president and director of football operations Tony Khan. Silva spent five years at Fulham, leading the team back to the Premier League after relegation in the 2020-21 season. He then established the team in the Premier League and achieved the club's record points total in this league with 54 points in the 2024-25 season. However, he decided to leave the club when his contract expired at the end of the season to move to Benfica in his home country. Alvaro Arbeloa, who left Real Madrid at the end of the season and was replaced by Jose Mourinho, is reportedly favorite to take over the coaching bench at Craven Cottage. Frank Lampard, who led Coventry City back to the Premier League, has also been linked to the vacancy. Khan, who had expected Silva to stay, hinted that Fulham were close to signing a new coach. "The expectation here for a while was that Marco [Silva] would stay," he told FFCtv. "It's been less than two weeks now since we found out that Marco had changed his mind and really indicated that he wanted to stay and was planning to stay, but of course we understand why. A lot of names have been mentioned and it's interesting because it's going very well and there have been some great conversations, especially.

We have a few people the board is interviewing with who are very exciting and interesting candidates. There were people that we were associated with and were told that they were the favorite or that conversations took place without us ever speaking to them or even having a conversation. There are two that have had multiple meetings with the board that we really like, but we are open to further conversations and discussions with more people. We are currently working on this process.