Fulham not a lost relegation cause despite five game skid

Fulham’s losing form stretched to a fifth game in a row when they travelled to West Ham and were dealt a three-goal drubbing.

The slump has cost Martin Jol his job after two and a half years at the Craven Cottage helm, with recently hired head-coach Rene Meulensteen perfectly placed to take over the first-team reigns with immediate effect.

Losing five games in a row is certainly a cause for concern, especially when they are combined with four previous defeats in the campaign to leave the west London club in 18th place and three points off a safer spot. But, Meulensteen is by no means taking the wheel of a sinking ship, as the stats show.

Over the past 13 Premier League seasons, plenty of sides have lost five games on the spin but, as much as the doom-mongers would like to resign them to relegation on the back of it, plenty have gone on to muster respectable finishes.

In total, 52 teams have suffered the ignominy of losing a quintet of consecutive games and more often than not they have gone on to survive the drop.

Twenty-eight of them, including the Cottagers last season, managed to realign their furious tailspin to ensure a safe landing, with 22 of those sides going on to finish 15th or better and four even climbing into the top half of the table.

Fulham feature in the list of 52 losing-streakers three times and never finished lower than 13th after temporarily losing their ability to pick up Premier League points.

So, coupling those trends with the confidence injection that working under a new manager brings, the fact that Mohamed Al Fayed’s former club are third favourites for the drop at 10/11 should be given a wide berth.

The former Manchester United coach will take charge of his first Fulham match at home to Tottenham on Wednesday, with the hosts a 4/1 shot to pick up a win and a draw 5/2.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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