For Scott Parker’s Fulham, a season of downward spirals can still end looking upwards

The next season promises to be a rollercoaster, Parker is naive, he’ll take risks, he’ll make mistakes. But at Fulham, finally there is something for fans to be excited about again

As the news funnelled through to a resolutely upbeat Neil Warnock that Newcastle had taken the lead against Brighton, the insuppressible, seemingly immortal manager brushed melancholy aside, clung to the minuscule air of hope, and marched relentlessly onward. “Absolutely, [I’m up for another season in the Championship],” he said. “I’m only a youngster aren’t I?”

The typically calm, defiant and unchanging salt of the impermeable 70-year-old manager. For Cardiff, even in relegation, much will remain the same. This was Warnock's 1,455th game as a manager. An astonishing display of endurance.

Even if their relegation is confirmed this weekend, there can be no disputing the wonders Warnock has worked with a side whose fate seemed apparent so early on this season, but have still come almightily close to avoiding its clutches. “If Vincent [Tan] wants me to stay, I’ll stay. If he wants me to leave, I’d go without any compensation or anything. It doesn’t bother me,” Warnock continued ambivalently. “Who would you get better for the job at hand if I’m up for it?”

The flaws in Cardiff and Fulham’s approaches to life in the Premier League have dwindled at opposite ends of calamity. Fulham’s frantic overhaul, last-gasp panic buys, the succession of managers and general distrust in a team who’d performed so brilliantly in the second half of the Championship season left them jumbled and disjointed. The team Warnock called upon in such a pivotal game, the desperate last launch of their survival bid, featured a starting XI formed entirely of players who’d come from the Championship.

As Scott Parker says, “you know what you’re getting with a Neil Warnock team. One of passion, one of desire, all the words that represent him”. But fundamentally a Warnock team is one whose desire can ultimately be triumphed by skill. They can roughhouse and hustle anyone, battle, blockade and go blow-for-blow against the very best. But they are always a side who a Premier League club ultimately assumes they can outclass.

That is not to take away from his achievements, or the progress Warnock has made with Cardiff. He took over a side struggling for direction and secured a record-breaking eighth promotion to the top-tier two seasons later. But there always comes that unavoidable case of hitting the wall, that Warnock wall.

One which always confines a side to a similar identity, dragged to new heights by the scruff of the neck, until sheer willpower alone can no longer suffice. They won’t conform or adapt, they won’t chase the likes of Daniel Farke’s technique brought from the Bundesliga or the ball-playing, open-faced approach of Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth. It’s fish and chips, bread and butter, tea and a bowl of cornflakes. It’s a staple, steady and reliable. With Warnock’s Cardiff, we always knew what we were getting this season, and it was always an uphill and unlikely struggle to prove it could be enough.

But for Fulham, whose relegation was confirmed long ago and have endured a considerably worse unravelling, their descent to the Championship has taken on an altogether different air under Scott Parker. As the pollen gusted through the back-alleys of Craven Cottage, it was the promise of a new spring. The mystery of a young manager at the helm with hunger and intelligence, who has already brought a feel-good factor back to a club who’d lost hope by Christmas. Fulham spent this entire season taking on risk, now under the 38-year-old caretaker they are bracing themselves for another.

Neil Warnock and Scott Parker met after the game (Reuters)

Victory over Cardiff marked Fulham’s third successive victory and a hat-trick of clean sheets - an absurd feat in contrast to their early, endemic defensive woes. It was also only Parker’s eighth game as manager. The next season promises to be a rollercoaster, he’s naive, he’ll take risks, he’ll make mistakes. But at Fulham, finally there is something to be excited about again.

“I have got a clear idea, I know how I want my team to play, how to behave, how I want them to look,” Parker said. “People say is it because the shackles are off, or because relegation is doomed, is that the reason? My answer to that is to win three games on the bounce in the Premier League is a tough ask, whether you’re relegated or not.”

Cardiff will rely on the old, steady familiar. Fulham will brave the new. Just as this season, contrasting ideologies could well bring similar results. One a slow and successful grind, a metronomic beat down the nighttime motorway. The other a city street littered with speed bumps and pot-holes, but of unknowing and endless possibility. That is the path Fulham will follow and with it, although they are destined to move down, in many ways their heads have already come up.