Claudio Ranieri: Fulham manager's future hangs by a thread ahead of crisis talks

The 67-year-old's time in charge has seen the club drift to 10 points away from safety after 10 defeats in 16 games

Claudio Ranieri's future at Fulham hangs by a thread, with the club set to hold discussions with the Italian on Thursday, amid widespread expectation he will be sacked.

The 67-year-old's time in charge has seen the club drift to 10 points away from safety after 10 defeats in 16 games, but worse has been the open dissent from supporters.

The last few games have led to the most difficult atmosphere at Craven Cottage in years, with regular chants of "you don't know what you're doing" and further criticism of the manager and the board.

If Ranieri does go on Thursday, Scott Parker is expected to step in as caretaker.

Another point of contention is the club's strained relationship with the highly-valued Ryan Sessegnon, who just hasn't featured in the manner anticipated.

The full-back's brother Steve has also been dropped from the first-team training group and sent back to the under-23s.

That has fed into the sense that they might have to start planning for the future this season. Ranieri has looked completely reluctant to do that, in what has admittedly been a fire-fighting role.

The failure to do that, however, has led to Thursday's crunch talks.