\u00c1lvaro Arbeloa is close to finalizing an agreement to become Fulham manager, according to a report in The Athletic. Talks between Fulham and Arbeloa were held earlier this month and both parties are now working to seal a deal that would see him arrive at Craven Cottage as the replacement for Marco Silva, who has taken charge at Benfica.<\/p>\n
Arbeloa\u2019s rise to the Real Madrid first-team dugout earlier this year, when he replaced Xabi Alonso, surprised many observers. Few believed he was anything more than an interim appointment, and it was during his time in charge that the wheels began to fall off at the Bernab\u00e9u. Performances were inconsistent and a lack of locker-room discipline emerged as a serious problem.<\/p>\n
While those issues surfaced under Arbeloa\u2019s watch, the prevailing view is that he was not solely to blame. Similar problems had already appeared during Alonso\u2019s reign, and it is now widely accepted that both managers were, to some degree, victims of a toxic environment at Madrid, even if both Alonso and Arbeloa could have handled some situations better.<\/p>\n
The report underlines the challenge facing a rookie coach thrust from academy football into the spotlight of a Cl\u00e1sico giant. Managing larger-than-life egos is inherently difficult, and Arbeloa, despite flashing significant potential, was clearly not ready for the full demands of such an illustrious position. The text notes that only a small number of managers have successfully made the jump from youth coaching to the very top, with Pep Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane cited as rare exceptions.<\/p>\n
If confirmed, the move to Fulham would represent Arbeloa\u2019s return to management in the Premier League, giving him an opportunity to rebuild his reputation away from the pressures that afflicted his tenure at Madrid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c1lvaro Arbeloa is close to agreeing to become Fulham manager; questions remain over Madrid run saga<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[713,969],"tags":[1446,1505,1746],"class_list":["post-15200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fulham","category-premier-league","tag-academy","tag-accountability","tag-alvaro-arbeloa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}