FATE SCOTT

Fulham aim to tie down Parker as Cairney tips him to one day manage an elite club

FULHAM are preparing to offer Scott Parker a lucrative new contract to keep their promotionwinning manager at Craven Cottage.

Parker, 39, steered the club back to the Premier League after just one season in the Championship, when they beat Brentford 2-1 at Wembley in the play-off final.

The news comes as skipper Tom Cairney says Parker is destined to one day manage an elite team.

Parker signed a two-year deal in May 2019 when he took over permanently as manager, after three months as caretaker in which he was unable to prevent relegation.

He earns around £3million a year on his current deal, but the new contract is expected to take his earnings up to around

£5m. He is set to have talks with the Fulham board in the next fortnight.

Parker will also have more control over transfers this summer, after the Cottagers spent more than £100m on new players in the summer of 2018, after they were promoted, only to plummet straight back down.

The club are already poised to trigger an £8m clause to sign midfielder Harrison Reed, who has been on loan at Craven Cottage this season from Southampton.

Parker wants to strengthen his defence as well, and is considering a loan move for Ryan Sessegnon, who left Craven Cottage for Spurs last summer in a £25m deal.

The club are also linked with ex-chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic, now a free agent after leaving Zenit Saint Petersburg.

Winger Neeskens Kebano has agreed a two-year contract extension.

And Cairney (lifting the play-off trophy, below) is convinced Parker can go on to manage one of the elite clubs – but Fulham want their young boss to stick around for a while yet.

The captain, one of the players who endured their last dismal Premier League campaign, reckons Parker is destined to follow Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard into one of the top jobs.

He said: “Scott is a young British manager, from the same era as Gerrard and Lampard.

“The country can use people like that going forward. Scott has the intelligence and the tactical skill. We, as a country, need to push young managers like that.

“Obviously, at Fulham, we don’t want to lose him – but he will go on to one of the top jobs. “What he has achieved has been tremendous.

“He got the players around him and created a spirit. Teams like Huddersfield and Stoke have gone down and not managed to come back up. But he has done that.”