Fulham Football Club’s official twitter account published a pretty X graphic celebrating Marco Silva’s 49th birthday this morning. The Portuguese head coach has previously told the press that he doesn’t spend any time on social media – so there’s every chance that he hasn’t seen it. If the message was designed to placate the terminally online Fulham community, who have already voiced concern at the Whites’ being the quietest Premier League club this summer, then the club’s communications department have once again failed to read the room.

Silva’s four years at the helm of London’s oldest professional football have been a triumph. He consigned Scott Parker’s pragmatic – and tedious – football to the dustbin as soon as he set foot in Motspur Park and returned the Whites to the top tier of English football at the first time of asking. He did it emphatically in his own style, playing the sort of football that saw Fulham promoted under Jean Tigana and Slavisa Jokanovic, but Silva has surpassed both of his predecessors by successful re-establishing his team as a force in the Premier League without sacrificing their new-found identity.

Silva’s side have relished going toe-to-toe with the best sides in England and are beginning to take a few scalps. They have reached the quarter finals of the FA Cup twice, the semi-final of the League Cup for the first time, and have finished comfortably away from any hint of relegation in each of their three terms amongst the English elite – which is some turnaround for a club that simply yo-yoed between the Premier League and the Championship under the ownership of Shahid Khan, who celebrates thirteen years in charge of the Cottagers today. Those achievements are all the more impressive when you add the fact that Fulham have sold one key player each summer to balance the books. Silva has yet to be given a like-for-like replacement for Aleksandar Mitrovic or Joao Palhinha and the man he brought in to replace Fabio Carvalho, Andreas Pereira, looks likely to depart this summer.

The head coach is the reason why Fulham have not been dicing with the drop since the heady evening when they put seven past Luton Town to clinch the Championship title. The club’s recruitment may have improved dramatically since this day seven years ago when they parted with £25m to sign Jean-Michael Seri and Maxime Le Marchand. Tony Khan might have learned plenty more about constructing a competitive side over the last few seasons, but those within the game are emphatic that it is Silva who has gradually gained more power within the club and persuaded big names like Bernd Leno, Palhinha himself, Sander Berge, Alex Iwobi, Emile Smith Rowe and Raul Jimenez to continue their careers at Craven Cottage.

The head coach batted away questions about his future last season by saying he was concentrating on ensuring Fulham finished as strong as possible. It might be a blessing in disguise that his stretched squad ultimately failed to qualify for Europe. The new contract that Fulham have put before their biggest asset remains unsigned despite the fact that he has rejected lucrative offers from Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and several Saudi Arabian sides to take other their teams. Silva also said that the club he had been working with the club’s hierarchy on summer transfer plans since January, but the Whites are now the only top flight club not to have made a signing. The head coach even had to intercede to ensure Fulham retained Kenny Tete this summer after the right back reached an agreement to join Everton on a free transfer. There’s no progress on Tom Cairney’s contractual situation, despite Silva making clear he wants to keep the skipper in SW6.

Silva has been vocal about the importance of Fulham’s decision-makers matching his ambition. While their can’t be a repeat of the shambolic 2018 spending spree, the Khan family shouldn’t let this summer’s opportunity slip away. They have one of the game’s most highly regarded managers quietly proving English football’s experts wrong. Having been written off as a disloyal chancer who couldn’t crack the Premier League, Silva now seeks the tools to take Fulham back into Europe. Several of the club’s rivals are selling off their big names – with Brentford and West Ham facing questions over their competitiveness – and a number of sides who underachieved last season are strengthening. The Whites have the FFP headroom to invest some of the Khan’s considerable disposable income and yet they are still waiting to supplement a squad that desperately needs reinforcements, especially in midfield and up front.

Failure to do this won’t just mean that Silva might think twice about extending his tenure at Craven Cottage, but it may even prompt the head coach to accept the next serious job offer that comes his way. Marco is a genius, as the Hammersmith End doesn’t tire of singing, but he’s also a proven winner. He might feel a little too old for birthday presents, but a belated gift in the form of acquiring some of his top targets would be a step in the right direction. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it, after all. As Micky Adams regularly wrote in his programme notes when the Whites were in severe danger of dropping out of the Football League altogether, if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Let’s hope we don’t look back on this summer as another missed opportunity.