By the time Fulham came to their Friday evening Championship game against high-flying Wolverhampton Wanderers it had been a week of such tension at the club that the 2-0 defeat at Molineux, the side’s fifth straight league game without a win, might well have felt incidental.

It is not every week that the police are summoned to the training ground at the request of a departing club official, and certainly not for it all to happen in the presence of the club’s billionaire owner, Shahid Khan, one of the richest men in the United States. Khan was not spoken to by the Metropolitan Police officers who attended Motspur Park on Monday and is not expected to be required do so, although to say that it caused embarrassment would be putting it mildly.

The Met were called by Craig Kline, the club’s now former assistant director of football operations, an American citizen, whose three years at the Fulham have been eventful, to say the least. With the endorsement of Shahid’s son Tony, the club’s vice-chairman, and director of football operations, Kline has had growing influence in player recruitment, especially since the start of last year. That is to say, his data analytics model for measuring the suitability of potential new signings has been the fundamental component in the system by which Fulham have signed players.