Zamora Wins Power Struggle With Jol

[Holders]

Some considered comments here. I also agree with CV.

As for the business over AJ's contract, I think it's simply him trying to squeeze the best deal for what might be his last one. No harm in that.

We can't afford to lose them both for the rumoured £8m though.

[Boggers]

Hodgson created an environment at Fulham that was very successful. Everyone, players and fans loved it. But the players Hodgson acquired are all now hitting 30 and in some cases are approaching the end of their contracts. Reality is that Hughes, for a variety of reasons, only tinkered with the Hodgson squad and formula. When he left it was as if he had never been there. I suspect that Jol is the victim of being the man who had to break up a successful squad and adapt to a different style of play. Hodgson left , partly because he felt he had taken us as far as he could. The club should have started changing in 2010 - we had a wasted year. In some respects Fulham have slipped into a comfort zone (a successful one). If we persist with this for another season it may be too late to effect a smooth transition to a different and equally successful future.

Sir, that is an absolutely outstanding post

[Burt]

I wonder what David Kidd's agenda it though, given he is Fulham.

Is he reflecting the views of one disaffected person within the camp, or wider sentiment from the team?

Or is he anti-Jol and using the paper as a platform for that?

Its difficult to see how much actual fire there is, beneath the smoke.

[Logicalman]

So, last week this rag prints a story, without apparent foundation, that Jol and Bobby have had a bust up, obviously looking to unsettle the squad and the fans.
That day, Fulham record their biggest win in 5 seasons.
This week the paper spins the previous story to say that due to the bust-up, Bobby forces Jol to pick AJ, and AJ is the hero of last week.

Does this sounds anything else than both fishy and unreal?

What if Fulham had (god forbid) lost last week. The the paper would have printed that the fall-out caused the wrong selection?


Here's a headline: During training this week, one of the players will not agree 150% with a training decision that Jol makes. Watch this space, cos depending on next weeks result, I'll write why?

As Mrs Chamberlain was once heard to exclaim " What a load of Tosh" !!!!

[White Noise]

Dave Kidd is proper supporter who just happens to be a football correspondent for a national newspaper. He talks a lot of sense about Fulham on Twitter and has always come across as a very level headed and considered bloke. I have never discerned any agenda in what he writes about Fulham. I don't like some of the stories he writes about Fulham but have no reason to disbelieve them. I would love it if he wrote loads of stories about players saying they love Fulham and never want to play for any other club but they probably wouldn't be true.

The interesting thing is that after Hughes left it became clear that almost no-one at the club at any level liked his high handed ways but there were almost no stories coming out about it. I thought Jol was well liked but that isn't being reflected in the news stories.

[Peabody]

Reference has been made to there being to many news stories from different papers, surely they are all re-cycling the original story. The fact that comments attributed to Brede have been denied by Brede and Kasami also going public and denying any problems, has to have some credence.

[AlFayedsChequebook]

There probably is some player discontent at Fulham, although this is not necessarily a bad thing.

In all these stories, the problems are with the 'senior' players, players whose positions are under threat and are not so comfortable with the new system. We have been fielding youth for the first time in years so it is no surprise that some of the players had gotten comfortable, perhaps too comfortable.

Players I can imagine being irritated are Bobby (why, I dont know), Danny (Who is still great, but maybe his influence is waning) and maybe Duff. However, most of the other players have played well this season, especially Dempsey, Schwarzer and Dembele (who looks comfortable once again). Nothing can be that seriously wrong.

At the end of the day, you cant make an omlet without breaking some eggs

[White Noise]

This just in from Twitter -


davekidd_people Dave Kidd

thanks. Don't worry about Jol and Zamora, it's creative tension!

[FatFreddysCat]

Obviously Bobby has seen this stuff in the news, if i was Bobby and these reports are a crock, i'd make a point of celebrating with Jol if i scored, or at least make a statement like Kasami did. Meantime WN, has Joey Barton been tweeting much since their dubbing? I'm sure thier fans would love to see his boasts about his £80k a week wages.

[White Noise]

Obviously Bobby has seen this stuff in the news, if i was Bobby and these reports are a crock, i'd make a point of celebrating with Jol if i scored, or at least make a statement like Kasami did. Meantime WN, has Joey Barton been tweeting much since their dubbing? I'm sure thier fans would love to see his boasts about his £80k a week wages.

He has not risen to any of the Fulham laid bait as yet and has stuck to his usual cornflake box philosophical quips! I used to think he was quite bright until I saw him on Twitter. He is an utter prunt and I couldn't be happier he is the figurehead of Prunt FC.

[White Noise]

http://blogs.soccernet.com/fulham/archives/2011/10/dirty_laundry_or_damned_lies.php



Dirty Laundry or Damned Lies?

Posted by Phil Mison 9 hours, 5 minutes ago


Fulham is not like other clubs. And for that we give thanks. But fans have been narked by a flurry of negative stories being aired. Let's peer through the murk.

While we are still basking in the glory of humbling Rangers with a footballing lesson they won't forget, how strange to find the anti-Fulham media more keen to dish dirt than heap praise on Martin's men. In the vanguard, and no stranger to Cottage matters, the 'People's' Dave Kidd. His paper led the way, "Zamora wins power struggle at Fulham as Jol loses player support."
That headline is disturbing on just about every level. One, were there to be a shred of truth in it, Jol might as well quit the club now. Forget the free-flowing football of that 6-0 win, any manager having lost credibility with his squad has to walk! Just months into his reign, and with Fulham mid-table and very much involved in the Europa League, the players are in revolt and holding the whip hand. Can that really be so?

As Martin's track record includes stints at Spurs, Hamburg and Ajax Amsterdam - where a whole host of major names buckled down and toed the line - how mind-boggling to learn our much-loved heroes in white have been ganging up on the Dutchman at Motspur behaving like bullies. And do you think a bruiser like Jol can be pushed around? Come on now!

Now let's imagine what probably happened. Football clubs are built on a strict heirarchical structure. Within its corridors the highest earners in the game step aside with a polite "Good afternoon Mr. Chairman" whenever the club's figurehead wanders into view. If there are any issues from the training ground or within matchday dressing rooms players views are channelled via the club captain. With Danny's ability to deliver joined up sentences and his unchallenged authority on the pitch, do you reckon our boys are going over Murphy's head? I doubt it very much.

When players have an agenda with the manager, the first call is to their agent. He's paid handsomely to deal with disgruntled stars, smooth out wrinkles, negotiate contracts and talk turkey over money. So what really happened ahead of the Rangers match? The key figure here is, of course, big Bobby. He apparently didn't enjoy being told by text he wasn't needed for the Odense trip. But the manager's comment that he had faith in the strikers he was taking was fully vindicated by the result. Bobby's been dropped and/or benched plenty of times without throwing his toys out of the pram, even the back end of last season when he was supposed to be fit.

With that Odense result the boys might have suggested, maybe via Ray Lew, or Danny, or even as a throwaway aside in training, "How about going 4-4-2 on Sunday boss?" In fact, if that view was aired, that to me suggests a group of professionals who respect and have confidence in each party's ability. I would consider it a sign of rude health at the club. Can you recall seeing teams demoralised by managers who've lost it, pros playing out of position, sullenly going through the motions, tight-lipped and looking to leave. Think West Ham under Avram Grant last season, or Liverpool's open and obvious lack of respect for Roy.

I saw not a shred of evidence at Craven Cottage on October 2nd to suggest here was an unsettled squad losing faith in their manager. Dave Kidd professes to be a Fulham fan. I don't know him personally. But I suspect he turned in a scant few lines last week saying the suggestion to try 4-4-2 had come from the team, and a sub-editor fluffed up a flimsy story with the absurd headline that Zamora had 'won a power battle' over Jol, and Jol has 'lost the support of the players.' Were that copy to be true, my, we are in BIG trouble.

Though I shrugged off the above, knowing how newspapers work, it became increasingly irritating to see the bad odour linger, with other forums then surmising all manner of misgivings behind the scenes. "Someone must be feeding these negative stories to the press." So now we've got both a conspiracy and a turncoat in the ranks. It's getting worse!

I can countenance something upset BZ since the season started and Jol hasn't helped matters with one or two enigmatic remarks. Why was Bobby not played at Wolves? He's 'sensitive' says the boss. Is that a diplomatic way of saying 'difficult?' Lacking discipline?
But where do you then gain licence to state, 'Bobby Zamora will look to leave Fulham in January after a ferocious bust-up with Jol.' I'm pretty certain had that been the case, Bobby would not have started against QPR.

Without taking sides, I delved back into the record books and came up with this. Roy authorised two massive cheques to unite AJ and Bobby at Fulham after the great escape of Fratton in 2008. But the dream team never gelled. Neither were prolific in year one. Bob's drought was particularly painful to witness and either side of Christmas that first season he was regularly subbed early into the 2nd half. When he finally converted a simple tap in at the Hammy End v WBA he blew a gasket, snarling and swearing right into the faces of Fulham fans on the perimeter, though his anger was being directed at the whole stand who'd been dishing abuse and ridicule for weeks. That summer he was on the verge of being off-loaded.

In season two (2009/10) AJ's season never began. His knee got battered by Ankar Perm and he was unfit for well over a year. But Bobby was reborn. He found his touch, confidence flowed back through his veins, the goal tally climbed into double figures, and on European nights especially, often playing the lone man up front, he truly excelled. Last season the roles reversed after Zamora had his ankle fractured. The two were not actually ready to be paired together again until March of this year.

And the team had moved on of course. With loaness in Gudjohnsen and Kakuta, midfielders Dembele, Davies, Duff and Dempsey in the mix, Zamo and AJ were never Mark Hughes first choice pairing up front, their game time together over the last 10 weeks of the season being really quite limited. When BZ marked his first start in 11 months with a double against Blackpool AJ was on the bench (actually replacing Bobby on 62 mins). Andy took a long time to get back on the goal trail too after his op. A deflected effort at Wigan in January, a diving header on a Friedel parry at Villa in Feb and a strike at Wolves after coming on as a late sub in April. Bob was on the pitch with Andy only for the last of those goals.

So what did Jol have to go on when taking charge in June apart from the stats and videos from last season's games? Little hard evidence surely to suggest since 2008 AJ and Zamo were a natural fit up front. Hence, in our first six league games of four draws and two losses Martin was still searching through his pack looking for a full house. Was QPR a one-off? Were we that good, or Rangers that bad? Is Andy back to his coruscating best? The coming weeks will tell. But let's cut the gaffer some slack here. And returning to those destabilising rumours, on the evidence above, I can quite understand why Jol may still be ready to let AJ go in January. His logic is sound, in keeping with his desire to lower the age of the side. I don't for one moment believe it all smacks of 'discontent behind the scenes' and power struggles. At any football club, that's how it has to be. The Boss IS the boss.

Let's have Fulham back to playing winning football again at Stoke and making headlines for all the right reasons.
Twitter@fulhamphil

[richie17]

Dave Kidd is proper supporter who just happens to be a football correspondent for a national newspaper. He talks a lot of sense about Fulham on Twitter and has always come across as a very level headed and considered bloke. I have never discerned any agenda in what he writes about Fulham. I don't like some of the stories he writes about Fulham but have no reason to disbelieve them. I would love it if he wrote loads of stories about players saying they love Fulham and never want to play for any other club but they probably wouldn't be true.

The interesting thing is that after Hughes left it became clear that almost no-one at the club at any level liked his high handed ways but there were almost no stories coming out about it. I thought Jol was well liked but that isn't being reflected in the news stories.

I imagine that Hughes was well respected but not well liked.  Hodgson seems to have had both, but we're not really sure with Jol, who's his own man and not afraid to upset players if he feels it needs doing.  The respect will come if the players see that he can lead them as well as their last two managers - suspect it's not quite there yet.

As an earlier poster said, I'm sure Jol appreciates that someone's going to have to steer this team through a messy transition and that doing this won't make him popular.  He seems to be going about this quite well, bringing in a lot of young talent to supplement what we have.

[White Noise]

Love this line Phil Mison quoted from Bobby in the week -

As Bobby said this week on camera, 'under Roy Hodgson we were probably the most organised team in Europe.'

Its going to be very difficult to follow on from a manager who made that sort of impression on his players. Jol is sifficiently different in his approach to be able to do it though.

[AlFayedsChequebook]

I think that Dave Kidds mention of it being 'creative differences' is interesting. This would suggest that Jol is trying to change the style of play, but rather than the players simply giving up, there is some tactical/intelligent discussion going on behind the scenes. Jol may or may not have 'given in' to Zamora when he played a 4-4-2, but at least the players care and Jol appears to be flexible.

The biggest problem with this whole story is not that there is a level of discontent behind the scenes, but someone (an agent in all likelihood) is blabbing to the press and hoping things snowball

[TonyGilroy]

I don't agree that because AJ was playing with Zamora that it was 4-4-2 against QPR.

I think that labelling tactics as 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 or whatever doesn't allow for any fluidity and against Rangers there was plenty of that. I reckon Jol (and I believe he's said this) likes a 6 and a 4 so that the 4 are the main attacking elements in the team.

After AJ's performence against Odense he had to play and leaving out Zamora would have certainly been a major statement of distrust which Jol clearly doesn't feel. So they both had to play. No sensible manager would have done anything else.

Zamora drifts wide and comes deep and Johnson plays centrally and down either channel as part of their natural games.

[Logicalman]

Dave Kidd is proper supporter who just happens to be a football correspondent for a national newspaper. He talks a lot of sense about Fulham on Twitter and has always come across as a very level headed and considered bloke. I have never discerned any agenda in what he writes about Fulham. I don't like some of the stories he writes about Fulham but have no reason to disbelieve them. I would love it if he wrote loads of stories about players saying they love Fulham and never want to play for any other club but they probably wouldn't be true.

The interesting thing is that after Hughes left it became clear that almost no-one at the club at any level liked his high handed ways but there were almost no stories coming out about it. I thought Jol was well liked but that isn't being reflected in the news stories.

WN,

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm not claiming that Kidd doesn't like football, or that he doesn't like Fulham in particular, but the point still remains that there was no apparent firm foundation for such a story, and due to the result that day, the paper uses spin to make the original story more credible.

Kidd is a journo, the paper needs to sell copies, nothing else matters. Whether he writes a great story that is based on known facts, or whether he writes a story that is, at best, speculative and controversial, really doesn't matter, just as long as it sells copy. Unfortunately, this story appears closer to the latter than the former. Perhaps next week we shall see part three of this saga printed.

[White Noise]

Dave Kidd is proper supporter who just happens to be a football correspondent for a national newspaper. He talks a lot of sense about Fulham on Twitter and has always come across as a very level headed and considered bloke. I have never discerned any agenda in what he writes about Fulham. I don't like some of the stories he writes about Fulham but have no reason to disbelieve them. I would love it if he wrote loads of stories about players saying they love Fulham and never want to play for any other club but they probably wouldn't be true.

The interesting thing is that after Hughes left it became clear that almost no-one at the club at any level liked his high handed ways but there were almost no stories coming out about it. I thought Jol was well liked but that isn't being reflected in the news stories.

WN,

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm not claiming that Kidd doesn't like football, or that he doesn't like Fulham in particular, but the point still remains that there was no apparent firm foundation for such a story, and due to the result that day, the paper uses spin to make the original story more credible.

Kidd is a journo, the paper needs to sell copies, nothing else matters. Whether he writes a great story that is based on known facts, or whether he writes a story that is, at best, speculative and controversial, really doesn't matter, just as long as it sells copy. Unfortunately, this story appears closer to the latter than the former. Perhaps next week we shall see part three of this saga printed.

Sorry that was just meant to be a general clarifying point, not a response to you in particular. We don't know how these things get into the papers but I just think of the politics, competitiveness and personal clashes that have existed in every place I have ever worked and I don't think these stories, if true, are anything to worry about. You will always have differences of approach and style but most colleagues get over them and move forward. Personally I like contrarian types and lots of debate and disagreement in a workplace - it is good creatively and it shows people care about what they are doing. Personally I think Dave Kidd speaks the truth as he has been told it. Even if he got every Fulham supporter in the land to buy the paper because of his Fulham coverage it would not register greatly on their overall circulation. The question is how much truth is there in what he is being told. As for headlines, well I love a good 086.gif headline as my thread titles on here may suggest!! :57:

[richie17]

contrary to perceptions, football journalists rarely just make things up.   In this case Dave's been fed some information by someone (perhaps Zamora's agent, perhaps someone else - it's not like he wouldn't have contacts at Fulham) and has written it up. 

I don't have any doubts at all that the reporting is straight up here, and Jol's responses to questioning on the subject suggest as much, too.

[TonyGilroy]

It's probably less "information" that's been fed to him than someone's grievance.

My guess is that the influx of new younger players plus constant squad rotation has unsettled certain players and that Jol has not had enough success yet to stamp his authority on the squad.

It's only something to be concerned about if performances tail off and so far the opposite is the case.

What is odd though is that under Hodgson and Hughes nothing leaked out. Now it's different but it's not impossible that Jol doesn't care and even, maybe, encourages players to have their say rather than bottle up their feelings. From my limited experience that's the Dutch way.