Marlet - What if

[Ordar]

Its August 2001, the start of our first season in the premiership. By the end of August we'd splashed out £30m on exciting high quality signings: Van Der Sar, Steed, Harley, Legwinski, Marlet and narrowly missed out on JA Riise.

Our starting 11 at the end of August was:

              Van Der Sar

Finnan   Goma    Melville   Harley

Malbranque  Collins  Leggy  Boa Morte

             Saha      Marlet

Not a bad side you have to say!

So my questions are: had the Marlet transfer been successful, how would that (in your opinion) changed our history over the last 10 years?

Would Al fayed have continued to spend heavily to make us the "man u of the south"

Could we have effectively taken Chelsea's place over that span? Abramovich didnt take over Chelsea until 03.

Do you think Al Fayed should have gone for a big name manager to take over when Tigana left?

[Rupert]

You might want to consider another what if too, that the September 11 attacks did not happen. One major result of them was the virtual disappearence of the US tourist in Europe for a while, which badly hit Chairman Mo in the pocket since they were big spenders in both Harrods and the Ritz, Paris. A drop in profits made it less economical to write off Fulham's losses against their profits for tax purposes.

[Two Ton Ted]

The key to the what might have been would be Jan Koller leading the attack with Saha to his left & Marlet to his right.

[Burt]

Life is full of "if"s, "but"s, "maybe"s, "if only"s, and "should have done"s.

Very much the preserve of my mother in law  :dft011:

My biggest "would this have changed the course of history" moment has to be what if we had got a result at the Baseball Ground back in '83 and were promoted to the top tier.

[domprague]

Burt
Spot on.

[FatFreddysCat]

The key to the what might have been would be Jan Koller leading the attack with Saha to his left & Marlet to his right.

Yes i was well excited we was going to sign him, reckon he could have been a monster. The only good thing Marlet done was score the winner at WBA in the Q finals.

[watfordwhite]

At the time Chelsea were ripe for a buy out, what if this did not happen? Would Chelsea be the first Rangers? at the time they were £93m in dept ( a massive amount back then ) and just about to fold, had the Russan not stepped in. Ken Bates is doing the same at Leeds now.

For your question, yes I think it affected us, that MAF did not go for a bigger name after sacking Tiganan. Chris Coleman was a good option, but the wrong option.
Where would we be now? Who knows, but I am happy where we are now.
COYW?