Wednesday Fulham Stuff(04/07/12)...

[WhiteJC]

 
Family man Duff won't be hanging up his boots

RETIREMENT is not in Damien Duff's vocabulary at the moment. "I am going to play football until I drop," he said last night.

After he finishes his career in England, he intends to drop back to the League of Ireland and then the Leinster Senior League, according to the 33-year-old winger.

On his way out to south Lebanon to spend a few days with Irish troops, he bumped into former Premiership star Andy Cole at Dublin Airport and asked how he was coping with retirement from the game.

"Andy said he didn't miss it. But I am the polar opposite. Football is what I do and I have no interest in anything else. I would end up pottering around the house," said Mr Duff.

He was less clear about his future at international level but said he still has appetite to represent his country.

"There has been a lot of speculation about whether I will continue to play for Ireland after the Euros," he said.

He said he had spoken to the manager, Giovanni Trapattoni, but had not thought any further about retirement.

"At the moment, I want to spend time with my family. My son, Woody, was born 14 months ago and my wife is due again in September."

Entertained

And he admitted he never entertained any ideas of joining the military and leaves the soldiering to his older brother, Gerry, who is a sergeant in the Defence Forces.

Mr Duff decided about three months ago to visit the troops after Gerry (37) suggested it would be a morale booster for the peacekeepers.

"I said 'yes' straight away and I am really excited about meeting them," he added.

- Tom Brady Security Editor



http://www.independent.ie/national-news/family-man-duff-wont-be-hanging-up-his-boots-3155635.html?

[WhiteJC]

 
Full back set to snub Fulham and QPR because of ambition shown by Southampton

Transfer news: Jack Buttner wants to sign for the Sains

Fulham and QPR target Jack Buttner has stated that he would prefer to sign for Premier League new boys Southampton because of the ambition they are showing.

The Vitesse full back has been linked with a move to London but would rather ply his trade on the south coast after visiting the training ground.

"I want to go to Southampton," he told De Telegraaf. "I have to wait for both clubs to reach an agreement, but I count on the co-operation of Vitesse."

"It would be a massive blow if this won't go through," said Buttner, who is under contract with Vitesse for one more year.

"I have been to Southampton and everything - including the living conditions - are perfect. The club, the stadium, everything, surprised me. Fantastic.

"And Southampton have big ambitions. With the new investor they want the same as Manchester City."



http://www.london24.com/sport/fulham/full_back_set_to_snub_fulham_and_qpr_because_of_ambition_shown_by_southampton_1_1429169?

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham chasing Tom Huddlestone?

The press doesn't credit Martin Jol with much imagination, do they? His transfer targets seem to be limited to out-of-favour Tottenham players.

The Mail is reporting – or maybe 'claiming' – this morning, that Jol is interested in Tom Huddlestone 'as a replacement for Danny Murphy'.

Apologies for the cynicism, but we're not convinced.

Huddlestone is no longer a natural fit in the Tottenham side, as he's doesn't have the mobility or the defensive capabilities to seriously rival either Scott Parker or Luka Modric, but he still remains an exquisitely talented passer of a ball – and as such Spurs would be reluctant to let him go. He may not be a starter, but as and when he recovers from injury, he's capable of bringing a game-changing vision into the side as a substitute.

The Mail also report that he has one year left on his contract, but that isn't quite as relevant as they would've hoped – there's no way Martin Jol is going all-in on a player who's been sidelined for the last nine months.

Not going to happen.



http://thepremierleagueowl.com/fulham-chasing-tom-huddlestone/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fulham-chasing-tom-huddlestone

[WhiteJC]

 
Everton, Fulham, Man Utd, Newcastle, Spurs & West Ham target on standby for London 2012

Huddersfield's Jordan Rhodes will not be part of Team GB

Huddersfield star Jordan Rhodes has missed out on a place in Stuart Pearce's Team GB squad but is on the standby list.

The 22-year-old Scotland international scored 40 goals in 46 games last season and was on the shortlist for the squad.

His form for the Terriers has led to him being linked with Everton, Fulham, Manchester United, Newcastle, Tottenham and West Ham.

However, Stuart Pearce decided to select Daniel Sturridge, Craig Bellamy, Marvin Sordell and Scott Sinclair as his strikers.



http://www.london24.com/sport/fulham/everton_fulham_man_utd_newcastle_spurs_west_ham_target_on_standby_for_london_2012_1_1428648?

[WhiteJC]

 
Premier League pair make Swiss squad

Fulham's Pajtim Kasami and Aston Villa goalkeeper Benjamin Siegrist have been named in Switzerland's squad for London 2012.


Pajtim Kasami: Named in the squad

The pair are the only British-based players included in the 18-man Olympic squad, although former West Ham midfielder Valon Behrami, now of Fiorentina, has been included as one of three over-23 team members.

Nurnberg defender Timm Klose and Wolfsburg's Diego Benaglio are the other over-age players.

Full squad:

Goalkeepers: Diego Benaglio (Wolfsburg), Benjamin Siegrist (Aston Villa).

Defenders: Francois Affolter (Werder Bremen), Fabio Daprela (Brescia), Timm Klose (Nurenberg), Michel Morganella (Novara), Ricardo Rodriguez (Wolfsburg), Fabian Schaer (Wil)

Midfielders: Valon Behrami (Fiorentina), Amir Abrashi (Grasshoppers), Fabian Frei (FC Basel), Pajtim Kasami (Fulham), Alain Wiss (Lucerne), Granit Xhaka (Borussia Moenchengladbach)

Forwards: Innocent Emeghara (Lorient), Admir Mehmedi (Dynamo Kiev), Josip Drmic (Zurich), Steven Zuber (Grasshoppers).



http://www.sportinglife.com/football/news/article/6932/7861771/premier-league-pair-make-swiss-squad?

[WhiteJC]

 
Smith & Pritchard Sign

We are pleased to confirm that Development Squad players Alex Smith and Josh Pritchard have signed contract extensions with the Club.

Alex has signed a new deal that ties him to the Club until June 2013, while Josh will remain at Fulham until June 2014.

Alex Smith captained the Development Squad to second place in the Barclays Premier Reserve League South last season. Josh Pritchard too featured heavily for the Development Squad and was also part of Kit Symons' side that defeated Blackburn Rovers in the Premier Academy League Final at Craven Cottage.



Read more: http://www.fulhamfc.com/Club/News/NewsArticles/2012/July/SmithPritchardSign.aspx?#ixzz1zcc12D8S

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham target former Chelsea frontman



FULHAM have shown an interest in former Chelsea frontman Salomon Kalou.

The Ivory Coast international is a free agent after being shown the door at Stamford Bridge following six years with the Blues.

Fulham boss Martin Jol is keen to add to his strikeforce after seeing Andy Johnson, Pavel Pogrebnyak and Orlando Sa leave Craven Cottage this summer.

The Whites have already snapped up Croatian hitman Mladen Petric, but the Chronicle understand they have also made an enquiry about Kalou.

However, Fulham face competition from Liverpool, Newcastle, Arsenal and Spurs for the 26-year-old's signature.
Kalou scored just five goals for Chelsea last season, with only one of those coming in the Premier League.


http://www.ealinggazette.co.uk/sport/fulham-fc-ealing/2012/07/03/82029-31314620/?

[WhiteJC]

 
Anfield boss to bid on Dempsey

Liverpool are preparing a bid for Fulham's Clint Dempsey but the USA star will wait to see if a Champions League club wants him.
Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers is understood to be interested in the 29-year-old American and today admitted that he was confident of making three or four "significant" signings this summer.

Dempsey has been strongly linked with the Anfield club for a while, but they failed to reach the Champions League again last season and that might affect their chances of persuading him to join.

They would still have to agree a fee with Fulham first but these days clubs tend to do their homework on targets long before it gets to that stage to gauge if the player wants to make the switch.

Fulham believe they can get up to £5million for Dempsey - who had his best season in English football last term, scoring 17 goals in 37 appearances.

Boss Martin Jol wants him to stay and may yet be able to fend off the interest from Merseyside but there may be other interested parties lurking - with Arsenal also potential bidders.



http://www.eatsleepsport.com/Fulham/Anfield-boss-to-bid-on-Dempsey--1442754.html?#.T_O74I6_wds

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham Finances



Reader Douglas McNeill wrote the following about Fulham's Finances. Enjoy...

With Euro 2012 over, the summer transfer market will soon be getting underway in earnest.  So I thought that it might be instructive to take a look at Fulham's finances.  I earn my living in the City analysing the finances of listed companies, and a football club isn't so very different.
Apart from the fact that the transfer window is open, there are a couple of other reasons why it's worth examining this subject.  First, the ideas associated with 'Moneyball' often come up for discussion on this site.  It might help us if we knew more about the kind of money Fulham has available to play this intriguing game.  Second, recent events at Glasgow Rangers suggest that conventional sports journalism is ill-equipped to hold club owners to account over their financial stewardship.  Heaven forbid that Fulham should ever go the way of Rangers – but if it did, it might help if fans were asking awkward questions before the point of no return was reached.

***

This isn't the first blog entry about football finance: take a look at the excellent Swiss Ramble and AndersRed for some superb examples.  But I want to take a slightly different approach.  First, I want to focus less on profits and more on cash flow.  That's because profitability in football is hugely skewed by the depreciation of transfer fees, and its cousin – transfer market profits and losses.  For me, it's more meaningful to look at the amount of cash coming in and going out – and I fancy that MAF thinks in those terms too.

Second, I want to try and do a bit of forecasting.  Unlike listed companies, which have to report financial results pretty soon after their fiscal year ends, football clubs usually take months to file their accounts at Companies House.  Fulham's financial year ends on 30 June, but the accounts don't typically appear in public until the following February or later.  I think that some intelligent speculation is in order to fill that gap – and help us think about our prospects in the summer transfer window.

***

So, what is there to say about the finances of 'Fulham Football Leisure Ltd'?  Here are ten observations.

1.    Chairman Mo has been wonderfully generous – but not recently.  His last big cash injection was in 2007-08, the season of the Great Escape. He put in over £20m that year, mostly to fund Sanchez's summer spree in the transfer market – Kamara, Davis, Konchesky, Baird, and others.  Hodgson spent some more when he arrived in the January, on Hangeland and (Eddie) Johnson.  The fees weren't disclosed, but it looks to me as though they cost about £3m in total.

2.    Since then, outgoings have more or less been matched by income.  And that's despite at least one relatively costly signing in each season: (Andy) Johnson in 2008-9 (the 7th place finish); Duff in 2009-10 (Hamburg); Dembele in 2010-11 (the Hughes year); and Ruiz in 2011-12.  A self-sufficient football club – now there's something you don't see every day!

3.    The Europa League has been good to us.  Sure, it doesn't bring the kind of riches you get in the Champions' League.  But we did make £12.5m out of the run to Hamburg, and I reckon we would have made £8-9m this season, despite going out at the group stage.  That's because the bulk of the TV revenue is awarded just for getting to the group stage – and the lion's share of it goes to clubs from countries with large TV markets, like England.  So that's £20m over the past three seasons.  To put that in context, it's roughly the amount we paid to buy Duff, Dembele and Ruiz.  Without the Europa League, would we have those players?

4.    But most of the money comes from the Premier League.  About half of it, in fact, just for taking part.  Then roughly another quarter comes from gate receipts – mostly league games, of course – and the Sky/ESPN/BBC deals.

5.    Our players earn about 40 grand a week.  That's my best guess, anyway.  We know that about two-thirds of the club's income goes on pay – for everyone at the club, not just the players.  Invoking the old 80/20 rule, for want of anything better, would suggest that the playing squad is collectively paid about £40m.  That's for about 60 players (!) and again, I'd guess that 80pc of it goes to the 20-odd leading players. In which case, they're getting about £40,000 a week, on average.  That ties in which press reports I've seen regarding the wages of Duff and Zamora, before he left.  Just remember – the average at big clubs is probably at least twice that.

6.    Jol has probably balanced the books in his first year.  Ruiz and others cost about £15m, and Zamora, Greening and Dikgacoi brought in about half that, leaving a shortfall that was covered by the Europa League proceeds.  But they won't recur in this coming season, so...

7.    ...Jol might have to bring in £5m more than he spends in the transfer market this year (i.e. the summer window plus the January window).  That's what I think it would take to keep cash inflow in line with cash outflow.  Of course, MAF may decide that he's willing to cover a net cash outflow.  Otherwise, a plausible scenario is that Jol raises £20m by selling Dembele and Dempsey, and gets to spend £15m of it.

8.    Alternatively, he could achieve much the same effect by not replacing the big earners who have been released this summer (Johnson and Murphy).  If they were on 40 grand a week, they'd have getting on for £5m a year between them.  That wouldn't prevent Jol making other new signings – they'd just have to be on packages similar to the other players we've released (Grygera, Riise BH, Sa and the Pog).  It's a fair bet that 31-year old Mladen Petric falls into that category.

9.    All this was probably the scenario that Hughes could see coming a year ago.  So when he talked about "lack of ambition" perhaps that's what he had in mind.

10.    Change is afoot.  First, there's the Premier League's monster new broadcasting deal with Sky and British Telecom.  Second, there's our proposed stadium expansion.  If there's enough interest, I'll write on another occasion about how these developments might affect Fulham's fortunes – and the money at Jol's disposal.

***



http://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/fulham-finances/?

[WhiteJC]

 
Martin Jol Keeping Tabs On Spurs Ace

Fulham are interested in signing Tottenham forgotten man Tom Huddlestone this summer and will touch base with their London rivals to gauge the player's availability, according to The Daily Mail.

The Cottagers are eager to find a new central midfielder after allowing Danny Murphy to leave the club to join Championship side Blackburn Rovers on a free transfer.

Craven Cottage boss Martin Jol worked with Huddlestone during his time in the White Hart Lane hotseat and is eager to give the deep-lying playmaker the opportunity of a new start at Fulham.

Huddlestone spent almost the entire 2011-12 campaign on the sidelines with long-standing injuries, making only four appearances all season for Spurs.

With Sandro, Scott Parker and Luka Modric ahead of him in the pecking order, and Jake Livermore adding competition for places, Huddlestone may well be interested in hearing of transfer opportunities.

The talented midfielder has only one year left on his contract in north London, and his future is currently up in the air somewhat.



http://www.footballfancast.com/2012/07/football-news/martin-jol-keeping-tabs-on-spurs-ace?

[NogoodBoyo]

Douglas MacNeill's essay above on the club's finances was illuminating - fascinating even.  It's very rare one sees rational analysis in the football message-board world.  Obviously, it included many assumptions, but that is understandable in the murky world of non-listed accounts.
I wonder how many of us will choose to gloss over the trifling transfer rumours of the day and concentrate on the thing that matters in FulhaMo's modern world - cash flow?
The one area he didn't cover is the club's emphasis on youth.  This is a cheaper option in terms of overhead as well as a better bet when it comes to resale value and/or return on investment - provided you pick and develop a couple of really talented gems like Southampton and Barcelona have done.
Douglas, I hope you continue to delve into Mo's vaults.  It might well dampen the irrational exuberance that comes from following Fulham in recent years, but it would give us better perspective.
Nogood "show me the money, isit" Boyo

[WhiteJC]

 
Orphans' welcome brings tear to Duff's eye

Damien Duff and brother Gerry, a sergeant in the Irish Army, with children at an orphanage in Lebanon.

DAMIEN Duff became a father last year, so a trip to an orphanage in Lebanon left the football star a little emotional yesterday.

The 33-year-old former Chelsea and Newcastle player was the centre of attention during his morale-boosting trip to Irish peacekeepers, who have helped to build the orphanage.

He admitted afterwards he had a tear in his eye as he and his brother, Gerry, a sergeant with the Irish Army, met them.

"As somebody who became a father 14 months ago, I felt for them," he said "But they are all happy and well looked after."

Most of the children are now on school holidays and they turned out to meet Damien with a poster of an Irish jersey with "Duff 11" inscribed on it.

One of the troops who could be forgiven if his thoughts stray back home is Sgt Ruairi "Archie" Byrne. His wife, Katherine, is due to give birth on July 18.

"As soon as I hear that the baby is born, I will be seeking permission to catch the first available flight home," said Archie, a Dubliner living in Ratoath, Co Meath.

- Tom Brady in Tibnin



http://www.independent.ie/national-news/orphans-welcome-brings-tear-to-duffs-eye-3158435.html?

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham, Stoke and Sunderland target will leave club if the price is right

Wolves will sell Steven Fletcher if a club offers an acceptable fee but manager Stale Solbakken does not want to see the Scot leave

Wolves boss Stale Solbakken will allow striker Steven Fletcher to leave the club if the price is right.

The Scot has been linked with a move to Sunderland, Stoke and Fulham after suffering relegation with the Black Country club last season but his new manager does not want to lose his frontman.

"Fletcher and Kevin Doyle and the other strikers are experienced players we want to continue having here," Solbakken said.

"But everyone knows that, in football, money talks.

"They're players of great value for us and at this moment in time they're Wolves players. And I hope they will be at the start of the season.'

Solbakken confirmed that no club had made a bid for the striker at the current time.

"It's one thing what we've been told and one thing what's actually on the table," he added.

"There are no offers at the moment. If there are key players who we rely on here that, for one reason or another leave the club, we must have very good players coming in to fill their roles.

"This doesn't just apply to us - this is the same is for any team. There's always one bigger fish out there that you have to keep up with."



http://www.london24.com/sport/fulham/fulham_stoke_and_sunderland_target_will_leave_club_if_the_price_is_right_1_1431028?

[WhiteJC]

 
Kasami's Call-up

The Club can confirm that midfielder Pajtim Kasami has been selected to represent Switzerland at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The 20-year-old will meet up with the Swiss Football Squad on Tuesday 10th July ahead of their first match in Group B on the 26th July.

Switzerland's fixtures

26.07.12: Gabon V Switzerland (KO 5.15pm)

29.07.12: South Korea V Switzerland (KO 5.15pm)

01.08.12: Mexico V Switzerland (KO 5pm)




http://www.fulhamfc.com/Club/News/NewsArticles/2012/July/KasamisCallup.aspx?

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham and Southampton make enquiries for Real Madrid winger Juanfran Moreno

It's been reported in Spain today that along with 5 La Liga clubs, Fulham and Southampton have made enquiries about Real Madrid's Juanfran Moreno.

The 23 year old Spanish right winger has only made 1 appearance for the Real Madrid 1st team but made 96 appearances for the B team.

He now feels he's 1st team opportunities are very limited so is looking for a move to guarantee an opportunity at regular football. Whether he would looks to move outside of Spain remains to be seen but it's interesting that we're linked with Southampton for another winger. Are we sharing the same scouts?..




http://www.cottagersconfidential.com/2012/7/4/3136682/fulham-and-southampton-make-enquiries-for-real-madrid-winger-juanfran?

[WhiteJC]

 
TOP 10 WORST PREMIER LEAGUE SIGNINGS: FULHAM

OTP revisits some of the transfers that the country's largest clubs would rather forget...

10. Gabriel Zakuani
After beginning his career at Leyton Orient, Fulham decided to spend £1million on the central defender, rising to £1.5million on appearances. They needn't have worried about that extra £500,000, as Zakuani never even made a first team appearance for the club. He joined Peterborough after three barren seasons.

9. Jon Harley
Harley was unable to break into the first team at a west London club (Chelsea), before he moved clubs and was unable to break into the first team at a west London club (Fulham). The difference was that Fulham paid £3.5million for the full back, who left on a free transfer after 25 Premier League games in three seasons.

8. Bryan Ruiz
Perhaps I am being unfair and Ruiz just hasn't settled yet, but figures of £10.6million (the fee) and two Premier League goals in 27 games (the return) after arriving from the Dutch league are Afonso Alves-like statistics. Ruiz will need to hit the ground running next season or he will move sharply up this list.

7. Andrejs Stolcers
The Latvian arrived from Spartak Moscow after just six months at the Russian club. Such was his impressive form that Fulham paid £2million for his services. Staying at Fulham for four years, he only managed to make 25 appearances, never impressing significantly, and even being loaned out to Yeovil. He ended his career at Hayes and Yeading.

6. Hamer Bouazza
Bouazza is a strange one, because he actually looks a decent player at times, but just too often goes missing for massive periods of games. Fulham paid Watford £3million for the Algerian, but he just didn't cut it in the Premier League. He moved on loan to Charlton after just one season, and then permanently to Sivasspor in Turkey on a permanent deal, with a significant loss made.

5. Abdeslam Ouaddou
Joining Fulham in 2001 for £2million, the club hoped that Ouaddou would form part of a solid defence made up primarily of Frenchmen. Given that he played just 21 times (and most of these as a substitute) in two seasons before being released on a free shows exactly why Jean Tigana's preference for French-based players didn't always pay dividends.

4. Diomansy Kamara
The signing of Kamara was a huge gamble for Fulham. They paid £6million for a player who had only scored five goals in his two previous Premier League seasons combined. The Senegal striker vowed to 'score lots of goals at Fulham'. You suspect 12 league goals in four seasons wasn't exactly what Fulham had in mind, and they loaned Kamara first to Celtic and then Leicester, before allowing his contract to expire.

3. Leon Andreasen
Bought for £2million a few days after, and for a similar price to, Brede Hangeland, Andreasen pretty much stunk the place out in his sole season at the Cottage. Joining on a three-and-a-half year deal, the Dane initially returned to Germany after six months of sub appearances and struggling for form. Hangeland, meanwhile, remained as the one Scandinavian rock.

2. Eddie Johnson
If you pay £3million for a striker in the modern era, you cannot necessarily expect him to be top scorer in the Premier League. You could, however, expect him to score a single league goal, and register more than four shots on target in the league in three seasons. Johnson was loaned out three times before finally being released, and is damn well lucky not to be at the top of this list.

1. Steve Marlet
Let's get the good bit out of the way: Marlet actually scored 11 league goals for Fulham. Unfortunately, he cost them £11.5million, played less than 15 games per season in his four campaigns (actually being on loan at Fulham's expense for two-and-a-half years), and is seen as one of the biggest wastes of money in Premier League history. So bad was Marlet that Al-Fayed actually took former manager Tigana to court, insinuating that the gaffer had deliberately overpaid for the striker, taking a cut himself. That's a hit to the ego of any player.



http://www.offthepost.info/blog/2012/07/top-10-worst-premier-league-signings-fulham/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+offthepost%2FTLAa+%28Off+The+Post%29

[WhiteJC]

 
Could Eljero Elia be having a Fulham medical today?

Reports are circulating that Juventus winger, Eljero Elia, is due to have a medical with Fulham today with a view to signing by the end of the week.

Elia is considered a pacey winger with an abundance of talent but, since his move to Serie A with the current champions, his career has taken somewhat of a downturn. He appeared four times for the Italian side while his team mates conquered their league.

Having paid 9 million Euros for the winger, it was thought Elia would flourish with Juventus but his lack of action has prompted him to hand in a transfer request which, of course, has made a deal with Fulham more appealing.

He impressed in a spell at FC Twente, where Bryan Ruiz also made his name, before moving on to Hamburg and then Juve.

On his Twitter account this morning, in English, Elia wrote: "I hope today is My Day". Read into that what you will.



http://www.cottagersconfidential.com/2012/7/4/3136762/eljero-elia-fulham-medical-today-juventus?

[WhiteJC]

 
Going For Gold

The close season is usually a time when fans eagerly count down the days until the next campaign, but the summer of 2012 has already featured one major tournament, with another still to come as football enthusiasts are kept entertained until the new Premier League season commences.

Following the conclusion of the European Championship, the Olympic Games are now just around the corner and there will be a Fulham representative competing after Pajtim Kasami was named in the Swiss squad.

"It is something that I am very much looking forward to," he told fulhamfc.com. "It will be a good experience to play there.

"It's quite nice because last season I played in the European Under-21 Championships for Switzerland and it will be a similar group of players which will be going to the Olympics as under-23s.

"The Olympics is a special tournament because it does not come along very often and you do not get the chance to play every year, so it is something which is a little different. Having three over-age players makes it quite interesting and very exciting.

"You do not always think about playing football at the Olympics when you are younger but it is always an honour to play for your country and at the Olympics it will feel like playing at the next level. I think that afterwards I'll look back and think it was very special."

Having already enjoyed success with Switzerland's youth teams, Kasami is confident that his nation can impress the British public with some good displays this summer.

"We have a strong team," Pajtim stated. "I think we already showed in the European Under-21 Championships last summer, which ensured we qualified for the Olympics [after reaching the Final], that we have a good team and we can play well against anybody.

"And some good players who are over 23 will bring a lot of experience which will be very helpful for us and can only make us stronger."



http://www.fulhamfc.com/Club/News/NewsArticles/2012/July/GoingForGold.aspx?

[WhiteJC]

 
Summer of Expectation
by CHRIS GILBERTSON on JULY 4, 2012

At the end of every day, I have the same conversation with my father.

"Any Fulham news today? No, not really."

With each passing conversation, the level is disappointment conveyed in this routine rises just another notch. This is not to say we should be disappointed, far from it in fact, but human nature is such that we crave news. The excitement that a new signing brings satiates this palate for the unexpected, if only momentarily.

If those at the top of the club's hierarchy obeyed this human nature and indulged our inner desires for new blood, we'd have signed about ten strikers already this summer. As it is, we've signed one, and a very good one at that. Mladen Petric's arrival on a free transfer has served as the warning shot for our summer intentions.

Simply put, our expectations, as fans, and as a club are rising, almost beyond our wildest dreams. In this respect, we all need to be careful, and just a tiny bit realistic. We are not Man City, but we are also not QPR. Consistent top 10 finishes makes for a genuine aspiration, not pie in the sky fantasy, as it would be for our skittish neighbours from Shepherds Bush.


Mladen Petric - Fulham's newest hitman

At Fulham, we have two superstars, a guy who cost superstar money, a superstar (or two) in the making and someone who'd be a bona fide superstar were it not for him being Norwegian, a centre back and playing for Fulham. In reality, before the Hodgson reign began, we'd have all bitten our arms off for just one player we could count as a superstar.

The fact that we now have several Champions League quality players at the club is just one of a number of factors raising expectations. After three top 10 finishes in four years and a European final, it is both natural and right that expectations begin to climb beyond mere survival.

This summer has got off to an intriguing start if nothing else, a game of chess yet to move beyond the opening gambits. Information is escaping the tightly guarded Craven Cottage confines with the indifferent nonchalance of a teacher not looking to give reports for a class of expectant pupils.

Unlike previous summers however, this one is different. Desicisions are deliberate and calculated. In 2010, Roy Hodgson waited until after the World Cup to depart for Liverpool, while last year Mark Hughes walked out on a day's notice, throwing any and all transfer and contract planning straight out the window. This year, it all makes sense. Martin Jol has been in the job a year and is clearly being able to put his stamp on the squad.

After Jol's first season and a full calendar year in the job, we can safely assume the club's network of scouts have been doing their master's bidding for some time now. Plans will have been made, and targets drawn up. Players have been let go, and I suspect there will be a few more names yet to pack their bags.

In short, we all need to be patient. I know, its not very fun is it. I want signings, and big ones at that, or at least my transfer obsessed inner child does.

The club know expectations are rising, but they also know, and value, the notion of reining them in. With Karim Fayed now firmly entrenched on the board, there are two generations of Al-Fayed's with vested interests in this club's fortunes. That can be no bad thing.

Youth development and promotion, targeted first team signings, a new roof on the Johnny Haynes Stand and the yet to be determined Riverside Stand planning application – these are just a few of the pressing topics on the desks of the powers that be. That's not to mention keeping the two superstars, Moussa Dembele and Clint Dempsey, or I suspect in Dempsey's case, getting the best price possible.

With all this to do, perhaps its no wonder news has been a little slow. If there's ever been a time for one of those "keep calm and carry on" posters, now is the time. News will come, and with a year's worth of planning, perhaps, just maybe, it'll be worth the wait.

COYW



http://hammyend.com/index.php/2012/07/summer-of-expectation/?

[WhiteJC]

 
Fulham told they'll need £10million for Steven Fletcher

Wolves have told Fulham that Steven Fletcher will cost them £10million.

Fletcher is seeking a move away from Molineux but new Wolves manager Stale Solbakken insists the Scottish international will not be allowed to leave on the cheap.

Sunderland are thought to be leading the race to secure Fletcher's signature while Stoke are also interested.

Solbakken said: "There are no offers at the moment. If there are key players who we rely on here that, for one reason or another leave the club, we must have very good players coming in to fill their roles."



http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/fulham-told-theyll-need-10million-for-steven-fletcher-7912004.html