Being realistic....!?

[AlFayedsChequebook]

From the very end of the last transfer window I have said we would struggle. Jol was unable to bring in enough players and lost our two best players. I have said we have a poor squad and that given a few injury problems we would struggle. This may all come to pass.

As for Jol signing a contract. The point is we failed in the last transfer window and January window is always the poor relation because few people have to move half way through the season. Jol has stated he likes recognition and isn't used to having his job ignored by the media. Jol has done a great job with a limited squad. But we are still inconsistant in games especially when a few players are injured. So the arguments will go on if the squad now is as good as the squad was when Jol first came in. Not Jols fault. People laugh at Mark Hughes and his comment about ambition. Although we are short as a squad when we were on the verge of something better.

This season Berbatov has eased the pain. But the fact remains Berbatov is unigue and we have to play to his strengths. This shouldn't take away from the fact that we are likely to struggle this season. But then I have said this from day one of this season and can only be pleased with how Jol has made things happen with only two class players.

However a few good results shouldn't hide our problems anymore than a few bad ones should make the problems bigger than they always were.

We are 100% correct to laugh at Mark Hughes and his ambition comments. Look at where he got QPR - a huge wage bill and overrated and overpriced players. We dodged a huge bullet there. Without a sensible club strategy and a Chairman/CEO who are not afraid to refuse to indulge various managers transfer whims we would be screwed and no doubt out of existence sooner rather than later.

We have hit a glass ceiling. We will NEVER be a consistent top 6 side, so consistently reaching the top 10 is the best we can hope for. No amount of realistic investment would push us any further than we are now. With financial fair play coming in, this will be even more deeply entrenched and could see us gradually slide back to the Championship.

At the moment we are struggling. You are right when you say the transfer windows did not go as planned, but we are not that far from having a very capable squad. A new defender and a new CM and we'll be laughing. I dont think we have a limited squad at all, simply one limited by injuries/suspension. If we had all our players available for every game, we'd be comfortably top 10. Lets hope our luck turns in the new year.

Hughes and his ambition and the clubs opinion as shared with many of the glass ceiling actually bares out his comment. He was right in saying his (overblown ambition) would not be met by the club if the club agreed that they have reached the glass ceiling and will never be able to break through it. As the club did not want to spend money and do sell their best players and are happy to fill in with older players until replaced by the odd youth player.

Ah the endless debate

I still fail to see how not spending vastly beyond your means is admitting that you have reached a glass ceiling?

Fulham are a mid to small sized club. We were plucked from relative obscurity by MAF and are now sitting in a great position in the premier league. The problem is we do not have the fan base to support a top 6 team. Support has been gradually built up to a good level and we are now at the point to stadium expansion to 30,000. This is fantastic news, but still leaves us way off the regular top 6 sides. In reality, the last 15 or so years have sealed Fulham's future as a club and this will ultimately be MAF's biggest legacy.

As for selling our players - what would you suggest the club should have done differently? Both Dembele and Dempsey had a year left on their contracts and turned down incredibly lucrative offers to stay. Even if we had the ability to offer more than Spurs/Utd/Chelsea, that still would not have guaranteed they stayed.

I'm sorry Lighthouse, but you're going to have to accept that Fulham will never be a regular top 6 team. The club has done a great job of building itself back up since the arrival of MAF but there is a limit to the success.

Please try to enjoy Fulham now rather than spend your life lamenting the fact we are not dining at the top, top table. Because who knows what the future will bring.

[Lighthouse]

AlFayedsChequebook - I was only using your comment - 'We have hit a glass ceiling. We will NEVER be a consistent top 6 side, so consistently reaching the top 10 is the best we can hope for. No amount of realistic investment would push us any further than we are now. With financial fair play coming in, this will be even more deeply entrenched and could see us gradually slide back to the Championship.'

'Spending vastly beyond our means' may well be what Hughes wanted. However what I wanted was not quite that. If we had been able to hang onto our best players. Improved the squad and added the quality then there would still be a glass ceiling only it would be higher. As it is we have what we have. The situation we are in at present is no shock as I predicted it and being me, predicted much worse.

I now do accept and have done since the end of the transfer window that we can at best be what we have already achieved. Nothing wrong in that. My point was that Hughes made the point about HIS ambition. He may have been an idiot and may be a bad manager. As I have said before I rated him at Fulham. But the ambition of the club is as stated. Hughes thought as did I at the time that we were capable of pushing on to the next level, a top six place. But the club decided not to. Sell our best and bring in old men when needed. They were probably correct.

That is fine and I think we all must content ourselves with that. However it shows a lesser ambition than the one Hughes thought the club could achieve. At the time I agreed with him. Clearly we are in no position now and will never likely be in that position again. I lament nothing. Just stating the facts as I saw them at the time.

[epsomraver]

As hard as grieves me Beamer I agree with all you say, there is another thread going along these same lines.

[AlFayedsChequebook]

AlFayedsChequebook - I was only using your comment - 'We have hit a glass ceiling. We will NEVER be a consistent top 6 side, so consistently reaching the top 10 is the best we can hope for. No amount of realistic investment would push us any further than we are now. With financial fair play coming in, this will be even more deeply entrenched and could see us gradually slide back to the Championship.'

'Spending vastly beyond our means' may well be what Hughes wanted. However what I wanted was not quite that. If we had been able to hang onto our best players. Improved the squad and added the quality then there would still be a glass ceiling only it would be higher. As it is we have what we have. The situation we are in at present is no shock as I predicted it and being me, predicted much worse.

I now do accept and have done since the end of the transfer window that we can at best be what we have already achieved. Nothing wrong in that. My point was that Hughes made the point about HIS ambition. He may have been an idiot and may be a bad manager. As I have said before I rated him at Fulham. But the ambition of the club is as stated. Hughes thought as did I at the time that we were capable of pushing on to the next level, a top six place. But the club decided not to. Sell our best and bring in old men when needed. They were probably correct.

That is fine and I think we all must content ourselves with that. However it shows a lesser ambition than the one Hughes thought the club could achieve. At the time I agreed with him. Clearly we are in no position now and will never likely be in that position again. I lament nothing. Just stating the facts as I saw them at the time.

I'm not sure where the idea that Hughes thought Fulham could push to the next level comes from? I dont remember him saying that Fulham were on the verge of great things or pushing up in the table. What I do remember is Hughes flirting with the idea of better paid and bigger managerial jobs (Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Villa) before leaving and covering his ass with this 'ambition' schtick, which backfired with hilarious consequences. Hughes did a decent job at Fulham, but the reasons for him moving were less to do with ambition, and more to do with Kia Joorabchian.

I also dont see how we missed an opportunity either - look at the core of that team - Murphy was not fit to be the key player in a top 6 team, Zamora and AJ have gone completely off the rails since, Dempsey had a career season last year but has struggled this season and all the other players were getting a year older. Dembele is was the only player who could rightfully claim to be in that bracket and he had always said he was going to move on to bigger and better things.

What was needed was a rebuild of an older squad. Hughes balked at this when he was not allowed to spend £20m on Pablo Osvaldo (who is good but we needed to retool with £40m as a total budget max) and Jol has come in and made some big strides towards a new team whilst not spending ridiculous sums. Ruiz, Berbatov, Diarra and Petric are all genuine class players at a level above what we have had previously. Had Dembele stayed we would have been a real force. But there was an element of the club dropping the ball with midfield players in the last transfer window because they thought Dembele would stay. There is money in the bank and Jol has always publicly said he has money to spend, so whilst the older players are the back-up for now, I have no doubts we will spend some decent money bringing in new faces in january.

[alexbishop]

I think Jol will leave in the summer. I think a bigger club will come in for him and pay the compensation for his one year extension. Jol has said numerous times he likes to be appreciated at a football club and has mentioned our fans are "old school" and he doesn't feel completely accepted here yet.

[A Humble Man]

It would be sad if Jol left because its fans are not ambitious.  If we continue to produce quality young players that we can profit with both on the pitch and on the market.  Arsenal have grown gradually through having a genius manager who buys cheap and sells high and their is no reason why we cannot grow in the same way.

The main factor that holds us back is our priceless old stadium that defines us more than any other team.  If we can eventually have a Cottage that can hold 50,000 we can become a top four team.

This all depends on Jol being sold on such a vision and staying for 10-15 years to make it happen.