A reason to pause in our celebrations

[HatterDon]

According to the data I've been able to find, the closing of this transfer period leaves us with a first team squad that features:

5 players who are on loan until the end of the season AND
9 additional players whose contracts expire at the end of the season.

This means that more than half the players in the first team squad may have to be replaced this summer. This is the exact opposite of stability. We have to start having the courage of our convictions and take a chance on signing players to contracts that last longer than just one season. otherwise we'll never be able to build a squad that has some continuity over time. I'd submit that a HEALTHY side would be one where no more than 5 players have less than 6 months on their contracts. 14 players in that category is a little frightening.

[Humbled]

3 of the 5 that we know of have an option of a further 2 years I believe.....
But I agree I am personally not so keen on so many out of contract at the end of the summer.... But I think next summer could possibly be massive changes and rebuilding.

[God The Mechanic]

It definitely isn't ideal, however it does give the club a chance to buy Jol's team (if he still has full backing, which I assume he does...).

Fortunately (I think) there are unlikely to be any stand out players this year that the bigger boys want, so as long as deals are offered I wouldn't have thought there should be too much competition for most of them.

Who of those who are up this year would you absolutely, definitely want to keep, rather than would just like to?

[Holders]

One has to assume that it's in hand by those who know better than we. The risk, of course, is of losing players with a decent value now for nothing in the summer (e.g.Hangeland). Once again, the club has made a judgement on that from their knowledge of the contract negotiations. 

[Snibbo]

I think you've been in pessimistic mode for a while HD. Partly understandable.

The other side of the coin is that we had an ageing squad that needed a total refresh,and I think that's what's happening. I think at least Schwarzer, Hughes, Riise, Hangeland, Baird, Davies, Duff, Diarra of the 'senior' players will be gone in the summer. Kara too of course. Of those, only Duff could claim to be still playing as well as he has in recent years. And they're not going to get any better.

It's hard, but football is a ruthless business. This will be Jol's opportunity to really make it his team.

[HatterDon]

I think you've been in pessimistic mode for a while HD. Partly understandable.

The other side of the coin is that we had an ageing squad that needed a total refresh,and I think that's what's happening. I think at least Schwarzer, Hughes, Riise, Hangeland, Baird, Davies, Duff, Diarra of the 'senior' players will be gone in the summer. Kara too of course. Of those, only Duff could claim to be still playing as well as he has in recent years. And they're not going to get any better.

It's hard, but football is a ruthless business. This will be Jol's opportunity to really make it his team.

So, where do you assume we'll get the money to buy 14 new players and sign them to a contract longer than one year? We haven't had that kind of money relative to the market since we were signing Premiership players while we were in the 2nd and 3rd tier.

The only way we can replace 14 players this summer is by more loans and one year contracts. And then the next summer and then the next. This is no way to build stability and certainly no way to create a consistently mid-table team.

[btings]

Agreed.

[hongkongfulham]

I get that the turnover could be drastic but next season we could have Chris David 20, Urby Emanuelson (27, no option but if it all works out then why not), Stanislav Manolev (27, option), Eyong Enoh (27, option).

Contracts expire for:

Riether 30 - if we dont take the option i would be disgruntled
Hangeland 31 - Think hes waiting to see if a bigger club comes in for him, if not he will sign on and we will dea debaclel with that in the summer.
Frimpong - dont see him wanting to move after loan.
baird 30 - could be gone given the west brom interest
Senderos? 27 - Maybe a promotion side will come in for him, but i think its up to us
Diarra 31 - Dodgy knees, think its up to us, dont see another club coming in.
Petric 32 - Touch and go, he loves london apparently, not getting in the first XI. I think he will get another year, again dont see another team coming in.
Davies 33 - Won't know until we see how his injury recovery is. but he is 33.
schwarzer 40 - Dont think we will renew, but i think a keeper will come in summer.
Karagounis 35 - showed loads of energy, wouldnt be abject to a 1 year. BUt dont see another club coming in for him.


Basically, im just mirroing what God the MEchanic is saying.

We have the option of bringing in players in their prime and offloading those that are older, but the choice APPEARS to be ours. We will decide who we want on board and say cheerio to those older players we dont require given the new personnel. Baird, schwarzer and Hangeland are the main concerns leaving, but Enoh and manolev cover baird and we will just have to make signings based on brede and marks situation.

I realised ive just typed out what other people ahve said but i needed to clear things up for myself after the window too.

But im happy, at this point 8 teams are worse off than us, our GD is good by comparison to them and we have just had a quite terrible run of form.

I hope some of what i just wrote is legible, i gats to go to work.

[Roberty]

I presume you are talking about the capital cost of replacing players and not their salaries.

Given that it is becoming increasingly popular for good players to run down their contracts it will not be necessary to pay a fee to the current club for all of the players we need other than out of contract young players who would incur a development fee. Their are also going to be a lot of relegated club who will need to move their best (most expensive) players on - Reither for instance - and we will not actually need to find 14 "first choice" players.

It also seems that Jol has a loyal following of good players at other European clubs who, much to our surprise perhaps, actually look forward to joining a club where he is the Manager.

[JackyFulham90]

Jol has already said that some of these players trigger an extension f they play a certain amount of games

[Snibbo]

I presume you are talking about the capital cost of replacing players and not their salaries.

Given that it is becoming increasingly popular for good players to run down their contracts it will not be necessary to pay a fee to the current club for all of the players we need other than out of contract young players who would incur a development fee. Their are also going to be a lot of relegated club who will need to move their best (most expensive) players on - Reither for instance - and we will not actually need to find 14 "first choice" players.

It also seems that Jol has a loyal following of good players at other European clubs who, much to our surprise perhaps, actually look forward to joining a club where he is the Manager.

Exactly. Plus it is likely that the replacements will not be on the relatively big money that the likes of Riise, Hangeland, Schwarzer are on, so the wage bill can be contained (unlike that circus up the road)

What's the alternative, keep our ageing players until they are well and truly past it?

[Edwatch_Winston_Malone]

On the bright side, I bet QPR wish they could turn around their squad as easily.  There is a down side to buying players on long contracts.  If they are pony, you could be stuck with them...

[MasterHaynes]

The one player I have a real concern over losing that no one has mentioned is Sascha Reither, one of the best full backs we have ever had. I'm sure his peformances and consistency has alerted a number of clubs, just hoping he really likes Fulham and Jol and happy to stay.

[L-Wizzy]

Its the clear out that waas predicted like a season ago, jol needs players that know how to play his sytem, its either jols way or no way, thus zamora and aj got sold,

We bought in enoh because he knows how dutch clubs play there cm and he is used to it

[SG]

One thing to remember HD is that the club have a target of having 40% of the first team squad being brought through from the Academy for 2014 season - that is 10 players. Only they know whether that figure is achievable but there has been heavy investment in that area and the U21 team regularly consists of all young lads. If it is achievable then they do not want a whole host of senior players on long term contracts.

[Roberty]

On the bright side - what ever money we had is still in the bank.

The accounts were to 30 June 2012 and financially the club has done well since then. Given our debt free status a mortgage to build the new stand cannot be ruled out if the cash reserves are required for the players needed to fill it when it is finished

MAF made his support quite clear this week and I would be sure he is not going give up on his ambition to leave a lasting legacy for our club. The MAF stand will be a fitting reminder of his benevolence to our club.

[A Humble Man]

If you cannot afford to buy players loans are the only answer.  Two of them are loans with options to buy so that is a sensible move as more money will be available as the increased TV income kicks in.  We still have a small and quite old squad so it will be an opportunity to replace the players who are fringe ones or whose powers are seriously waning.  The summer will see this logical movement in and out.

[Roberty]

If you cannot afford to buy players loans are the only answer.  Two of them are loans with options to buy so that is a sensible move as more money will be available as the increased TV income kicks in.  We still have a small and quite old squad so it will be an opportunity to replace the players who are fringe ones or whose powers are seriously waning.  The summer will see this logical movement in and out.

If we can afford it or not is still to be seen, but what it does show is that you can aquire the services of good players without having to invest any capital in them.

It would not be wrong to suggest that we can perhaps borrow better players or more better players than we could afford to buy.

[TonyGilroy]

I don't think money is the issue exactly.

We haven't paid any fees this window yet there appears to have been serious attempts to try to spend some. It really is impossible to make sense of all the media crap and try to find the small amount that might be true but the Huddlestone, Steklenburg and Boateng rumours at least appear to have had legs and who knows what else.

The questions I'd like the answers to are who we wanted to bring in and why we failed. It's obviously right not to overspend but we do need to be competitive with our equals. Are we being careful, shrewd, naive, unrealistic?

I'm neither excited or disappointed by our four new players because for me they're unknown quantities but they all seem to have been brought in at the 11th hour presumably because our top choices were unobtainable.

[A Humble Man]

If you cannot afford to buy players loans are the only answer.  Two of them are loans with options to buy so that is a sensible move as more money will be available as the increased TV income kicks in.  We still have a small and quite old squad so it will be an opportunity to replace the players who are fringe ones or whose powers are seriously waning.  The summer will see this logical movement in and out.

If we can afford it or not is still to be seen, but what it does show is that you can aquire the services of good players without having to invest any capital in them.

It would not be wrong to suggest that we can perhaps borrow better players or more better players than we could afford to buy.

Our season was unbalanced by Moussa leaving so unexpectedly without time to replace him.  We have now acquired a player with similar attributes, lets hope he can have the same impact.   The other factor is new players sharpen up the existing squad who do not want to be replaced as a loan can become permanent.