How are we viewing this season?

[Andy_M]

How are we viewing this season? I've heard many opinions such as:
- Difficult second season
- Season of transition
- Never recovered from the sale of Dembele and Dempsey
- Diarra's injury being key as we haven't had a settled midfield
OR is it just a standard Fulham season, a mixture of overachieving and underachieving and ultimately ending up somewhere in the middle. Typical 'Fulhamish'?!

My personal view is that after the sale of Dembele and with no replacement  for him in either window, that this is being viewed by Jol and the board as a season of transition. I kind of feel now that Berbatov was a signing to keep the fans happy and take the focus away from the fact that we were left very short in midfield and had made so few signings. With so many first team players in the final year of their contract and so many loan signings I'm fairly sure we will see a significant overhaul in the playing staff in the summer. I think we will see people leaving on frees, players sold (such as Kasami and Stockdale), promotion of some of our promising youth to the first team squad and a number of signings, I think we currently have 3 players on loan with options to buy them (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I think Enoh, Manolev and most crucially Riether), surely these wouldn't have been put in place if we didn't have a solid interest in them.

Also with Al Fayed writing off his loans this gives the club a debt free position to work from and with the increased TV revenue we will receive next season I can see that some of this will be used to finance the new stand and the rest I hope will be allocated to transfer and wage budgets.

I could of course be totally wrong, but I don't see us getting dragged into trouble this season and it's just going to be a boring mid-table season but hopefully next season will have more to offer.

[JackyFulham90]

We still have a chance of a top 10 season, its a tough league that would represent a good season

[Andy_M]

We still have a chance of a top 10 season, its a tough league that would represent a good season

I think we'll finish around the middle i.e. 9th, 10th, or 11th. Either way I'm not looking at it as a bad season given that our most used central midfield pairing has been Baird and Sidwell, I think if you'd have told me that at the start of the season I'd have been seriously worried.

[Holders]

Top 10 would be success but I think more likely around 13th. Either way it can't but be disappointing given what might have been.

[cottage cheese]

or we just have no money?

[nose]

I was very critical of jol last season and was assured on various message board's that LAST season was a season of transition and this season we would hum. Unfortunately when the Moose left we got berba a very talented playerin at short notice. But he really hasn't worked out and the games he doesn't play in we have looked a far better balanced team with more pace and purpose.
Jol will not drop berba or ruiz and betweeen the two of them they slow play doown to snalis pace. The manager is sleep walking us to mediocrity. I honestly think we have gone backwards, it is not transition, because jol will not drop ruiz or berba and until he resolves that we will struggle. one or the other, otherwise the team is distabilised, like gerrard and lampard shouldn't really play in the same midfiled for england, both great players but together it doesn't work!

[nose]

Oh and ny measure of success for the manager is he making the best of what he has, the issue of money is somethingelse. Wuith the squad we have I believe top 8 was not unreasonable.

[cottage cheese]

Oh and ny measure of success for the manager is he making the best of what he has, the issue of money is somethingelse. Wuith the squad we have I believe top 8 was not unreasonable.

I think top 8 is out of our reach with the current squad. We do not have a settled midfield that dominates games, over the last few months we always have had to chase games rather than control them which stems from our weak central mid.

[Andy_M]

I was very critical of jol last season and was assured on various message board's that LAST season was a season of transition and this season we would hum. Unfortunately when the Moose left we got berba a very talented playerin at short notice. But he really hasn't worked out and the games he doesn't play in we have looked a far better balanced team with more pace and purpose.
Jol will not drop berba or ruiz and betweeen the two of them they slow play doown to snalis pace. The manager is sleep walking us to mediocrity. I honestly think we have gone backwards, it is not transition, because jol will not drop ruiz or berba and until he resolves that we will struggle. one or the other, otherwise the team is distabilised, like gerrard and lampard shouldn't really play in the same midfiled for england, both great players but together it doesn't work!

Think that is a bit generalised as they have worked very well together in certain games. Arsenal away sticks in the memory as a game where Ruiz and Berba linked up throughout and looked to be forming a great partnership. Ruiz then picked up a knock and we lost Diarra and we haven't ever looked the same team we were when people on this messageboard were discussing the possibility of Europe in the first months of the season!

[nose]

I was very critical of jol last season and was assured on various message board's that LAST season was a season of transition and this season we would hum. Unfortunately when the Moose left we got berba a very talented playerin at short notice. But he really hasn't worked out and the games he doesn't play in we have looked a far better balanced team with more pace and purpose.
Jol will not drop berba or ruiz and betweeen the two of them they slow play doown to snalis pace. The manager is sleep walking us to mediocrity. I honestly think we have gone backwards, it is not transition, because jol will not drop ruiz or berba and until he resolves that we will struggle. one or the other, otherwise the team is distabilised, like gerrard and lampard shouldn't really play in the same midfiled for england, both great players but together it doesn't work!

Think that is a bit generalised as they have worked very well together in certain games. Arsenal away sticks in the memory as a game where Ruiz and Berba linked up throughout and looked to be forming a great partnership. Ruiz then picked up a knock and we lost Diarra and we haven't ever looked the same team we were when people on this messageboard were discussing the possibility of Europe in the first months of the season!

Strangely I absolutely agree with everything you say but you pick out a single game. As the season has progressed the opposition has rumbled how to play us. Berba drops too deep and wanders off all over the place, ruiz takes too many touches and gets caught in possesion, together they slow the pace of the game. We have played for too long without a center forward, or rather somebody to lead the line and hold  that position. Only recently have we seen rodelga being given a few games in this role and we look better. I would prefer to see petric and rodelga playing as a two man man forward line with ruiz just behind them, I absolutely believe that Berba should not be re-introduced until he becomes much more of a proper team player holding his own position. He is wonderfully talented but is not effective enough if he doesn't hurt the opposition, and too often he doesn't. I also thought we might make europe, but as the season went on Jol did not adjust the team style to cope with how the opposition played us. My opinion, jol has nearly a fully fit squad available, I hope we see a few more dynamic performances from the team.

[nose]

Oh and ny measure of success for the manager is he making the best of what he has, the issue of money is somethingelse. Wuith the squad we have I believe top 8 was not unreasonable.

I think top 8 is out of our reach with the current squad. We do not have a settled midfield that dominates games, over the last few months we always have had to chase games rather than control them which stems from our weak central mid.

Yes I meant I believed earlier in the season top 8 was a possibility, not now. The team is not settled and we have clearly a big problem in the centre of midfield.

[Lighthouse]

Viewing the season through tired eyes and a stifled yawn. Dull at times despite enough talent to make it better.

[MJG]

I feel this is a wasted season. The way the league has panned out we had a great opportunity to maybe get at least 7th place again.

Its not so much the losing of the 2 D's but the failure first to get a replacement CM in for Murphy to compete for a place with Diarra & Dembele. And then to lose Dembele and not push the boat out before the window for a replacement (even if we only had a day or two to get someone, we must have had targets we could have gone for) has cost us the season.

I see people call it a transition season. I don't see that, what i see is next season being another transition season.
If Jol stays and we lose maybe Hangeland and a couple of the others who's contracts are up, we would need to find replacements. Replacements who should have been BOUGHT in January (especially if from abroad) to give them 6 months to bed into the team and premier lge.

Youth also should have been given more of a chance. CM's from the u21's or even Kasami should have had a go at the CM's roles. Jol for me does not give the youngsters enough chances. he tends to drop them straightaway after a poor game while other players keep their place.

As I said at the start.....a wasted season.

[The Rock]

One point that everyone seems to overlook is that it's a business. If MAF tells Jol "I want mid table  - what do you think it will take?" then Jol is being paid to acheive that goal. Oops - lost Dembele and got Berbaov - so then we finish 12th.

I think this has been the bar the whole time after we were promoted ~12 years ago. Tigana the Coleman did ok. Sanchez was a mistake, Roy a job well done and Jol not bad so far.

These are still exciting times, and the league is more difficult than it has ever been, but MAF is the boss and its still a results business. With Fulham there will always be room for improvement.

[NorfolkJim]

For me its proving to be a very mediocre season and one where I'm finding it very hard to get to games due to finances and non Saturday games / games moved. On the field I'm seeing nothing to inspire or excite me. Losing Dembele and Dempsey put paid to quite a good start and now we have an unsettled team that I'll be pleased to see keep out of the relegation scramble. If I was going to miss a lot of games then this is the season when I'd be least unhappy about it.
Hopefully we will pick up next season but about half this league are now touting megamoney we can't compete against. I live in hope of more European adventures or maybe seeing Fulham at Wembley but I've no idea if I ever will. Fortunately on the pitch success isn't the be all and end all for me, but I don't know about our next generation of supporters.

[A Humble Man]

I am viewing this season through rose coloured spectacles as you have to do as a Fulham supporter or you sink into a deep depression.

[Burt]

Inconsistent. Average.

But hopefully another season in the Premier beckons, which for a club of our size and resources is a great achievement.

Glass half full.

[LBNo11]

...I agree with nose...

[filham]

Nothing great has been achieved this season , we have not done well in any competition, no new regular pattern of play has been seen and no youngsters have progressed in the premiership ( Frei, Kaca and Briggs have not lived up to expectations). The only star of hope has been at right back where on loan Reither has regularly put in good erformances.

However it is too early to make final judgements, there are 12 matches left and we have made 4 new on loan signings, lets hope the team can put together some good performances that will form a sound basis for next season.

[Tonywa]

Our midfield has been ripped apart since last season and for various reasons, some totally out of the hands of the manager to circumvent, long-term replacements have not been signed. Given the way things have panned out, I should be extremely happy with twelfth or thirteenth place and avoiding a relegation fight.  Riether has been a huge plus and hopefully the balance and composition of the squad will be attended to in the summer with reinforcements needed right across the pitch from goalkeeper to the front.   Biggest disappointments - that Frei and Kaca have not really pushed on and that Kasami has not been given a chance even when our midfield was desperately short of numbers.   If a seemingly-promising youngster youngster like him, for whom we paid a sizeable fee by our standards, is placed in the pecking order behind a classy, but ageing player like Karagounis and the likes of Tavares then something is obviously amiss.  Not sure I see Briggs as a viable alternative even to a largely lacklustre JAR.