Did Jol get it right?

[Enter the Frei]

I don't think there was any chance no matter who our manager was that Dempsey would have stayed. He was ambitous and wanted champions league football something we were never going to be able to offer him so lets not use it as another stick to beat Jol with.

Additionally I don't think getting £6 mil for Bobby Zamora can be seen as anything other than excellent business especially considering his age, the way he has played for QPR, his goalscoring record and the replacements that have come in since. We were an ageing squad when Jol took over and if we had kept both Bobby and AJ like some in this thread seem to be hinting at then we would have two more sick note 30+ players and I'm sure we'd have more complaints about that.

I never said that we should have kept them until now. The problem is that the players we replaced them with aren't the sort of players who do well with a strong, quick attacking plan. We got those early results because we had an attack that pressured defenses and turned them with speed. We haven't built towards that sort of team since Jol came in. The difference between those results and results now, is that in his first season, Jol had a bunch of players he didn't want. Now his squad is filled with players he does want. In his first season, we struck fear into opposing defenses at time. Now we don't. This is the difference that Jol has made at Fulham.

Oh, and thanks for confirming that THE CLUB sold Zamora. He didn't flounce off to QPR. He was sold.

The club did sell Zamora, but it's undeniable that he definately wanted to leave and the deal was definitely in the best interests of our club.

I agree with what your saying in the first paragraph because the fact remains that we haven't replaced our 3 biggest influences that we lost over a season ago effectively. Dembele, Dempsey and Murphy were all massively important to the way we played in Jol's first season and all very difficult for a club like us to replace, but at the same time it was probably the right time for them all to go.