Tight financial constraints?

[Pluto]

Come on, we have a good set of players, the best we have ever had.

The issue is that we have a number of players who are too similar and can't play together

The quality of football is well below what our players should be producing.

I think it is Jol's first salvo to save face if he is pushed. He should not be making comments like this.

Certainly ten years ago some of our players were very good.

We had a better midfield ten years ago I'd say- the likes of Malbranque, Legwinski, Luis Boa, John Collins and Sean Davis in his prime, were all phenomenal players for us.

Kacaniklic, Sidwell, Parker, Kasami.....how many of those would you put in over the above?

[WolverineFFC]

Come on, we have a good set of players, the best we have ever had.

The issue is that we have a number of players who are too similar and can't play together

The quality of football is well below what our players should be producing.

I think it is Jol's first salvo to save face if he is pushed. He should not be making comments like this.

It appears to me that Mr Jol has been on damage limitation for some time.
Can't blame him really.  Poor results for almost an entire season, poor performances, poor judgement regarding new players and a new owner.  How many managers survive this.

This is what I believe is happening too.

I really don't believe he has had anything less than to spend than Woy did.

[Logicalman]

After reading the article the other week, it seems clear that the  financial fair play mechanism is hitting us, (and other medium/mid table clubs) very hard. This is backed up by us trying to offload high wage earners like JAR. The small clubs who've come up have small wage bills, so are not affected. The top teams all voted for it as their huge Saturday takings (due either to exorbitant ticket prices in small stadiums or low ticket prices in large capacity stadiums) mean they are not affected by FFP. FFP protects already established rich clubs and stifles small to medium club growth. That's why all the big clubs voted for it and we were against it tooth and nail.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it only clubs playing in Europe, and therefore affilated with UEFA, that are bound by FFP?

Also there are some big clubs blatently flaunting it.....Chelsea, City etc. And as far as I can tell UEFA have no actual way of enforcing it so why would we be affected.........?

Also it doesn't seem to have stopped clubs like Cardiff from spending £40million.......

There was an earlier thread on this, and I believe when I looked up the regulations, if my memory serves me correctly, it was balanced over a three year period, and therefore for the first two years there would be no actual difference calculated, or something to that effect.

[Johnh]

Although it may seem that our funding is limited, if we were to know the entire season budgets to include wages, transfer fees, agent fees etc Fulham would probably be about mid table in the premier league, clubs such as Swansea and Norwich had a wage bill £20m or more lower than us last season, hence why they had more for transfer fees and wages this season, the same would go for palace, Cardiff and hull.

Newcastle and stoke, with wage bills at a similar level to us were also very restricted in the transfer market this summer, to highlight that point.

[leonffc]

The rumour I heard was free asked to go and wanted a move to turkey, if that's true then no point keeping a player who doesn't want to be at the club.

Could've been homesick i suppose.  

For where he grew up in Switzerland? Or his country of birth Austria?

I suspect it was more to do with international football prospects. And the weather  :008:

[Berserker]

and now Mancini

[MasterHaynes]

Come on, we have a good set of players, the best we have ever had.

The issue is that we have a number of players who are too similar and can't play together

The quality of football is well below what our players should be producing.

I think it is Jol's first salvo to save face if he is pushed. He should not be making comments like this.

Certainly ten years ago some of our players were very good.

We had a better midfield ten years ago I'd say- the likes of Malbranque, Legwinski, Luis Boa, John Collins and Sean Davis in his prime, were all phenomenal players for us.

Kacaniklic, Sidwell, Parker, Kasami.....how many of those would you put in over the above?

Very good question, I was in the 'best squad we've had' group but if you extend question to the rest of that team to the current it's very difficult to argue that this is the best squad we have ever had.