Stefan Velkov

[peckyboy]

Reports on Twitter say the Bulgarian media are reporting we've signed Ex Man U target Stefan Velkov on a 5 year deal

[bulgariawhite]

Stefan Velkov 19.jpg
Personal information
Full name   Stefan Ivov Velkov
Date of birth    12 December 1996 (age 17)
Place of birth   Sofia, Bulgaria
Height   1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)
Playing position   Centre-back
Club information
Current team
Slavia Sofia
Number   19
Youth career
2005–2013   Slavia Sofia
Senior career*
Years   Team   Apps†   (Gls)†
2013–   Slavia Sofia   20   (0)
National team‡
2011–2012   Bulgaria U16   5   (0)
2012–2013   Bulgaria U17   21   (1)
2013–   Bulgaria U19   3   (0)
2013–   Bulgaria U21   5   (1

[General]

Any good? He's young. 17 and playing for his countries U21's... Also scored a goal in his five under twenty one appearances to date. Apart from that don't know anything...

[Bradstow]

http://www.vivaelfulham.co.uk/news/fulham-sign-velkov-13-425.html

[cmg]

For a start 5 years for a 17 year old cannot be right unless the regulations are different for players imported from abroad.

[dannyboi-ffc]

Im pleased were signings players but im getting fed up of signing players ive never heard of. Its hard to get excited over someone you have no idea is going to be good or bad. Also would love to see some youngish english players brought in. We have too many foreigners.

[Deanothefulhamfan]

Im sorry Danny, but I disagree.... We are in the championship now, so we have to widen our scouting range (something we should have done a while ago) some of these unknowns may turn out to be an incredible signing, this really excites me if truth be told, as we have no idea what to expect.

We are in the process of a complete rebuild, I am sure we will sign more players before the window closes and you will no doubt know some of these names, but in the meantime don't fear the unknown

[dannyboi-ffc]

Im sorry Danny, but I disagree.... We are in the championship now, so we have to widen our scouting range (something we should have done a while ago) some of these unknowns may turn out to be an incredible signing, this really excites me if truth be told, as we have no idea what to expect.

We are in the process of a complete rebuild, I am sure we will sign more players before the window closes and you will no doubt know some of these names, but in the meantime don't fear the unknown

I do fear it though cos for every gem we find theres always a runstrom or a zverotic. If these 17/18 year olds are being signed on potential alone and no established values developed yet then why cant we sign another dan burn? Like you said we are championship so why not scout a league one 17 year old instead and give them an opportunity. I would like 6 english men in our starting 11 majority of matches but that will never happen if we are still always looking at kids abroad.

I see what your saying that its exciting but wouldnt it be even more exciting if we had 5 or 6 english lads under 24 in our team

[Sammyffc]

Im sorry Danny, but I disagree.... We are in the championship now, so we have to widen our scouting range (something we should have done a while ago) some of these unknowns may turn out to be an incredible signing, this really excites me if truth be told, as we have no idea what to expect.

We are in the process of a complete rebuild, I am sure we will sign more players before the window closes and you will no doubt know some of these names, but in the meantime don't fear the unknown

I do fear it though cos for every gem we find theres always a runstrom or a zverotic. If these 17/18 year olds are being signed on potential alone and no established values developed yet then why cant we sign another dan burn? Like you said we are championship so why not scout a league one 17 year old instead and give them an opportunity. I would like 6 english men in our starting 11 majority of matches but that will never happen if we are still always looking at kids abroad.

I see what your saying that its exciting but wouldnt it be even more exciting if we had 5 or 6 english lads under 24 in our team

i sort of agree with you, but then i don't . In my mind its pretty simple , if there were really good english players then people will sign them within a heart beat. The truth of the matter is that there isn't. Also, for every gem we find theres always a runstrom or a zverotic, that can be used for english players aswell. The truth of the matter is and every pundit and even the FA have admitted the lack of good coaches in england is shocking compared to other countries. No wonder we always shop abroad. If you are good enough people will want you, its as simple as that.

[dannyboi-ffc]

Im sorry Danny, but I disagree.... We are in the championship now, so we have to widen our scouting range (something we should have done a while ago) some of these unknowns may turn out to be an incredible signing, this really excites me if truth be told, as we have no idea what to expect.

We are in the process of a complete rebuild, I am sure we will sign more players before the window closes and you will no doubt know some of these names, but in the meantime don't fear the unknown

I do fear it though cos for every gem we find theres always a runstrom or a zverotic. If these 17/18 year olds are being signed on potential alone and no established values developed yet then why cant we sign another dan burn? Like you said we are championship so why not scout a league one 17 year old instead and give them an opportunity. I would like 6 english men in our starting 11 majority of matches but that will never happen if we are still always looking at kids abroad.

I see what your saying that its exciting but wouldnt it be even more exciting if we had 5 or 6 english lads under 24 in our team

i sort of agree with you, but then i don't . In my mind its pretty simple , if there were really good english players then people will sign them within a heart beat. The truth of the matter is that there isn't. Also, for every gem we find theres always a runstrom or a zverotic, that can be used for english players aswell. The truth of the matter is and every pundit and even the FA have admitted the lack of good coaches in england is shocking compared to other countries. No wonder we always shop abroad. If you are good enough people will want you, its as simple as that.

I guess your right. It doesn't feel like we even bother scouting lower english leagues though. We take the easy route. If you look hard enough there are some talents out there. Look dwight gayle for example, he was non league about 3 years ago. Rickie lambert has made it from nowhere. There must be a couple we could give a chance too.

I would find it hard to believe anyone would prefer dembele's and hyndman's over more roberts and williams. You cant beat grooming your own into a pro

[vagrant]

Im pleased were signings players but im getting fed up of signing players ive never heard of. Its hard to get excited over someone you have no idea is going to be good or bad. Also would love to see some youngish english players brought in. We have too many foreigners.

When Tigana took over, had you heard of Steed, Saha, Monica etc etc......

[WhiteJC]

Im pleased were signings players but im getting fed up of signing players ive never heard of. Its hard to get excited over someone you have no idea is going to be good or bad. Also would love to see some youngish english players brought in. We have too many foreigners.

When Tigana took over, had you heard of Steed, Saha, Monica etc etc......

how about McBride, Dempsey, Boa or Dembele?

[Denver Fulham]

Who cares where a player is from if you're "developing your own"?

[MJG]

When signing these players there is an element of throwing enough mud at the wall and hope some sticks.

Spending say 3-4m on 6/7 players then long term you meed maybe 1 or 2 to make it and have a decent sell on value.

I'd rather we did that as a plan than spending all the wages on a player like Bent.

Likewise apart from Rhodes for 12m I would rather gamble on 3 strikers at 4m each and hope at least one works out.

[God The Mechanic]

I guess your right. It doesn't feel like we even bother scouting lower english leagues though. We take the easy route. If you look hard enough there are some talents out there. Look dwight gayle for example, he was non league about 3 years ago. Rickie lambert has made it from nowhere. There must be a couple we could give a chance too.

I would find it hard to believe anyone would prefer dembele's and hyndman's over more roberts and williams. You cant beat grooming your own into a pro

You mean the likes of Smalling, Stockdale, Burn, the kids we got from MK Dons or AFC Wimbledon, Woodrow was from Luton, the new centre back from Scotland who's English.  We've signed plenty of younger players from lower level English/British football over recent years.  We've also signed a fair few form abroad too.

[dannyboi-ffc]

So we sign just as many english kids do we? We must be watching different clubs then.

As for tiganas team. Boa had played for arsenal and been part of a prem title winning squad. No i didnt know fernandes or saha but that team was hardly full of youth. Taylor, coleman, melville, symons, brevett, finnan, davis, collins, clark. Dont see many foreigners there and that was one of our best ever sides.

Hodgsons europa league line up- a gk who had played god knows how long in england, konchesky, baird, hughes, etuhu english by birth, murphy, davies,duff and zamora. 7 of the 11 were british, 1 irish and schwarzer. So only brede and gera were foreign as such.

They were our two greatest sides of recent memory so who says we need to go foreign. We also dont need the country to have bundles of coaches. Why cant we just make sure we have the best coaches and sign them at 13/14 years old and do it ourselves.

We need a balance but we have had way too many foreigners of late because its the cheap option. I know hes going west ham but we could of signed cresswell but instead we got voser as an example. Could of got huddlestone but we chose boateng, diarra and karagounis. English players if good enough hold more value so from a business sense its also better. Look how much smalling went for

[cmg]

I would find it hard to believe anyone would prefer dembele's and hyndman's over more roberts and williams. You cant beat grooming your own into a pro

Nothing personal, but I would have to take issue with this statement.

In Roberts, Hyndman, Dembele and George Williams we have an Englishman, an American, a Frenchman and a Welshman. None of them hatched out at Motspur Park. Roberts came in 2011 from AFC Wimbledon, the same year that Hyndman arrived from Dallas, the next year we got Dembele from PSG and Williams from MK Dons. They have all received, therefore the exact same input into their development from Fulham FC, exactly the same grooming. They are all equally 'ours' or 'someone else's'. The only difference is in their nationality and I am sure there is no suggestion that any discrimination should exist on that basis.

The only advantage in having British players is that, for some reason, they seem to fetch more if sold to the domestic market. But we don't want to be selling any of them, do we?

[Sammyffc]

I would find it hard to believe anyone would prefer dembele's and hyndman's over more roberts and williams. You cant beat grooming your own into a pro

Nothing personal, but I would have to take issue with this statement.

In Roberts, Hyndman, Dembele and George Williams we have an Englishman, an American, a Frenchman and a Welshman. None of them hatched out at Motspur Park. Roberts came in 2011 from AFC Wimbledon, the same year that Hyndman arrived from Dallas, the next year we got Dembele from PSG and Williams from MK Dons. They have all received, therefore the exact same input into their development from Fulham FC, exactly the same grooming. They are all equally 'ours' or 'someone else's'. The only difference is in their nationality and I am sure there is no suggestion that any discrimination should exist on that basis.

The only advantage in having British players is that, for some reason, they seem to fetch more if sold to the domestic market. But we don't want to be selling any of them, do we?

:plus one: :plus one: :plus one:

[dannyboi-ffc]

I would find it hard to believe anyone would prefer dembele's and hyndman's over more roberts and williams. You cant beat grooming your own into a pro

Nothing personal, but I would have to take issue with this statement.

In Roberts, Hyndman, Dembele and George Williams we have an Englishman, an American, a Frenchman and a Welshman. None of them hatched out at Motspur Park. Roberts came in 2011 from AFC Wimbledon, the same year that Hyndman arrived from Dallas, the next year we got Dembele from PSG and Williams from MK Dons. They have all received, therefore the exact same input into their development from Fulham FC, exactly the same grooming. They are all equally 'ours' or 'someone else's'. The only difference is in their nationality and I am sure there is no suggestion that any discrimination should exist on that basis.

The only advantage in having British players is that, for some reason, they seem to fetch more if sold to the domestic market. But we don't want to be selling any of them, do we?

So wanting to see english players play for fulham means im discriminating? Ive never heard anything like it.

Woodrow wasnt ours either but i will be far prouder if he plays for england one day rather than dembele play for france. I dont see whats wrong with that

[God The Mechanic]

So we sign just as many english kids do we? We must be watching different clubs then.

Said nothing of the sort.  You gave two examples of players who were given the chance from lower leagues by other clubs, I gave more examples of young British players we signed from lower leagues.

Honestly I couldn't give a crap where the players come from.  You get much better value for money abroad, and more often than not foreign players are technically streets above British ones.  I'd love us to be more proactive in scouting Eastern Europe personally - you can get outrageously talented players for absolute peanuts if you make the move early enough in their career then sell them for a hefty profit.  Players like Berbatov when he went to Leverkusen, Ilicic went to Palermo for a couple of million and they sold him for close to 10million euros.  You can easily sign players for a couple of million, get a few years from them and sell them for double/triple what you paid.  That's the sort of business model we should be looking at.