The Official 2015 Silly Season Transfer Thread

[Craven Mad]

Nothing going on so far today so went back through the silly season thread and thought I'd post all the players the papers have linked us to thus far (who're still available [I think!]).

GKs: David Marshall, Carl Ikeme, Rob Elliot

CBs: Philip Senderos, Stearman, Tarkowski, Matt Mills, Tom Lees, Ryan Sweeney, Lewis Dunk

Fullbacks: Jazz Richards, Reece James, Renny Smith, Nathan Byrne

CMs (inc. DM/CAM): O'Hara, Joey Barton, Jonjo Shelvey, Didier Digard, Dele Alli, Toumani Diagouraga, Kevin McDonald, Jay Tabb, Leon Britton, Tom Cairney

Wingers: Demarai Gray, SWP, Paul Anderson, Matt Jarvis,

Forwards: Eminike, Daryl Murphy, Fraizer Campbell, Dwight Gayle, Di Carmine, Jamie Murphy, Michael Smith, Joe Garner


I've almost certainly missed a few, but that should cover the majority.

[cmg]

Fortunately, I think you can rule Joey out.

From his pronouncements today I think he is running for England Football Supremo...or, possibly, Pope.

[Ordar]

I have to say, I find myself agreeing with alot that Joey Barton has to say. Especially regarding the FA

[Craven Mad]

Sky sports: 14:56
LEEDS LOOKING AT WOOD

Leeds United are interested in Leicester City striker Chris Wood, according to the Daily Express.

The paper cites reports that the Championship club are weighing up a £2.5m bid for the New Zealand international – with Wolves, Fulham and QPR also reportedly interested.

[grandad]

The transfer market has gone completely mad.
£71 mil Pogba
£63 mil Ramos
£29 mil Firmino ( who)
and the list is endless.
The "big" clubs will get bigger & hopefully implode.
Only 1 club can win a league title.
Only 1 club can win a domestic cup
Only 1 club can win the Champions League.
All the rest will be regarded as failures so the transfer merry go round will happen again next year.
I say get rid of these money clubs into their own European Super League & let the rest of us enjoy competing on a reasonably level playing field.
Never again will a club out of The Six win the Premiership. Am I really bothered about returning to it, I am no longer sure.

[JackyFulham90]

Is this a top 6 side??

                    Bettenelli
Yedlin Dunk Burn Husband
Cairney LVC Bridcutt Pringle
             Hooper Ross

Dunk is a solid defender
Husband & Yedlin (Spurs) would offer good pace
Always liked Bridcutt
Hooper a good goalscorer

[grandad]

Is this a top 6 side??

                    Bettenelli
Yedlin Dunk Burn Husband
Cairney LVC Bridcutt Pringle
             Hooper Ross

Dunk is a solid defender
Husband & Yedlin (Spurs) would offer good pace
Always liked Bridcutt
Hooper a good goalscorer

Husband is a non starter as Friend will be off.

[St. Andrews White]

Regardless it's an excellent team. If a tad unrealistic; we'd be looking at far more than our budget to get them, though if we can sell Mitroglou, Roberts, Amore, Ruiz etc than maybe it would be possible.

Only worry is we don't want a whole new team - that's what we did last year and look how that turned out...

[FPT]

We got £3m from Olympiakos last summer for loaning them Kostas Mitroglou, so if we could do that again, it would be fine. It'd be nice to get £1.5m+ for Bryan Ruiz, but £1m would do the job. Fernando Amorebieta, eh, I would like him to be sold but I don't know who would buy him... and I like him. £2m would be nice considering he still has two years left on his deal, then again, he's 30 years old. That's £6.5m, maybe being hopeful? We sell Mitroglou, you could probably add another £3m-£4m on top of that.

Then there's the Patrick Roberts fiasco that has about 5 different stories with different prices. Hopefully it would be more £8m-£10m with add ons rather than £5m with add ons to £10m, but that's being very hopeful. I think the majority of our summer window would depend on these moves.

I do think we essentially need 5 new starters to reach the play offs, though could maybe push with the three defensive players (right back, centre back and left back). The most important thing is that we get our planned starting defence playing together as soon as possible. If we are lining up a 433, as it looks, I would say that we still need a right winger with a bit of pace and danger (someone in the mould of Michail Antonio) and a holding midfielder that can shore up that midfield with presence, but also show a lot of ability on the ball to control and dictate play (Kevin McDonald) with Tom Cairney and Lasse Vigen Christensen ahead of him.

The sooner it's done, the better. Before Portugal (next Sunday) would be amazing, but before Austria (three Sunday's from now) would be acceptable.

The issue last season was more the players were brought in with little logic and from all over the place. Our kids last season needed more players like Ross McCormack to help them through and take the pressure off. Plus, it didn't help that a load of our signings were wasted - Fazlic, Fotheringham, Chihi and Voser, with a load just generally disappointing - Kiraly, Hoogland, Bodurov, Hutchinson. With then Taggart injured all year and Eisfeld then going out on loan.

This summer, we clearly have a plan of the type of players we want and what role they'll have in the team. It's refreshing to see us go through a window with logic and intelligence rather than the chucking together of decent players from Martin Jol or the sheer idiocy from Felix. Our signings will have pre-planned roles and responsibilities of which Mike Rigg and Kit Symons will have spoken and discussed about taking the football club forward with a style, system and structure in mind. We'll learn more over pre-season, so we'll see how it all pieces together.

[fulhamben]

We got £3m from Olympiakos last summer for loaning them Kostas Mitroglou, so if we could do that again, it would be fine. It'd be nice to get £1.5m+ for Bryan Ruiz, but £1m would do the job. Fernando Amorebieta, eh, I would like him to be sold but I don't know who would buy him... and I like him. £2m would be nice considering he still has two years left on his deal, then again, he's 30 years old. That's £6.5m, maybe being hopeful? We sell Mitroglou, you could probably add another £3m-£4m on top of that.

Then there's the Patrick Roberts fiasco that has about 5 different stories with different prices. Hopefully it would be more £8m-£10m with add ons rather than £5m with add ons to £10m, but that's being very hopeful. I think the majority of our summer window would depend on these moves.

I do think we essentially need 5 new starters to reach the play offs, though could maybe push with the three defensive players (right back, centre back and left back). The most important thing is that we get our planned starting defence playing together as soon as possible. If we are lining up a 433, as it looks, I would say that we still need a right winger with a bit of pace and danger (someone in the mould of Michail Antonio) and a holding midfielder that can shore up that midfield with presence, but also show a lot of ability on the ball to control and dictate play (Kevin McDonald) with Tom Cairney and Lasse Vigen Christensen ahead of him.

The sooner it's done, the better. Before Portugal (next Sunday) would be amazing, but before Austria (three Sunday's from now) would be acceptable.

The issue last season was more the players were brought in with little logic and from all over the place. Our kids last season needed more players like Ross McCormack to help them through and take the pressure off. Plus, it didn't help that a load of our signings were wasted - Fazlic, Fotheringham, Chihi and Voser, with a load just generally disappointing - Kiraly, Hoogland, Bodurov, Hutchinson. With then Taggart injured all year and Eisfeld then going out on loan.

This summer, we clearly have a plan of the type of players we want and what role they'll have in the team. It's refreshing to see us go through a window with logic and intelligence rather than the chucking together of decent players from Martin Jol or the sheer idiocy from Felix. Our signings will have pre-planned roles and responsibilities of which Mike Rigg and Kit Symons will have spoken and discussed about taking the football club forward with a style, system and structure in mind. We'll learn more over pre-season, so we'll see how it all pieces together.

if you take mitro ruiz and roberts out of the team, added to the already departed hugo, then you cant just spend it all on defence, as that would leave us considerably weaker in attack than we was last year. you need a good defence but the top scorers are the ones who normally succed

[God The Mechanic]

Mitroglou didn't play, Roberts barely featured so we wouldn't be considerably weaker.  We'd have to replace Ruiz though.

[FPT]

if you take mitro ruiz and roberts out of the team, added to the already departed hugo, then you cant just spend it all on defence, as that would leave us considerably weaker in attack than we was last year. you need a good defence but the top scorers are the ones who normally succed

Well no, my theory is that we swap to a 433, we didn't have Kostas Mitroglou anyway and we drop to one striker so we don't need to replace Hugo Rodallega. Bryan Ruiz has essentially been replaced by Tom Cairney, though again baring the system in mind, you don't need a pure attacking midfielder because you are not utilising one. Also in the post I state how we need a right winger, with Alex Kacaniklic and Ben Pringle, we have two that can also play on the right and Ange-Freddy Plumain or Larnell Cole can come up from the Under 21s if need be.

Up top is where we least need additions, especially if our system changes towards a lone striker dynamic. If we were going to bring in a striker, it'd be my last move of the season, could even been a loan in the separate window.

The facts are, we need a starter in both full back positions and a division quality centre back. Only one team in last seasons' top 6 had a goals against not of a top 6 standard. The same applies to the season before, and the season before that - so on the basis of the last three years, there's a one in six chance that you'll make the play offs with a defence that is not of top 6 standard, as apposed to a 5 in 6 chance if you have one of the top 6 defences in the division.

We don't know what'll happen in the rest of the window, but what we do know is that we need to vastly improve our defence. If there's an opportunity to give us more going forward, great. It's just not priority when we know that Ross can grab 15+ goals, Smith could probably hit double figures given a decent run from the bench, as well as Christensen and Cairney. Then there's set pieces (of which our delivery has improved, bringing in Cairney and Pringle), if we bring in a winger like the quoted Antonio then there's goals there too - but goals generally mean sod all if you're not keeping them out at the other end - we need to become more dominant, but more importantly, harder to beat. Teams need to face us and think that their strikers have to be at the top of their game because they won't get many chances, and fear losing the ball because they won't see it again for five minutes.

So no, we wouldn't be weaker whatsoever and we would not have to replace each exit like-for-like.

[fulhamben]

if you take mitro ruiz and roberts out of the team, added to the already departed hugo, then you cant just spend it all on defence, as that would leave us considerably weaker in attack than we was last year. you need a good defence but the top scorers are the ones who normally succed

Well no, my theory is that we swap to a 433, we didn't have Kostas Mitroglou anyway and we drop to one striker so we don't need to replace Hugo Rodallega. Bryan Ruiz has essentially been replaced by Tom Cairney, though again baring the system in mind, you don't need a pure attacking midfielder because you are not utilising one. Also in the post I state how we need a right winger, with Alex Kacaniklic and Ben Pringle, we have two that can also play on the right and Ange-Freddy Plumain or Larnell Cole can come up from the Under 21s if need be.

Up top is where we least need additions, especially if our system changes towards a lone striker dynamic. If we were going to bring in a striker, it'd be my last move of the season, could even been a loan in the separate window.

The facts are, we need a starter in both full back positions and a division quality centre back. Only one team in last seasons' top 6 had a goals against not of a top 6 standard. The same applies to the season before, and the season before that - so on the basis of the last three years, there's a one in six chance that you'll make the play offs with a defence that is not of top 6 standard, as apposed to a 5 in 6 chance if you have one of the top 6 defences in the division.

We don't know what'll happen in the rest of the window, but what we do know is that we need to vastly improve our defence. If there's an opportunity to give us more going forward, great. It's just not priority when we know that Ross can grab 15+ goals, Smith could probably hit double figures given a decent run from the bench, as well as Christensen and Cairney. Then there's set pieces (of which our delivery has improved, bringing in Cairney and Pringle), if we bring in a winger like the quoted Antonio then there's goals there too - but goals generally mean sod all if you're not keeping them out at the other end - we need to become more dominant, but more importantly, harder to beat. Teams need to face us and think that their strikers have to be at the top of their game because they won't get many chances, and fear losing the ball because they won't see it again for five minutes.

So no, we wouldn't be weaker whatsoever and we would not have to replace each exit like-for-like.

but like you say, thats your theory. id be suprised if we followed your theory. as i cant see us lining up that narrow in the middle again. plus why buy two of the better wingers, if you are going to utilise them in different roles

[Skatzoffc]

if you take mitro ruiz and roberts out of the team, added to the already departed hugo, then you cant just spend it all on defence, as that would leave us considerably weaker in attack than we was last year. you need a good defence but the top scorers are the ones who normally succed

Well no, my theory is that we swap to a 433, we didn't have Kostas Mitroglou anyway and we drop to one striker so we don't need to replace Hugo Rodallega. Bryan Ruiz has essentially been replaced by Tom Cairney, though again baring the system in mind, you don't need a pure attacking midfielder because you are not utilising one. Also in the post I state how we need a right winger, with Alex Kacaniklic and Ben Pringle, we have two that can also play on the right and Ange-Freddy Plumain or Larnell Cole can come up from the Under 21s if need be.

Up top is where we least need additions, especially if our system changes towards a lone striker dynamic. If we were going to bring in a striker, it'd be my last move of the season, could even been a loan in the separate window.

The facts are, we need a starter in both full back positions and a division quality centre back. Only one team in last seasons' top 6 had a goals against not of a top 6 standard. The same applies to the season before, and the season before that - so on the basis of the last three years, there's a one in six chance that you'll make the play offs with a defence that is not of top 6 standard, as apposed to a 5 in 6 chance if you have one of the top 6 defences in the division.

We don't know what'll happen in the rest of the window, but what we do know is that we need to vastly improve our defence. If there's an opportunity to give us more going forward, great. It's just not priority when we know that Ross can grab 15+ goals, Smith could probably hit double figures given a decent run from the bench, as well as Christensen and Cairney. Then there's set pieces (of which our delivery has improved, bringing in Cairney and Pringle), if we bring in a winger like the quoted Antonio then there's goals there too - but goals generally mean sod all if you're not keeping them out at the other end - we need to become more dominant, but more importantly, harder to beat. Teams need to face us and think that their strikers have to be at the top of their game because they won't get many chances, and fear losing the ball because they won't see it again for five minutes.

So no, we wouldn't be weaker whatsoever and we would not have to replace each exit like-for-like.

Good points FPT.

Tho, I still think that the defense was poor due to a lack of mid-field cover. You start defending from the front imo.

If the new look midfield can deliver in this respect I think we will do ok.

A lot of teams last season use old-school wing tactics and tore us to pieces with the narrow diamond formation. If KS doesn't sort that we are in deep do-do no matter how many classy defenders we get. The mid-field need to offer more cover for them or they will still be over-run.

The midfield signings are looking promising at the mo tho.
We shall see.


COYW!

[MJG]

I agree with FPT, we seem to be moving towards a change of formation and having two wider men, but not in a 442. Its going to be Watford/Bournemouth style. like these 2 formations:

[westcliff white]

i like the 4-2-3-1 formation, the 2 offer protection towards the defence and also allows a supporting full back to assist the wide forward of the 3. The 2 Cm can get forward ut ion this formation they know for sure they have to be back helping the back 4.

The other has its advantages too as the 3 central know they have required roles to drop a little, and the full backs have more licence to get forward as we have more cover centrally (assuming the 3 cove the wide defensive positions at these times.

[Nick Bateman]

The one player I would sign for Fulham is Ashley Barnes from newly relegated Bumley!  I beleieve he has all the qualities of a young Steven Gerrard and likes to 'put his foot in' as _Chelsea's [Auto]Matic discovered much to his chagrin (Matic's reaction also compounded the near broken leg he recieved when he was sent off (quite rightly) making it even more enjoyable, for that reason alone Barnes should be an instant hero at Fulham).

Barnes also has an excellent shot and reminds me of Steve Sidwell at his best!  Yet does Fulahm have the ambition to attain a player of this calibre?

[PaulJ123]

Barnes might be good for the season after next...

[dannyboi-ffc]

The one player I would sign for Fulham is Ashley Barnes from newly relegated Bumley!  I beleieve he has all the qualities of a young Steven Gerrard and likes to 'put his foot in' as _Chelsea's [Auto]Matic discovered much to his chagrin (Matic's reaction also compounded the near broken leg he recieved when he was sent off (quite rightly) making it even more enjoyable, for that reason alone Barnes should be an instant hero at Fulham).

Barnes also has an excellent shot and reminds me of Steve Sidwell at his best!  Yet does Fulahm have the ambition to attain a player of this calibre?

Dont know much about Barnes but not that long ago you referred to him as the next Steven Gerrard and now a few months on he reminds you of Steve Sidwell at his best......

Now I'm no expert but I hope our scouts are more precise on assessing players than that.

I never rated Sidwell anyway so if thats the comparison I hope we invest more wisely.

[St. Andrews White]

Jamie O'Hara training with us according to the official Fulham page. Decent signing if we get him in my books.

http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2015/june/29/pre-season-begins