The Official Silly Transfer Thread for January 2017

[Lighthouse]

Free Agent Leon Osman interesting Championship sides.

[EN1 FFC]

Rumour Leeds are going after Leicester City's Ulloa.
Now there's a striker I wouldn't mind us going in for.

[Mince n Tatties]

Nugent to Derby,medical tomorrow apparently.

[Nero]

http://sportwitness.co.uk/brighton-fulham-saturday-night-transfer-mission-flying-championship-flag/

Benfica players are probably out of our reach at the moment but Vitoria Guimaraes has 2 good strikers/forwards (both on loan from Porto), Hernani and Moussa Marega. Could be interesting for us in the summer.

Yea but a nice loan for letting them  have Mitrogol

[@jolslover]

Rumour Leeds are going after Leicester City's Ulloa.
Now there's a striker I wouldn't mind us going in for.

Definitely. Would love Ulloa. Think hes the type of striker Slavisa wants aswell. A big man thats good on the ball. Very rare.

[Fulham Tup North]

Free Agent Leon Osman interesting Championship sides.

Rather have Richard Osman!! Good height up front

[AlexW132]

http://sportwitness.co.uk/brighton-fulham-saturday-night-transfer-mission-flying-championship-flag/

Benfica players are probably out of our reach at the moment but Vitoria Guimaraes has 2 good strikers/forwards (both on loan from Porto), Hernani and Moussa Marega. Could be interesting for us in the summer.

Would like Marega

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

"Didier Drogba, 38, says he could return to former club Marseilles. The ex-Chelsea striker has been without a club since leaving Montreal Impact at the end of the 2016 Major League Soccer season. (Canal+, via Eurosport)"

Even at 38 could he do a job for us this season?

[cmg]

"Didier Drogba, 38, says he could return to former club Marseilles. The ex-Chelsea striker has been without a club since leaving Montreal Impact at the end of the 2016 Major League Soccer season. (Canal+, via Eurosport)"

Even at 38 could he do a job for us this season?

He won't score until John Paintsil leaves.

[..FOF..]

I'm just glad that we have a scouting team actually working outside of UK :)

[aaronmcguigan]

Can anyone tell me where Ashkan Dejagah is? A google search says he's been released and is a free agent, true?

[@jolslover]

Just seen on twitter from a Chelsea covering journalist

Chelsea loanee, Lucas Piazon will be making his move to Fulham a permanent one soon. Fee reported to be around £4m.

[MiltonBurrows]

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/newcastle-united-transfers-magpies-enquire-12424496

A bit worrying. I imagine we will say hes not for sale or demand a huge fee.

[MJG]

Just seen on twitter from a Chelsea covering journalist

Chelsea loanee, Lucas Piazon will be making his move to Fulham a permanent one soon. Fee reported to be around £4m.

Personally think that's a bit high for him and what he offers.

[@jolslover]

Just seen on twitter from a Chelsea covering journalist

Chelsea loanee, Lucas Piazon will be making his move to Fulham a permanent one soon. Fee reported to be around £4m.

Personally think that's a bit high for him and what he offers.

I'm a big fan of him and I think realistically we were never going to get him for below this price especially given the fact hes still only 22! Hes younger than Woodrow. Definitely a deal we could make profit on

[Horsfield_No9]

I don't think he'd go. Seems very happy living in London and being captain here.

[MJG]

Just seen on twitter from a Chelsea covering journalist

Chelsea loanee, Lucas Piazon will be making his move to Fulham a permanent one soon. Fee reported to be around £4m.

Personally think that's a bit high for him and what he offers.

I'm a big fan of him and I think realistically we were never going to get him for below this price especially given the fact hes still only 22! Hes younger than Woodrow. Definitely a deal we could make profit on

Yes get that and good player. I'd be happy to sign him maybe at £2.5M plus £1.5m on performances and sell on maybe.

[Sgt Fulham]

They don't even need him. They're pretty much guaranteed auto, likely the title and then they'll buy a load of 'Prem quality' French midfielders from Ligue 1.

[JoelH5]

We can't let him go. 9 out of 10 games he's one of our best players on the pitch.

[Skatzoffc]

If you want to make a point along the lines of, "most" business happens toward the end of a window, fine, I don't dispute that. Just as "most" clubs don't get promoted; "most" clubs will lose or draw "most" of their games rather than winning them. But things like getting promoted, winning, and signing players early in the window still happen very often nonetheless. Signing players late isn't inevitable, nor is playing a quarter of the season with Matt smith up front, as we likely will. The "reality" is that to achieve anything positive this club needs to perform exceptionally well in the transfer market, just as it does on the pitch, but Currently, as the selling activity I just mentioned and indeed your own statistics show, we are exceptionally bad at this, in terms of timing at least. 

I think you are spot on with this Statto.  During our rise under MAF we were a buying Club with ambition and although FFP has changed some of the nature of the dealings I do believe that Fulham's higher management echelons (above SJ that is) could polish up their strategy when it comes to retaining quality players who have demonstrated a commitment to Fulham but have been sold on - Steve Sidwell and David Stockdale in the Brighton side to name but two examples.   As a Club we have need to have a focus on the business we are in, which is, I assume, to rise to the best football level we can in the professional game because otherwise why not just sell the Craven Cottage site and let the whole thing collapse?  SJ has shown a lot of ability to get players performing at a better level than we may have anticipated on their arrival.    SJ needs to be properly supported within the Club and anticipation of a Martin (or even McCormack) style problem is a reason for having strength in depth.

I think that you have answered your own points.

You cannot compare the rise under MAF with now because of FFP.

The loss of players like Sidwell and Stockdale that many fans would have wanted to keep is not directly down to the senior management but down to the manager. Yes, the senior management choose the wrong manager and the losses were a consequence. Quite a few did not want to lose Burn but that was a consequence of having Jokanovic as manager.

The club thought they had an ambitious deal for an striker in the summer but the selling club pulled out on the last day.

Strangely players are not queuing up to join Fulham.

Strangely Fulham can't force a club to sell or a player to sign or to accept an offer on the day we make one.

And with FFP our budget is severely limited so the club cannot throw money at the problem as in the early days under MAF.

I don't disagree with you but the point I was trying to make is the one called strategy for success rather than fear of failure.  Yes, the buying in the summer was largely successful in spite of many comments in these forums to the contrary.  I am one of those who backed SJ from the start because I understood what he wanted to do, and I don't believe the Club did all it could do for SJ during the last window.  Sure some players will not want to come here but you can suss that pretty darned quickly with the right questions and plan your acquisitions much more carefully.  That is a strategy that has a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C.  I want the Club to back SJ one hundred percent with the only limit being the need to keep within FFP.       

I agree.

I am sure that various structures involving Directors of Football, statistical analysts and coaches can work but my suspicion is that they are going to fail more often than not.

If you need a DoF and analyst to be given as much the same weight as the manager in choosing players to moderate his choices then you have the wrong manager, either a mad one like Magath or an inexperienced one like Symons.

I am much more confident with a good manager in charge Jokanovic that our transfer policy will be more focussed and our selections more successful (but I still expect, like most other transfers to other clubs, the deals to be completed late in the window).

Jozabad is excatly that really, a managers choice. So from my pov and knowledge the one player we backed our manager with has not worked.

I, for one, haven't seen enough of Jozabed to make a judgement that 'he is a wrong one' or 'a mistake' but I do see SJ trying to arrive at a settled first team i.e. one that selects itself.  Jozabed would have to fight for his place as has Matt Smith and many others.    The real problem is Martin and how we arrived, as a Club, at the point where we have an unsettled player for reasons that seem to be down to an impression given to Martin in August which the Club is now reneging on.  I am assuming at this point that SJ wanted him signed permanently in August too, and hasn't changed his mind.   If that is at all true then the Club really needs to understand the nature of its business one hell of a lot better than it is doing. 

This view takes no account of the change of manager at Derby, what Steve McClaren has said about Martin and that Derby are prepared to or have offered Martin a new contract. Plus isn't there something about Martin's family still being in Derby.

I suggest that these factors have had a significant influence on the situation rather than anything Fulham might have done.

:plus one: Apprentice

Imo these are the MAIN factors in the turnaround.
Nothing to do with Fulham or how they have handled it.

Let's face it no-one could foresee the sacking of Pearson, who had already shown he didn't want Martin in his team.
Hence the options opening up for us in the 1st place.

An unfortunate set of circumstances have caused these problems for us. We just need to move on now.
COYW!