Tuesday Fulham Stuff (03/07/18)...

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Leicester City Receive Offer For Star Striker, Fulham Join Race

Leicester City striker Ahmed Musa put himself back on the map after an impressive display in the 2018 World Cup.

Musa scored a brace in the 2-1 win over Iceland putting on a noteworthy performance.

Turkish-Football sources understand that Galatasaray have made Leicester another offer for Musa.

The Lions want the Nigeria international on loan with a buyout clause option.

The Istanbul based outfit are keen on getting the move wrapped up as quickly as possible but are growing concerned that Leicester may decide to keep him on after his form in Russia.

Additionally, Fotomac report that Fulham and Huddersfield have also entered the race.

Musa is keen on staying in the Premier League but Galatasaray can offer Champions League football next season.

It remains to be seen what plans the Foxes have for Musa after the World Cup.

The striker was not seen as part of Leicester's plans after struggling to settle in following his £16m move from Russia.

Musa was loaned back to Russia in January and now faces an uncertain future.

The Nigeria striker's agent William D'avila did recently confirm being in talks with Galatasaray.

"We are in talks with Galatasaray, they have made an offer and want Ahmed," he told Radyospor.

"The transfer is a possibility, Galatasaray are a big club and will compete in the Champions League next season."

"Musa has offers from other clubs but he's keen on playing for Galatasaray. We are currently working on a loan deal with an option to buy. He'll make a decision soon. I think we can say there's a 50% chance of Musa joining the club."



https://turkish-football.com/leicester-city-receive-offer-star-striker-fulham-join-race/

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Opinion: Three Fulham players who Championship clubs should sign

Fulham impressed many last season with their attractive style of football and gained promotion to the Premier League. Here are three of their players who Championship clubs should sign-

Marek Rodak- The 21-year-old goalkeeper spent last season on loan at Rotherham United and was very impressive for the Millers in League One. However, he is down the pecking order at Fulham behind Marcus Bettinelli and David Button and should be snapped up by a Championship side. The Slovakian shot stopper could be signed by Rotherham after their promotion to the second tier. He has spent time on loan at Welling United and Accrington Stanley in the past as well.

Cauley Woodrow- He is in need of a new permanent home after spending the last couple of seasons out on loan at Burton Albion and Bristol City. The 23-year-old striker joined the Cottagers in 2011 from Luton Town and has played 68 games for them, scoring 12 goals. However, he found himself out on loan recently and could do with a move away now to help his progression. Woodrow is a former England Under-21 international and would be a shrewd signing by a Championship club.

Marcelo Djalo- The Spanish centre-back played just four games for Fulham last season after joining them last summer. He never got the chance to prove himself in the Championship and deserves to be handed a lifeline at this level. Djalo has been on the books at Real Madrid and Juventus in the past. The 24-year-old has also played for the likes of Granada, Girona and Lugo in Spain as well and may be itching for a move away from Fulham this summer.



http://the72.co.uk/107439/opinion-three-fulham-players-championship-clubs-sign/

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Meet Slavisa Jokanovic's backroom staff as Fulham start preparing for life in the Premier League

Fulham start pre-season in preparation for the top flight - here are the men behind the scenes at the club

Fulham return to pre-season training this week as they prepare for life back in the Premier League and the coaching staff will be waiting to put their fitness to the test.

Slavisa Jokanovic's coaching staff have played an important part in his success at Craven Cottage and the head coach has always been quick to refer to Manager of the Month awards as a team effort rather than just his own.

When he was appointed back in December 2015, Jokanovic appointed three of the current coaching team to their roles - Javier Pereira, Alberto Escobar and Marco Cesarini, and they've been his trusted generals ever since, while Stuart Gray was made Senior Head Coach after Jokanovic's arrival.

Jose Sambade Carrreira joined the team last summer as the first team goalkeeping coach, replacing Tim Flowers, while Alastair Harris makes up the backroom staff as Head of Sports Science at the club.

STUART GRAY

Gray was appointed as Fulham's Senior Head Coach after Jokanovic was appointed back in December 2015, but had taken over from Peter Grant as caretaker boss while the search continued for a new manager.

He managed the side in four games, drawing two and losing two before Jokanovic took over the reins, where Gray would continue at Motspur Park as the club's Senior Head Coach, a role he has been undertaking ever since.

The 58-year-old has a wealth of experience of English football having played for the likes of Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Barnsley before making the move into coaching.


Fulham first team coach Stuart Gray (Image: Ian Walton/Getty Images)

He's had roles at Wolves and Southampton, where he became assistant manager after Glenn Hoddle left for Tottenham Hotspur before being appointed on a full-time basis in June 2001.

Further jobs followed at Northampton Town, Burnley and Sheffield Wednesday, where he once again took over as caretaker manager before being appointed Head Coach full-time after taking the side to an 11-game unbeaten run.

He led the side to their best finish in six years as Wednesday finished 13th in the second tier, but was relieved of duties following a takeover, where he was replaced by Carlos Carvalhal in 2015 before joining Fulham on December 8 2015.

JAVIER PEREIRA

Javier Pereira has worked with Jokanovic under a number of clubs, and one of the first things Jokanovic did when he got the Fulham job was to appoint Pereira as his Assistant Head Coach.

They first worked together at Watford, where Pereira was appointed under Oscar Garcia before Jokanovic was hired, but he stayed on under the Serbian, helping the Hornets to win promotion to the Premier League.

After Jokanovic left Vicarage Road, Pereira followed him to Maccabi Tel Aviv and then eventually to Craven Cottage.

His first experience in La Liga was at Levante and during his time there he saw them into the Europa League, where they managed to reach the last 16 of the competition.

Jokanovic has described Pereira as the "engineer of many things" and from watching training sessions as the club, his impact on the coaching side of things can be heard loud and clear.

ALBERTO ESCOBAR

This is the third time Alberto Escobar has worked with Jokanovic, and he is heavily involved in both the training on the pitch but also assessing upcoming opponents using videos to help aid the coaching staff prepare for matches.

He arrived at Fulham will Jokanovic first, followed days later by Pereira, having worked with the pair at both Watford and Maccabi Tel Aviv, while he had further experience with Pereira, having coached at Spanish sides Valladolid and Levante with him.

On matchdays, Escobar can normally be seen in and around the TV gantry areas as he oversees the analysis departments filming of matches, which he then uses to help the coaching staff prepare for upcoming matches.

JOSE SAMBADE CARREIRA

Carreira is the newest face on Fulham's coaching staff having joined the club last summer as their first team goalkeeping coach.

He joined Fulham having spent time in Abu Dhabi, having been at Besiktas in Turkey and Deportivo de la Coruna for 14 years, where he was on the coaching staff while Jokanovic was still a player.

He's made a big impact in his relatively short time at Motspur Park so far and is credited by those at the club for the marked improvement in Marcus Bettinelli's performances over the season, performances that have seen him go from a solid mid-table Championship keeper to one that can hold his own in the Premier League.

There's a few promising young goalkeepers coming through the ranks at Fulham, with Magnus Norman, Luca Ashby-Hammond and Marek Rodak all pushing into the first team and it will be interesting to see the impact Carreira's coaching methods will have on them.

MARCO CESARINI

Marco Cesarini joined Fulham a month after Jokanovic and was appointed as their Manager of First Team Medical and Sports Science, taking full responsibility for the player's fitness at the club.

He studied osteopathy in Milan, which is a a way of detecting, treating and preventing health problems by moving, stretching and massaging a person's muscles and joints and he became one of the first osteopaths to work with a professional team in Italy when he went to Brescia.

He then went to West Ham where he became Head of Injury Prevention, before a restructure of the medical department saw him return to Italy, before his next job at Watford beckoned.


Marco Cesarini (left), Stuart Gray, Slavisa Jokanovic and his backroom staff (Image: Paul Burgman)

After that, in 2014, AC Milan legend Filippo Inzaghi called Cesarini to join him at the San Siro, which he accepted, working there for 13 months before leaving and answering Jokanovic's call to come and join him at Fulham.

Interestingly, after the arrival of Beppe Sannino at Watford, Cesarini become the head coach's translator for press conferences during his time at the club.

ALASTAIR HARRIS

A Brunel University graduate, achieving a Masters in the field of Human Performance, Alastair Harris is Fulham's Head of Sports Science and is responsible for the physical performance and conditioning of the First Team.

He started at Fulham in 2010 as a sports science intern, before making his way through the ranks before taking his current role in December 2015.

He excels in the fields of load management , player recovery cycles & physical conditioning and, along with the rest of the medical staff at the club, was a big reason why Fulham suffered very little injuries throughout the course of last season.



https://www.football.london/fulham-fc/meet-slavisa-jokanovics-backroom-staff-14853572

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Crystal Palace make bid to sign international midfielder wanted by Fulham - report

Eagles reportedly firm up their interest in Turkish midfielder Ozan Tufan

Crystal Palace have made a £2.5m bid for Turkish international midfielder Ozan Tufan, according to reports.

The Fenerbahce midfielder is understood to be the subject of interest from Palace and Premier League rivals Fulham, with both sides said to be monitoring his situation in Turkey.

But Turkish newspaper Fanatik have now reported that Palace have stepped up their interest and have tabled a bid of £2.5m for the 23-year-old, who has 31 caps at senior international level and featured for Turkey at the European Championships in 2016.

Tufan's future at Fenerbahce remains unclear, having fallen out of favour last season with manager Aykut Kocaman.

He has since been replaced by former Dutch midfielder Philippe Cocu, although it is not yet clear what sort of future Tufan has at the club.


Ozan Tufan pictured in action for Turkey at the European Championships in 2016. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Tufan has been pictured hard at work in training, and has received praise from supporters and pundits alike for his attitude over the summer as he looks to try and re-establish his place in the team.

Tufan moved to Fenerbahce in 2015 from Bursaspor, signing for around £6m.

But it is being reported in Turkey that Fenerbahce could consider offers for the midfielder this summer, with Palace now looking to try and test their resolve.



https://www.football.london/crystal-palace-fc/transfer-news/palace-make-bid-international-midfielder-14855081

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Why have Fulham yet to make a move in the summer transfer window?

We take a look at the possible reasons behind why Fulham have yet to make a move in the transfer window

Fulham are well-known for doing their business later in the transfer window, with the majority of players who made an impact last season coming in towards the end of July.

Nevertheless, after winning promotion to the Premier League at Wembley on May 26 after winning the Championship play-off final, there's been very little news on potential incomings at the club leaving fans a tad jittery as the club get back into pre-season training.

Add to that the fact that Fulham have 16 first team players returning, if you don't count Academy members of the squad such as Luca de la Torre and Tayo Edun, it's left fans worrying that the club aren't securing their targets quick enough and that with an earlier deadline this year (August 9) the recruitment team are leaving it late to do deals.

At the moment, it's looking likely that Fulham will have a large influx of players in a short amount of time with just over a month left before the start of the Premier League season and the end of the transfer window, but in all honesty, that isn't something new.

Let's take a look at last season's signings and when they happened to compare the state of affairs.

This time last summer (July 2) Fulham hadn't signed anyone, although Marcelo Djalo was about to unveiled as the first signing of the window.

He didn't have the best of impacts and neither did Fulham's second signing, Ibrahima Cisse, who arrived a few days later from Standard Liege on July 7.

In fact, the signings that came in and had an impact on the way the season panned out for the club only started to arrive during the middle of July in the form of loan signing Lucas Piazon, while Oliver Norwood and Tomas Kalas arrived shortly after that towards the end of the month.

With that all in mind, we've taken a look at why the club haven't completed any deals yet.


Under the lights: Oliver Norwood (Image: Naomi Baker/Getty Images)

Business as normal

Firstly, Fulham usually like to wait in the transfer window as they feel they are able to get a better deal over more protracted negotiations, rather than agreeing to the first price quoted.

It works both ways - Reading came in with a low offer for Sone Aluko last season early in the window, but after a long negotiation period Fulham were able to get around £7million for him - nearly seven times more than what was first offered.

If we take continue the trend of looking back at last season, Fulham only made two signings between the end of the season and the middle of July, as opposed to nine after that date (including loan deals), eight of which happened after July 25.

Of course, Slavisa Jokanovic will want the club to get business done as early as possible so that he can have a near enough full side to work with during pre-season in order to get them to where he wants the club to be, and that is completely understandable from a football sense.

But from a business sense, it doesn't make sense to agree with higher fees in a bid to get deals done sooner and it would set a precedent that other clubs could take advantage of.

Later signings was also the norm the season before too - only three signed before July 14 (Michael Madl, Floyd Ayite and Sone Aluko) while 11 game in after that date, with nine of those after July 19.

The World Cup

The World Cup was always going to have an impact on deals over the summer, with clubs waiting until after the tournament to do deals in case they can add a few extra numbers on a fee, while players will be hoping to catch club's eyes with their performances.

It's hard to do deal with players when they're embedded in a national team camp too - if you were manager of England, would you want club managers coming into the camp to try and persuade one of your players to play for them next season?

Absolutely not.

With players in the World Cup then heading off on their holidays before the start of the season, it wouldn't be a surprise whatsoever to see a mad dash in the final few weeks of July and the start of August for players.



The loan situation

Fulham have used the loan market to great success in the past two seasons, but now they're in the Premier League that whole avenue changes.

This season, they can only register two loan players at any one time and can only loan one player from each club in the Premier League, meaning they can't have six loanees like they did last year and can't do a loan deal like they did for Tomas Kalas and Lucas Piazon from Chelsea.

Loans were a lot easier to push through, and now Fulham have to be careful in who they chose to bring in, while turning their loans from last season into permanents is a more drawn out process, despite the players having played at Craven Cottage last season.

All of that will be having an effect on Fulham's transfer business this summer, meaning a more considered approach is needed.

The domino effect

A well-used cliche for the summer transfer window, but a true one.

So far, there are six teams in the Premier League who are yet to do any business, with Fulham being one of them, with new boys Wolves looking to be the most active so far.

However, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea are yet to open their chequebook this summer, while the other big clubs have only added a couple of new faces to their side.

It happens every season, but once one big deal goes through, it's a domino effect for the others and we'll almost certainly see a flurry of deals happen with a week or two of one another.

At the start of pre-season, it's almost like a stand off with selling club, buying club and player all wanting the best deal for themselves.

Returning to pre-season

Clubs are only just returning to pre-season training this week and will want to have a chance to see their players return before they make decisions on their futures.

This will be the case for both loan and transfer deals - most clubs will want their players who are marked to go out on loan to start pre-season with them before making the move to their new club for the year.


(Image: Victoria Jones/PA Wire)

That's what happened last year with Sheyi Ojo, who started the summer with Liverpool, allowing his parent club to get a look of him before he made the move down south.

July 2 marks the beginning of the pre-season programme for most, so we should start to see the transfer window winding up now ahead of August 9.



https://www.football.london/fulham-fc/fulham-yet-make-move-summer-14855125

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'Relieved' Odoi relishing Premier League test
by Dan on July 2, 2018

Denis Odoi admits he was 'massively relieved' that Fulham won the Championship play-off final after his sending off led to a nervy last twenty minutes against Aston Villa at Wembley – and the defender is relishing the prospect of playing in the Premier League.

The Belgian utility man, speaking to FulhamFC TV as the Whites returned to Motspur Park for pre-season training this morning, disclosed how he experienced the full range of emotions on that unforgettable day last month as Slavisa Jokanovic's side beat Aston Villa to return to the top flight. Odoi felt he had been playing well as Tim Ream's central defensive partner before being shown a second yellow card for a mistimed challenge on Jack Grealish.

    First of all, it was excitement and happiness of walking onto the pitch at Wembley. The atmosphere was great. Then, obviously scoring [through Tom Cairney] was an unbelievable feeling and after the first half I was happy. I was playing a good first half, I was confident. I think I was unlucky with the [first] yellow card. I don't think it was a yellow card, but the referee gave it.

    I knew I was on a yellow card. I've been on yellow cards often. It was a good lesson for me as well – to know that now, in the Premier League, some of the guys are going to be faster and, on that occasion, Grealish was a little bit faster on the ball. I was pretty confident I was going to be first to the ball, but he was faster and then my leg was already swinging, so it was difficult for me to pull back. It was a big disappointment for me – and then it was twenty minutes of nerves and praying and all kinds of things!

    I was looking at the screen in the dressing room and there's no time on it. That was really horrible. I had no idea how long was left. I went into the tunnel, where we go up to the pitch, and there was another screen with time and, obviously, when the ref whistled, I was so happy and relieved. I just sprinted to join the guys. I must say, I think it would have been a different feeling if I was still on the pitch. Obviously, I was happy but it felt like I almost messed it up.

One of the iconic moments following the final whistle came with Odoi cavorting on the crossbar in front of the Fulham fans – something which he reveals he has done before.

    I've done it before in Belgium also once when we were the champions. Getting up was not the problem – then afterwards my leg got stuck in the ropes and I was having trouble getting down! It was excitement and we were having a party and singing with the fans was just great.

Odoi even believes that Fulham might be able to take lessons from how they held out at Wembley into the new season.

    Everybody knew that they had to dig in and that's what they did. Maybe we need to remember that when we are running now in pre-season as well that sometimes it's not about having the ball, but about doing the things off the ball that's going to help you win games – especially now in the Premier League, where we're maybe going to have less of the ball than we're used to.

The 30 year-old is eager to get started after what he described as 'a busy holiday' and can't wait for some of the serious examinations that Fulham will face during their pre-season programme.

    There are some games I'm looking forward to. I'm looking forward to the Sampdoria game because I have a really good friend who plays there and for us it is going to be a great test because you are playing Lyon and a lot of good teams. That's the sort of competition we are going to be up against. I know I need to work hard during pre-season knowing that I won't be able to play the first game and work hard to show the gaffer that I'm ready to go.



http://hammyend.com/index.php/2018/07/relieved-odoi-relishing-premier-league-test/