Summer Silly Season Transfer Thread 2025

[SP]

Other boards seem to think KDH is a done deal - I hope they're right.

Which other boards out of interest?

Brighton's NSC & a Reddit post (found after a Google) - just speculation of course

[Drewry66]

Other boards seem to think KDH is a done deal - I hope they're right.

Which other boards out of interest?

Brighton's NSC & a Reddit post (found after a Google) - just speculation of course

That's the kind of bored, waiting and nothing to do searching I would do. What are Fulham actually doing to us?!

 

Good work mate. 

[SP]

For the Reddit link I thought I may need to give age verification!

[General]

Stories suggesting two leading targets atm and priorities are KDH and Nelson... both around 25-26, which is focusing more on younger players, compared to Sterling's 30 yrs/old. Could there be a world where we see all three added? KDH seems to play more CM?

[demeant0r]

We don't need both Nelson and Sterling. Iwobi + Nelson/Sterling and Wilson + Adama are fine

[btffc]

We don't need both Nelson and Sterling. Iwobi + Nelson/Sterling and Wilson + Adama are fine

Marco prefers 5 wingers so unless we are stunting Godo's career again, we do need 2

[demeant0r]

We don't need both Nelson and Sterling. Iwobi + Nelson/Sterling and Wilson + Adama are fine

Marco prefers 5 wingers so unless we are stunting Godo's career again, we do need 2

Wouldn't stunting his career be not playing Godo? So having five wingers would be stunting it even more as there's no way he plays ahead of Nelson and Sterling.

[btffc]

We don't need both Nelson and Sterling. Iwobi + Nelson/Sterling and Wilson + Adama are fine

Marco prefers 5 wingers so unless we are stunting Godo's career again, we do need 2

Wouldn't stunting his career be not playing Godo? So having five wingers would be stunting it even more as there's no way he plays ahead of Nelson and Sterling.

That's what I mean. Last season Godo never got a loan because Marco wanted a 5th winger and he never got minutes. Getting 5 wingers so Godo can go on loan is important. I don't think he is a PL level winger either which makes it important to Fulham that he gets an opportunity showcase himself for a sale

[iansthailand]

I know why we've not announced Lecomte.
The club is waiting for us to get to 168 pages...

On another note, bbc saying 1.67 bn been spent by the premier league clubs on transfers so far and we've spent 0

Keith is on the media team and is delaying so he can be proved right on 168 pages. We have a spy on the forum.

[ffc_forever]

IF and it's a big if we are looking at Dewsbury-Hall and with them both favouring the centre left spot would we play Smith-Rowe just behind Muniz. What does this signing mean for Pereira's place in the team. Could he be off and we've kept Cairney on as the back up with King also waiting in the wings.

Who knows... certainly not me 

[hovewhite]

We don't need both Nelson and Sterling. Iwobi + Nelson/Sterling and Wilson + Adama are fine

Quality of individual matters to improve team.

[JimmyConway]

IF and it's a big if we are looking at Dewsbury-Hall and with them both favouring the centre left spot would we play Smith-Rowe just behind Muniz. What does this signing mean for Pereira's place in the team. Could he be off and we've kept Cairney on as the back up with King also waiting in the wings.

Who knows... certainly not me 

ESR is a natural No10 with his technique and vision. Looks leaner in videos of late which should improve him considerably. One criticism last season was he did look a bit chunky? If Dewsbury-Hall was to come in he could be competition for the No10 role or possibly be the box-box type we crave with an end product. Pereira not sure it would surprise anyone if he left as good technical footballer but very seldom imposes himself or is the difference in a game.

[Angus Telford]

Stories suggesting two leading targets atm and priorities are KDH and Nelson... both around 25-26, which is focusing more on younger players

Not really. Young in football terms is 18-21, 22-23 if you're being generous. KDH is about to turn 27, even Nelson is closer to 26. Irrespective of other merits of these signings we should be mindful that they're established, mature players, who'll command sizeable wages, have likely already peaked in their development, have declining resale value within a season or two, and won't lower our average age.

[Tabby]

Stories suggesting two leading targets atm and priorities are KDH and Nelson... both around 25-26, which is focusing more on younger players

Not really. Young in football terms is 18-21, 22-23 if you're being generous. KDH is about to turn 27, even Nelson is closer to 26. Irrespective of other merits of these signings we should be mindful that they're established, mature players, who'll command sizeable wages, have likely already peaked in their development, have declining resale value within a season or two, and won't lower our average age.

Think that Nelson could be an exception to that rule in the same way that Palhinha was. If, and that is a big if, we can manage to get him beyond his injury issues he could be a player that is of interest to top teams. If we get KDH I think he will be seen as a very long term option though. Gyökeres is a recent example of a player that more than tripled his value between ages 25 and 27, so it does happen.

But they'd both be on fairly high wages and won't solve that part of the issue. Especially if we are also looking at Sterling, and our new backup keeper will surely be on decent wages since that is the reported reason that Montpellier are willing to let him go for free or pocket change.

[Angus Telford]

Stories suggesting two leading targets atm and priorities are KDH and Nelson... both around 25-26, which is focusing more on younger players

Not really. Young in football terms is 18-21, 22-23 if you're being generous. KDH is about to turn 27, even Nelson is closer to 26. Irrespective of other merits of these signings we should be mindful that they're established, mature players, who'll command sizeable wages, have likely already peaked in their development, have declining resale value within a season or two, and won't lower our average age.

Think that Nelson could be an exception to that rule in the same way that Palhinha was. If, and that is a big if, we can manage to get him beyond his injury issues he could be a player that is of interest to top teams. If we get KDH I think he will be seen as a very long term option though. Gyökeres is a recent example of a player that more than tripled his value between ages 25 and 27, so it does happen.

But they'd both be on fairly high wages and won't solve that part of the issue. Especially if we are also looking at Sterling, and our new backup keeper will surely be on decent wages since that is the reported reason that Montpellier are willing to let him go for free or pocket change.

Gyokeres when Sporting bought him was about 2 years (21 months i think) younger than KDH is now. I agree it does happen, yes it happened with Palhina and it's more conceivable with Nelson I admit given injuries have held him back up to now. But firstly these are all statistically unlikely, edge case scenarios, and secondly when people on here were saying this is the summer we could finally speculate on younger players, these signings don't fall into that category. Which naturally is what disappoints me.

[Tabby]

Yeah, they fit the pattern of our usual signings. Only "younger" player we've been strongly linked with that I can recall is Romulo. Don't think the general transfer tactic is going to change, even though I was holding out hope that it would given that Silva finally got to hold the team together like he keeps banging on about.

Last time we got "younger" players was during the disastrous PL campaign with Parker and we signed Tosin, Tete, Aina, Andersen, Lookman, Robinson and RLC. Think we had a decent shot at keeping all of them if we had stayed up and they are all now decent or above PL players (other than RLC). Even then they were 21-24 years old.

[FFC1987]

I get the rate of return argument on these players, but I don't really appreciate why signing 26 year olds is a bad thing. These players will be playing at, or going into their prime years. Used to be 29 but new findings suggest 30-31 is now the prime but I appreciate we won't get the potential coffers for them but if it brings European football to the cottage, that's what really matters. Time will tell.

I'd be more worried if all the players we were looking at were 30+ and we were continuing to see our brightest youth talent leave for peanuts, but it does seem like we've turned a corner there.

[bill taylors apprentice]

Sterling has been a failure for some time now and given a fresh start I still can't see him having the enthusiasm to improve.
Add in the wage burden and it's a big NO from me!

[Tabby]

I get the rate of return argument on these players, but I don't really appreciate why signing 26 year olds is a bad thing. These players will be playing at, or going into their prime years. Used to be 29 but new findings suggest 30-31 is now the prime but I appreciate we won't get the potential coffers for them but if it brings European football to the cottage, that's what really matters. Time will tell.

I'd be more worried if all the players we were looking at were 30+ and we were continuing to see our brightest youth talent leave for peanuts, but it does seem like we've turned a corner there.

You completely skipped over the wage issue. If we sign a promising younger player they will likely accept a lower wage than an already established senior player, especially if we sign them from Premier League teams. We have a fairly settled squad so I thought this could be the season that they push out the boat a little and take some chances, but it doesn't seem that way.

Put it this way, would you have preferred to sign Andersen for £18 million on a far lower wage at the age of 24 or £30 million at age 28 like last season? Has Andersen become a far better player in the intervening years? I think Bassey was better than Andersen last season, but I'd wager Andersen has roughly twice the wages of Bassey.

[Tabby]

Anyway, on KDH news, looks like Chelsea are signing Xavi Simons from RB Leipzig, which would make him leaving more likely.