From The Manager's Mouth - Dempsey Wants Out

According to the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19298824

 

A real pity the way that agents and clubs behave - Just leaves a sour taste.

 

Truth be told I think we've all been expecting this for a while. No-one wants an unhappy player so lets hopefully get a good offer from him and let him move on and not risk losing him for nothing next summer. However this story unfolds, he'll always be a fulham legend, and has made a huge contribution to establishing the club where it is today.

In other news, did anyone else hear that Jol admitted in the same press conference that we turned down one offer for Dembele from an unnamed PL club. He stated however that the offer was relatively low and dembele is quite happy to stay with us.

 

I think it's good that Jol's got this out in the open rather than just citing fitness or other reasons for leaving Dempsey on the sidelines. It's now up to the clubs that want him to make a serious offer or wait twelve months to scrap over him when he becomes a free agent.

Is there any chance that the club has an option to keep Dembele for another year but just hasn't gone public about it?

 

I find it very strange that no clubs have offered or asked the price for Dempsey.
Also strange that is Dempsey would settle for a non Champions League team.
But I guess the American owners of Liverpool can't back their promises to him
by being unable to stump up the cash being asked for Last seasons top Premier midfield
goalscorer. Maybe Rodgers doesn't see him as a guaranteed first team player, so is not will to take the
risk.

I'm sure that I read Dembele saying when he first joined that he would use Fulham to
further his career and leave on a free when his contract was up.
But the other day it said on TV that Dembele had a buy out clause of £15m, when talking
about Real Madrid being interested, but it also said he had two years left on his contract !!!!

 

Here is Jol's press conference as published on the Club site -

http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2012/august/jols-press-conference

Apart from the comments about Dempsey and Dembele transfers, he makes other sensible points about transfers in. Also love his expectation of goals from Bryan and Moussa.

 

Very unprofessional of Clint I think

 

Yup, and apparently the Club have fined him -

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/7999130/

What's the maximum, 2 week's wages??

 

I think Clint Dempsey has embarrassed himself in front of a lot of supporters who were willing
to thank him for his time at Fulham and hoped he'd find a Champions League team to play for, like he wanted,
but now refusing to play, is going to cause bitterness against him, I for one hope the club now stick
to their asking price, and if not sold then loan him out to a European club or Rangers Servco where he can join Bocanegra.
And it's right that the club should fine him if he is not willing to play.

 

I have been a great fan of Clints,and the statements we read seem so unlike him.
The Jol article was just what we should be hearing, and of course there should never be a tail wagging the dog
syndrome,but it has been said in the past by some Spurs supporters that Jol at times does lack sensitivity in his
communications skills.
Positive results will no doubt ease any worries that other fans may have in this department,something I am sure the clubs
hierearchy wil be monitoring closely .
Roll on Saturday. and a good result.

 

I've always liked Jol's press conferences, always down to earth and they build confidence, and you always get honesty.

It's unfortunate that Demps has decided to act like your typical player and force a move while disrespecting the club, but we shouldn't expect any different. He'll always be a legend at the club but he's done himself harm in our eyes. We should've known when it became clear he wanted to go to Liverpool, when he also said he wanted CL football. The sooner he's gone, the better.

I would've expected this from Moussa, who has been frank from the off in his intentions, but he's been a consummate professional when he's in the same position as Demps, and probably could've forced a move himself.

 

2 tweets from Clint: "The truth will come out soon" and "There are two sides to the story." There are probably 2, 3 or 4 sides actually (FFC, L'pool, Clint, his agent etc).

It would be a shame if the manner of his leaving was to be overly negative. There were too many good times.

 

I agree, Gera. I don't like how this is ending, but he's been a great player for the club. I wish him well.

 

Think it might be too late to stop the bad feelings. The worse thing he could have done was to refuse to play because he wants a move.

'The Truth will come out soon' sounds like it's going to be a last minute transfer domino effect of maybe Agger to Man City, then L'Pool can buy Dempsey, and then may be Fulham go for Rhodes (as he hasn't played for Hudderfield tonight at Cardiff and he's not injured!!! so is he doing a Dempsey).
BBC Quote in their match report: striker Jordan Rhodes, who was a late withdrawal because of injury, having been the subject of a transfer bid by Blackburn in the build-up. So maybe not then.

'There are two sides to the story' someone has been leaking things to Sky all the time to try to get Fulham to sell cheaper.

 

The guy on Sky said he had done his hamstring but that may just be a cover story of course.

 

It's all getting very tedious - I can't remember a situation like this before involving Fulham. Whenever players have wanted to leave in the past - Saha, Steed, Schwarzer when Arsenal tried to sign him - I don't remember any of them refusing to play. It's a good argument for closing the transfer window before the season starts rather than two weeks in. You've got Dempsey not playing for Fulham, Nzonzi doing the same thing at Blackburn and Rhodes at Huddersfield. I can't see how anyone benefits, although for the time being I'll give Clint the benefit of the doubt when he says there's another side to the story. It does seem out of character for him to not just carry on training and playing until everything else gets sorted out.

 

Got to say I haven't always enjoyed them Bidley - and have made this known in the past. In this instance, however I will agree with you, up to a point. Something had to be said publicly and what he said was open and honest but again I'd suggest only up to a point.

Today's statement makes it sound as though Dempsey has all of a sudden said he wants to move. Forgetting for now that he made noises about joining a CL team over a year ago, he rejected a new offer by the Club just after the end of last season - what more confirmation did they need all those weeks ago. Dempsey had most probably been tapped by Liverpool while he was in the States and they and he, thought a deal had been done (evidenced by the Rodgers statement on the L'pool site and the Fenwick Group web post). It's inconceivable that the matter wasn't discussed with Jol in Germany.

It was widely reported that Liverpool had bid £5m or £6m. Jol now says that no "firm" bid was received. Fair enough, but is that any different from the Schwarzer/Arsenal affair? In that case Scwarzer was quietly left out of the team. Why this time is it inferred that Dempsey has been left out because 'he refused to play' ? I know those were not Jol's words but that's how they are being interpreted.

Jol said also today that Dempsey had made his feelings known to him. Jol also said that Danny Murphy told him he was staying the day before he upped sticks. A bit harsh perhaps, but is it possible Jol hears what he wants to hear?

I really believe Liverpool are the villains in this sorry saga (and a big plus to Jol for outing them). Then there is the media who almost single handedly have tried to manufacture the transfer. And Dempsey undoubtedly could have handled himself better in the last week or so - would it not have been more honourable to say he wanted a new challenge but until that came along he was contracted as a Fulham player? I suppose you could argue in his favour that he was in fact being decent to the Club and enabling them to get some money now rather than zilch in a year's time (just being devil's advocte there - personally I think he wants out because next season would be an anti-climax to last year's)

My main issue though is with the Club. Jol's comments should have been said at least two weeks ago - shortly after Dempsey joined the squad in Germany. Had it been, an awful lot of this mess would have been avoided. The cynic in me wonders if the Club is making Dempsey look bad to soften us fans up for a sale at a lower price than anticipated ("sod it, let's make the best of a bad job" - a wee bit Zamorish?).

Still, we've been here before with Saha and "we will overcome"!

 

Also Modric

This is just the way football is going to be honest. The player holds all the cards, as the Tevez sage at City showed. He chose not to play when he didn't feel like it and when he did feel like it he was back in the side. Other clubs don't want to buy players who show no professionalism and I feel Liverpool are now out of the race.

I'd like to think Clint is an innocent party in all of this but I fear he is not.

 

Well that's not true, here's a direct quote from Jol;

Dempsey has been training on his own and didn't join the squad in Switzerland, this happened after the Germany camp and there has been a lot of speculation. Jol is within his rights to address questions about this.

It's easy to paint Clint as the villain between him and Jol because he probably is. It's far more likely that Liverpool were sniffing around Demps' agent, Demps caught wind and thought "I'll 'ave that" and then told Jol he didn't want to play for the club any more, like MANY players have done before. I find it hard to believe that Jol left Clint behind because Liverpool were showing interest - what better way to invite a low-ball bid? Then to fine the player as well - if Demps was being fined wrongly, then there would be all manner of lawsuits being thrown around.

And all this talk from Demps about "two sides to every story" and "the truth will come out" - why not say your piece now? He's diminished his own standing at the club, if he feels he's being wronged then he should just come out and say it, it won't matter... Unless he thinks it'll damage a move to another club.

What a mess.

 

Absolutely, Bidley. My point however, was that it should have been before now.

But, as I said, that's what happened with Schwarzer and the Arsenal affair. So, why is this different?

You're right to bring up the role of Dempsey's. Here's an article from 2 years ago just to re-emphise that the Agent has been touting him for some time -

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/fulham/33541/clint-dempsey-on-his-way-out-of-fulham.html