I think we're all in a bit of a daze here - what a crap night. The players must have known before kick off tonight - apparently we were awful. I just don't know what to say - we start off so well 5-0, narrowly lose to Man Utd and then it all comes crashing down. Still, as we say there is still the basis of a good squad. We can still have a decent enough season.
When Dembele first arrived he was a headless chicken, running round in circles, and losing the ball. It was the same with Steed when he arrived, but I think the Fulham crowd gave them both time to develop without getting on at them, about losing the ball. I don't think the Spurs crowd will be so patient if he does not come up to Modric's standard. Will he go the same way as Steed did at Tottenham. Out of every team I think he was more suited to Arsenal, but they went and got Cazorla and have Wilshere coming back. At Spurs they used to play at a faster build-up under Harry, so unless AVB is going to go down the route of holding onto possession I think they might play at too fast a pace for him to link play they way he likes. You already had Kagawa so I couldn't see Ferguson taking Dembele. And I wouldn't want Berbatov. Maybe Chicharito.
If he goes... he goes. But to Spurs! Hopefully the big man sees it for what it is- the grass isn't any greener in north London. Spurs would be an awful move, average club that peaked two years ago- please Moussa, hold out for a better offer.
Steed was always well liked at Spurs, I was in the minority in not rating him. Modric's role for us was to link the play too but I think the difference between us and Arsenal is that they like to have everyone in midfield doing that role. Whilst Dembele doesn't have Modric's passing range from what I've seen that wasn't the important thing, we needed Modric for his ability to move the ball well and keep us ticking over. When Modric was out or played in a less influential role on the wing last season we actually ended up with higher possession stats because by the time we got it forward our attackers were back to goal and well marked letting the game go flat and leaving us to pass it around hoping for the defence to open up. I think he'll get more gametime with us than anyother top 5 team, which should be beneficial for him. I'm really glad we got him and think he'll be a great signing for us.
Sure he will be YV - Levy will sell him to your partners in 2 years time for 3 times what your paying for him now.
Do you think Tottenham will notice when the 16 year-old Moussa Dembele we bought from PSG turns up for the medical ?
I was just curious! He's not what we desperately need in the midfield, buy he would definitely improve us there, with Anderson's inconsistency and whenever he does start to kick into gear he gets injured. Cleverly is highly rated but is still an unproven entity. Fletcher is out indefinitely (personally don't think he'll come back), we're left with Giggs, Scholes, Carrick, and possibly Jones. 3 of them on the wrong side of 30, two of them on the wrong side of 35' and who knows if Jones is actually even a midfielder. Under Ferguson's guidance he would have every possibility to fulfill every bit of his potential. At Spurs he may get more playing time with Modric and Huddlestone leaving, but they've apparently made an effort to sign M'Villa, so it is possibly he can just be the next Steven Piennar. Who knows if AVB will still be at Spurs in a years time. As much as I'd love to have him at United, I'd almost rather him stay at Fulham. It's nice seeing some of the "mid table" teams genuinely push for Europe because their team is that good, not just riding their luck.
I wonder how much of this is down to Jol... I sincerely doubt he'd let his best player go this late on in the window. Perhaps the release clause really did exist. In any case, I was convinced we'd have him for one more year. At least this will (hopefully) spark some more transfer movement inward for us. I wonder how he'll get on at Spurs and AVB. If it was 'Arry he'd probably sit on the bench for a couple of years then leave, but maybe AVB will actually play him. Not that I care.
Lots of places saying Spurs activated the £15m release clause. What is the point in these clauses and how do they benefit the club? I suppose it's another player-power thing.
It would have been interesting to have played last night with Ruiz, to get a better glimpse of how we will do without Moussa. Without both of them, we sounded toothless and bereft of ideas. Ruiz can't play Moussa's role, but if we don't sign someone who can, we'll need someone - Sidwell? Baird? - to sit with Diarra and give Ruiz a platform to be our playmaker. He might rise to it - I'm a lot more in favour of Ruiz than some on this board - but it's a big gamble. I just hope Jol has an ace up his sleeve. Not the start to the day I was hoping for.
I'm a bit surprised that he's gone to Spurs and not a club that can offer him immediate Champions League football, but if that was the best deal on the table then good luck to him and as YV says above he'll get more game time than he would at another club. Let's not panic, though, these things are always going to happen to a club the size of Fulham and it's not like we weren't going to lose him sooner or later. What I do find encouraging is that it appears we've just taken the cash and not picked up a couple of Spurs' cast-offs which suggests to me that Jol does have a replacement or replacements lined up. I hate to say it, by the way, but even at £15m a £10m profit on player after 2 years represents very good business by Mark Hughes, even if it took Martin Jol to figure out that he's a midfielder and not a second striker.
The blame for this rests solely on the shoulders of Chairman Mohammed Al-Fayed. This is not Jol's fault - there's no way Jol wanted his best midfielder to be shipped off to Spurs. This comes down to Merchant Mo, who saw a product costing 5 Million get sold for 15 Plus million, a tidy profit for the chairman. Don't blame Jol. Jol is playing good soldier going along with this publically, but I'm sure Jol is privately fuming. Remember the words of Mark Hughes: "Historically, Fulham was a club that was happy to be in the Premier League and that was their ambition, but it was not my ambition for them," Hughes told the Mirror. "In conversations, they were saying, 'We know exactly what you're about Mark, but, really, we are just quite happy to stay in the Premier League'." Chairman Mo exploded with a response to Mark Hughes accurate statement, but MAF's actions speak louder than words. About Ruiz - he's not Dembele, but there are signs I think that he has the creativity to be a playmaker. It took Dembele a solid year to adjust to the pace and pressure of the EPL. I think we're seeing signs already that Ruiz has, or is, making that same adjustment. And while Dembele is a special player, his real gift was dribbling with the ball, not so much passing it. Dempsey (who may still remain) and Ruiz, I would argue, are both better passers. In the end, I think Sidwell will step up into the Murphy role and, in a month or two, all will be forgotten.
I like Ruiz too, but I think he'll need to play in front of two central midfielders rather than as one of them, and one of them needs to be able to share the creative burden as Moussa did. I liked Sidwell when we first signed him, but I'm not sure he's the answer. It sounded from the radio that he was running around like an over-aggressive headless chicken last night. If him and Kasami were auditioning to step into Dembele's boots (which we now know they kind of were) I think they blew it. I think - and hope - that we'll see Jol move into the transfer market in the next couple of days and invest £5m to £10m on a replacement. Just don't ask me who, I've got nothing to offer on that!
DR - you quote Mark Hughes, but actually Jol said something telling during one of the transfer windows when there was speculation about Dembele and Dempsey. It was along the lines of, on the continent when someone comes in for your best player and offers good money you take it, buy in replacements and move on. It's the way things work and no one complains. In England, as soon as you accept an offer you're labelled a 'selling club'. We can still have a good season without Dembele - or Dempsey for that matter. We sold Louis Saha mid-way through a season and still ended up with what at the time was our highest ever finish (although things went downhill after that for a few years). He's a bit of a comedy figure now, but when Jimmy Bullard left and was replaced by Dickson Etuhu it looked like a backwards move but we got into Europe. Eighteen months ago Newcastle fans were up in arms about the sale of Andy Carroll, and they followed that up by finishing fifth. Selling players isn't a problem, it's how you move on when they've gone and I have faith in Jol. Ruiz took a while to settle, but he's generally made good acquisitions (Diarra, Riise, Pog - while it lasted, Petric looks like he'll do well).
Good post ish77, I needed that What you say holds a lot of weight, especially about Newcastle. It may be a bit much to hope we can emulate their success but it gives us reason to not be too negative. There's still time left in the transfer window. Our performances (minus last night) were good team performances, there's no reason we can't do well, like you say. COYW
Quite right, Fulhamish. When we sold Saha for squllions we spent a fraction of the fee (less than £1m I seem to recall) on his replacement, a certain Brian McBride. A good fee for a player is only a good fee if you replace well. It's too soon to say whether we're going to do that, but we have to assume that Jol has someone in mind. This transfer will hardly have come as a shock to him. What we need now is a bit of perspective and a bit of patience. And a cheap-as-chips midfield miracle worker, please!
Might sound daft but could Frei eventually take on the Dembele role, linking defense and attack, at the moment he hasn't got the same presence as Mousa, but he can be a bottle battleship and puts himself about, (the new Messi ).
I'm not surprised that Spurs activated the selling clause at this late stage, typical Levy tactic. He's always making late deals. I don't blame Dembele for looking at Spurs and thinking it's a good move. I'd do it if it were me. Fulhamish is quite right, Jol must have been anticipating this but I think he would rather keep hold of him. BTW, if we did keep hold of him we wouldn't be looking at £15m at the end of the season, it would have been zilch, nada, niente, nichts etc! So, £15m now is a lot better than nothing in 9 months time. I think Jol will now start to play some youngsters more. I think it's quite exciting. I definitely don't agree with Roscafre that we're relegation material, IMHO! I can only imagine that emotions were running high when he wrote it. COYW
Am I being eternally optimistic in thinking Dembele could actually turn down the chance to join Spurs? Apart from money, what reason could he have for going there? They aren't in the CL or EL and have started very poorly to the season, there are already some corners of fans calling for AVB's head, so Moussa could even be playing for another manager in a few month's time. If I were Moussa, I would hold out for a move to Utd. Fergie has identified him as the Scholes replacement, Dembele could be adored at Utd in that role, whereas at Spurs like Bidley said, there is as good a chance as the move going sour as there is going well. Side note, can anybody tell me why we are in for Richardson? He's a right back/right midfielder, right? We signed Riether and we have Kaca/Frei/Duff/Davies/Ruiz who can play on the wing.
