According to the Guardian, anyway - and it is a pretty accurate summing up in a paragraph. It is not hard to figure out where Fulham have gone wrong this season but if the club do need more clues, then they could refer to what Hull have done right. Steve Bruce's shrewd management has been complemented by judicious backing from his chairman, Assem Allam. Hull invested wisely in the summer by bringing in the likes of Curtis Davies, Tom Huddlestone, Allen McGregor and (on loan) Jake Livermore, and did so again in January, signing Shane Long and Nikica Jelavic for a combined fee of around £13m while Fulham were splashing out £12m on Kostas Mitroglou. It was fitting that Long and Jelavic scored on Saturday while Mitroglou was again mysteriously absent, Hugo Rodallega squandered two fine chances and Darren Bent trod on the ball when put clean through. It is not just up front where Fulham lack quality, of course: their three managers have deployed 38 players this season in a variety of formations as they desperately seek 11 who can form a unit that can both attack and defend effectively for 90 minutes. With two games left, the search goes on.
We all knew what we needed coming into this season, primarily an attacking midfielder (should have been Huddlestone), a left back (someone, anyone) and a striker (should have been Long). Whether Jol chose not to spend or was not able to spend, the fact remains that our summer recruitment was poor. Bringing in Bent and Taarabt on loan and Parker on a long deal just were never going to cut it.
Loads of things have accumulated over the last 3 years really. But lack of investment in players and then investment in the wrong players have led to our demise. Couple this with an ex chairman who was selling the club and didn't want to spend to maximise his return it was always going to go one way. Then the new owner comes in, new owner and different ways of doing things, unsettling a small club like ours. Then we have a couple of months from December to Feb where everything goes belly up and bingo. However, I know this is only an if, but if we had beaten Hull at the weekend we would only be 3 points behind them. They have had a great cup run and reached a final but still in the league theyre not that far in front irrelevant of Bruce's nouse! Just sayin.
I agree overall, but I don't remember any of us calling for Shane Long this summer, and I suspect that if we'd signed him there would have been plenty of voices demanding better. Mitroglou was, on paper, a great signing but only if he had been fit. Even so, passing on Huddlestone is the worst of our transfer errors for me. The fact that we weren't prepared to match Hull financially is possibly the single biggest self-inflicted wound of the whole season.
I think we can point to this player we purchased, or that player we didn't, as being a mistake, but I don't think one signing or another would have made a big difference in this club. Most of us at the beginning of the season were worried about scoring goals, but it was our defense (IMO) that put us on the express train to relegation. So while talking about one player or another is fine, the big picture is that we were in trouble from the first day of the season and a couple of decent players wasn't going to save us. I think the writing's been on the wall for at least three years. The inevitable aging of the team finally caught up with us, and with MAF unwilling to invest in the long-term future of a club he knew he'd sell, there was no way we were going to avoid serious trouble this year. Frankly, we were lucky we didn't tank last year. Looking back, Mark Hughes walking away from the job, saying MAF wasn't honest in his "ambition", was probably first bellwether that we were headed for trouble. We all trashed Hughes for leaving us that way, but think about it: who walks away from a healthy team destined for bigger and better things? Nobody, that's who. Hughes saw what was coming; he'd probably walked into MAF's office once too often and heard the word "no" when asked about some good player. Sick of fighting over pennies, Hughes simply left and Jol took his place with disingenuous promises from MAF there'd be money to spend. And here we are. So we can talk about Bent, Taarabt or Parker, but what we needed was about six players with the youth and quality of Holtby, and that was never going to happen. MAF made sure of it.
Captain, I only said Long because of the Hull article. Bit we didn't sign anyone so you put pretty much any striker there. DR, I'm in complete agreement. Parker and Taarabt in themselves aren't bad players. But we needed different signings which were never going to come. That doesn't excuse Jol's rift with Kit Symons that seemed to prevent any youth players coming through, but Jol wasn't solely responsible for weakening the squad.
For sure. You could however hold him responsible for lack of togetherness, lack of spirit and lackadaisical.
I called for Long in the summer and in January. He's exactly the type of player we needed all season.
Fair play, FulhamIreland, I'd forgotten that. I do remember earlier than that, when he was still at Reading and there was a rumour linking us to him, that some on this board (not, as far as I recall, Surlyc - sorry for any offense there!) were outraged that we were considering someone from below the Premier league rather than signing a bigger name. I suspect that's what pushed my buttons this time. Back tehn there was a constant argument as to whether we should take a punt on promising younger players who hadn't made their name yet, or splash the cash on bigger names. Ironically, the club has instead taken the worst part of both strategies, signing bigger names who are available on the cheap because they have past the best. And look where that's got us!
In fairness at the time we were just getting over the Sanchez signings, a lot of whom came from the Championship (Bouazza, Healy, Lee Cook, Baird at the time wasn't great). There's a list of young up and comers that failed to make the cut and unfortunately a list of big name and big money signings that have flopped. I think the argument still rumbles on Captain. I remember during January people arguing whether we should take a punt on a Danny Ings or Jordan Rhodes or sign a big name player with a 'proven' goal scoring record. Back then we went for AJ over the likes of Long and this time it was Kostas instead of Ings/Rhodes. Wrong choice both times by the looks of things.
I think the Long rumours were a bit later than when we signed AJ and Zamora - just three or so years ago, maybe. I wanted us to go for Ings before he even joined Burnley - I saw him as an 18 year old for AFC Bournemouth and he had something special back then. He hasn't been prolific before this season though, so admittedly he might not have made an instant impact. I saw Rhodes play against Bournemouth this season as well, and he looked very good to me too. I think it's too early to write off Mitroglou for failing, but as a relegation-saving signing, the deal has certainly failed. If he'd been fit it could have been very different.
Yeah didn't mean Mitroglou was a failure but the decision to sign him, given the situation, was completely wrong. Mind you, we were all head over heels when the signing actually happened. Hindsight eh?
Where we went wrong?? Let me think... Oopsss lost count... MAF, Jol, CEO, Khan, fans... MAF due to lack of investment the last 2 years! Jol for being a plonker! CEO because of Mitroglou and Rene! Khan coz he could have asked! Fans we are too Fulhamish to even complain and our eternal hope!
With the signing of Mitroglou, & yesteryear of Andy Johnson, could it be our chief scout is in fact an orthopaedic surgeon.
Think we just got complacent as a club after the Europa League, maybe Sparky had a point when he said about our lack of ambition. ALF seemed to lose interest, or at least willingness to invest, we picked up Jol who wanted to live in London rather than make a mark as coach and Khan bought us probably thinking he didn't need to do or invest much to keep the money rolling in and provide exposure for his NFL franchise. I like our work with the academy but there seems to have been an oversight on what was going to happen in the 5 or so years it will take for us to start seeing the benefits. If we'd stayed up we would probably have ended up bringing in free transfers and loans again. Our spending has been too low relative to the other teams- money that should have been spent on transfers or wages seems to have disappeared and the increased TV rights never showed for us. I suspect ALF took it with him when he left and Khan probably feels like he's been sold a dud. It's his own stupid fault though, as far as I can see his plan for us was to promote the Jaguars, who appear to be equally as bad as us.
As I've said before. Relegation isnt going to be a bad thing. The club can refocus and build a vision for the next 10 years, using our acedemy as the platform. Easier said than done though.
Anyone else think that a failure to adequately replace Ray Lewington was a turning point? Certainly our defending has deteriorated badly since he left.
