Reports from Columbia that Hugo Rodallega is being tempted with a return home - " In conversation with the radio program JaimeDinas.com in Cali, Hugo confessed "I have met twice with Cali representatives." He continued "There have been approaches, I have had conversations with clubs but nothing is concrete yet and at the moment my idea is to stay in Europe. I appreciate the interest Deportivo Cali, Millonarios, Nacional and America have shown, you never know what might happen later". The interest of Deportivo is serious and it is expected that Cali will approach Fulham in the coming week. Hugo also said, "I chose to step aside to allow conversations between the clubs. Cali already know my thoughts on the subject and know that we could reach an agreement, now it depends on them. It is not easy because there are several things in between but this must be resolved between the clubs. " Hugo has obviously found it tough at the Cottage with Jol preferring only one striker. Even when changes were made he only seem to be favoured when Petric was injured. And fair play to him for keeping his head down and as they say 'getting on with it'. For the record; Hugo scored 3 goals and gained 3 assists from 14 starts and a total of 29 appearances To be honest, if the offer is decent then the timing is right for both Fulham and Hugo to move on.
Why are we even contemplating letting Hugo go when there's an even more useless striker already on the payroll? Keep Hugo, ditch Petric.
Well, he has openly admitted that he has no idea what combination to play the three of them, four if you add Bryan into the mix. So maybe he prefers to wipe the slate clean and start again.
` We're not contemplating letting Hugo go, unless I'm missing something? A few other clubs have spoken to him (which is a bit unsavoury in itself) and are rumoured to be making a move. We're not touting him to other clubs. Petric has said he wants to go and get regular football elsewhere when his contract is up, which is in a couple of weeks as Surly says.
If this is true it’s the best news I’ve had all year… and I’m having a pretty good year. You can’t fault him of for effort but with the exception of one or two games he has been useless.
I think Hugo is a useful back up (and that view is an improvement on my first assessments of him), but not threatening to be a first team regular. Unless Jol has enormous confidence in Trotta and Altman, letting him go will leave us very short on options up front. Of course, if letting him go means the club is planning on signing one or more new strikers, that would be very welcome news. On a related note, I see that Southampton are rumoured to be joining the chase for Hooper again. I haven't seen us mentioned in connection with him for a while. If we signed Hugo on a free transfer and his wages are, say £30k per week (I've plucked that figure out of the air. I have no source for it!), then any fee around £1.5m-£2m would mean that we've basically had last season from him at no cost at all. If the fee's any bigger we've made a profit including a year's worth of wages. He hasn't been the best, but that would represent a reasonable bit of business.
My view is that we should let them both go,. I am sure we could get Rhodes for 8/10mil.( and maybe throw in Trotta) With Altman, the Tank & Woodrow as back ups.
Petric has made it clear that he is off and personally I thnk he is better than Hugo so if Hugo gets an offer I would be happy to say thank you but good bye! As much as I want Altman and Tank to get a chance and a few games next season I'm under the impression they are more in the Berba 2nd striker role so still think we need someone who is an out an out goal scorer kind of player, possibly Moussa Dembele but think he is still only 16/17 so probably to early! Not sure what style of player Woodrow is but have a feeling he is more a second striker as well
He's very much the front man Cookie - if anything like an old fashioned centre forward. Holds the ball up well and good awareness to bring others into the game. His weakness at the moment is that while he's scored a fair number of goals, he's missed even more. Remind you of anybody?? My comment about missing chances is actually meant as a back-handed compliment to Cawley, because it means at least he reads the game and gets in the right positions.
I've read a lot from the guys that watch the youth teams about Cawley and would love to see him get a few games for the first team. If he's as good as he sounds from the reports it surely couldn't do any harm to give him his chance in a few games. Maybe don't throw him in against Arsenal or Man City but why not against Palace or Hull?
