Well, here we are again. Another season down, and another summer window preview to write. I feel like I should start by saying I'm not sure why I try and make sure these go out as soon as the season is over. For reference I've basically got home from the City game, eaten and then gone straight into writing this. I've obviously been working on the shortlist for a couple of months, but you can never know for certain who will end up on the final list for various reasons. For example one player I had down was Frans Kratzig who's already signed for Salzburg- and probably the most noteworthy one in this sense was Marcel Sabitzer who I had on my list pretty much from the start, and then Dortmund went on an unbelievable winning run to secure Champions League football when it seemed all but certain that they wouldn't.
But back to the point, it just seems there's always very little urgency on the part of the club to go out, make early signings and hit the ground running. If I was to say that the last signing we made in June was Tom Cairney 10 years ago it almost sounds like a fake stat, but that's the reality. We can change many, many things this summer from an organisational standpoint- and my hope is we try and make a serious effort to get business done earlier this summer, which in turn should lead to a better pre-season and so and so forth. Will it happen? Of course not.
I always like to do a mini review of the season before getting into the "meat" of this summer preview, and I think this is genuinely one of the hardest ones to write in-terms of just being able to sum up my feelings on it. We have, objectively, had a very good season. If you told any Fulham fan leaving the Tim Ream testimonial at Kenilworth Road this time last year that for this season we'd lose half a dozen players including selling Palhinha and then we would, among other things, beat Liverpool, beat Spurs, win a penalty shootout at Old Trafford, do the double over Brentford and have a genuine all timer moment beating Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the last minute- all while never having relegation as a consideration and having a genuine shot of Europe in May literally everyone would've bitten your hand off and said thanks very much.
With all that said, I can't help but feel like whenever we're next relegated, and we will be, whether that's next year or ten years down the line, it's just the reality of the size of club we are, that we'll be looking back on this season as the one where we could have actually got something tangible. Whether that was a trip to Wembley this season, a trip to Sarajevo next season, or the ultimate goal for any club of actually winning something. I know there's a train of thought that a team like Palace winning the FA Cup proves it's possible for clubs our size. But with the way Football is now in-terms of how top heavy it is- you need so many different things to happen for it to become a possibility, and the chances of all those things happening again are very small. It doesn't matter for Palace of course, because they were able to capitalise and we weren't. The points record is nice, but it's just a number. And for all the positives of this season, in the wise words of the ancient prophets Linkin Park we tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end it doesn't even matter.
Looking ahead to the transfer window now, and the big thing for us has to be the "philosophy" we go into the summer with. We need to get a bigger squad, with better players and significantly bring down the average age. Simple, right? I think the average age of the squad has to be the big one, because the last couple of months have felt very late-stage Martin Jol. For reference, the average age across the 33 players I'll look at in this preview is just under 23- and we need to start getting into the habit of signing more players in the sort of 20-23 age bracket that we sign, improve and then sell on. That's our place in the food chain, and from an FFP perspective it's what we need to do in order to stay competitive and keep progressing as a club. If we have a window where we sign Vladimir Coufal and Abdoulaye Doucoure on free transfers and bring Raheem Sterling in on loan late in the window, that should be fine for next season- but to me that wouldn't be progress, it would be standing still.
That isn't to say we should disregard Silva's very clear preference for experienced players, but we need to find a better balance than we currently have. I'm not suggesting we just sign a load of kids and tell Silva that's your lot- and you'll see throughout this preview that a lot of the players I'm looking at are very experienced still, but like I said we just need to find a better balance.
As well as the age point, I think the other big thing we need to look at is the profile of players we sign to make us better against the "bad" teams in the league. As it turns out 8th wouldn't have been a European spot anyway, but the reason we missed out was because we dropped way too many points against the "bad" teams in the league this season. Whether it was only getting 2 points from Ipswich, or 1 from West Ham, or not beating Southampton at home, or getting 0 points from Man Utd- arguably our biggest problem this season was not being able to reliably beat the teams we "should" be beating if we wanted to achieve something. And I think a big part of that is just not being able to "dominate" games from a scoreline perspective, even compared to last season where we had an objectively worse team we still managed to beat Forest and West Ham 5-0 back to back for instance. This season it's felt like almost every single game has been on a knife edge, regardless of if we were playing Liverpool or Southampton.
The reason I think it's such a big point, is it might involve getting worse to get better, taking a step backwards to take a step forward- and all those other cliches in the sense that the profile we should be looking at might make us more susceptible to losing to the top teams that we've done very well to take as many points as we have from. But to me it boils down to just maths basically, if we were to be set up in such a way that we'd lose to Liverpool at Anfield, but then the following week beat Southampton at home- that's more points than the two draws we ended up with. And that's my sort of mentality with a lot of the signing recommendations I'll get into.
Before getting into the players, it's also just worth saying that I genuinely believe one of, if not the outright biggest signing we could make this summer would be a set-piece coach. Our set-pieces this season have been absolutely terrible. While I'm not sure what the stats are now, with about a month to go of the season we were the joint worst team in the league from attacking set-pieces. And that's before we even get into the fact that during the run in we conceded from a set-piece in pretty much every game. Set-Pieces can change games and win (or lose) you points, and it's just ludicrous to me that we haven't put in a relatively small investment into one yet when the extra goals we could get from having one could be worth millions. Especially with Stuart Gray's departure opening up a spot on the coaching staff, I'm going to be incredibly disappointed if we don't bring a dedicated set-piece coach in for next season.
Now I've said all that, the question then comes how do we go about doing it this summer? That's the question I'm here to answer. As always with these blogs, I'm not expecting us to sign everyone on this list and this list is more of a shortlist of players I'd be looking to sign from- and I'm not necessarily expecting us to sign these exact names (although they would be welcome) and it's more looking at a profile of player I'd want to target this summer.
Ins
Goalkeeper
I actually haven't minded Steven Benda for the most part this season in his very limited appearances, but I think the Wigan game highlighted the very desperate need to sign an improvement on him this summer. Even without the Wigan game factored in, I would still have been looking to replace Benda this summer though- for the simple fact that the Preston penalty shootout (that feels like a lifetime ago) was tragic.
If we want to do anything in the Carabao Cup especially, we need someone who can save a penalty. Since they brought in the format with a penalty shootout straight after the 90 minutes we've had 4 Carabao penalty shootouts in 4 years (Leeds, Spurs, Everton, Preston) and from a penalty saving perspective Benda made it very clear against Preston that if we get into a similar position again we'll probably end up losing again. As a result looking for a penalty saving "expert" would be a big part of my goalkeeper recruitment this summer. And before anyone says it, yes, I'm fully aware that the most Fulham thing possible would be signing an "expert" and then they never save a penalty in their entire Fulham career. We're still waiting for Harry Wilson to score a free-kick.
Kristijan Kahlina (Charlotte FC)
I'm not sure about anyone else, but I like to keep track of former players who have left and just see what they're getting up to, which brings us to North Carolina and Charlotte FC where Tim Ream is playing at Left-Back behind Wilfried Zaha more often than not. A quirk of MLS and the associated cup competitions that MLS teams play in is that essentially penalty shootouts aren't very rare. As a result you can get a pretty good read on who's good in those sorts of scenarios, and Kristijan Kahlina is absolutely incredible as far as penalties and penalty shootouts go. Since signing for Charlotte he's been involved in 5 penalty shootouts, Charlotte have won 4 of them. And Kahlina's save percentage across the shootouts is pretty much 50% which is well above what it "should" be.
It's also worth mentioning that Kahlina is a pretty good goalkeeper just in general. There's no use having a "penalty specialist" if you won't get to the shootout to begin with because he's letting in soft goals. Kahlina was the best Keeper in last years MLS season, and just in general he would be very handy to have in the squad. Something that some people might not know about MLS as well is that all the players wages are public knowledge, so with that in mind I feel very confident in saying we could offer him a pay rise to bring him over as a #2 compared to his current role as Charlotte's #1.
Sander Tangvik (Rosenborg)
If you asked me who I'd want playing for us as a cup goalkeeper next season, it would be Kahlina. Without a shadow of doubt in my mind. But with that said, signing someone like Kahlina doesn't do much for us long-term. Kahlina and Leno are only a couple of months apart in-terms of age, and thinking long-term in-terms of someone who can eventually overtake Leno, Kahlina doesn't really fit the bill in that sense.
So with that in mind, as we look to sign a Benda replacement, we could also look for a Keeper who's a significantly younger option that we can bed in over the next year or two and then give us a big decision to make when Leno's current contract expires in 2027. Introducing 22 year old Sander Tangvik, we can never have enough Norwegians called Sander at the Cottage.
I feel like most of the sort of transfer related hype around Rosenborg has been about Sverre Nypan who seems to be Villa bound and very much has "wonderkid" level hype around him. But behind Nypan, Rosenborg have a young Keeper who has all the makings to be absolutely top class. Tangvik and Rosenborg have made a phenomenal start to their 2025 season that will run over the summer, with Tangvik keeping 6 clean sheets in 9 games, and prior to their recent 4-0 loss to Bodo/Glimt, who are of course by far and a way the best team in Norway at the moment, he had only conceded 2 goals in 8 games. If you add up all those factors, and then combine it with the fact that since Tangvik made his senior debut he's saved more penalties than he's let in- he would definitely appear to be a very good option to pick up who shouldn't cost an extortionate transfer fee.
Mycael Pontes (Athletico Paranaense)
I highlighted Mycael last year as a young prospect, so I won't waffle on too much about him. What I will say is compared to last year Mycael has actually become Paranaense's #1 Keeper, and he showed he's not a slouch at saving penalties at the back end of last year when he saved one in back to back weeks as Paranaense unsuccessfully tried to stay up in the Brazilian Serie A- including one from Hulk of all people. You would have to imagine that given they're in the second tier of Brazil now that Mycael wouldn't cost too much should we want him, and I stand by everything I said last year in-terms of believing that he has real potential to be a top class goalkeeper.
Defenders
Moving on to the defence now, and a lot of it ultimately just boils down to being a numbers game and needing to bring 1 in if we have 1 going out. I think there'll obviously be questions about Antonee Robinson's future after the season he's had and we need to have a plan in place for that eventuality, and then beyond that we obviously have Kenny Tete out of contract, and I think we could also be saying goodbye to Issa Diop this summer. I'll look at the outgoings in more detail later on, but that basically forms the basis of what we need to be looking at for this summer.
Max Rosenfelder (Freiburg)
Like I've said already, I think we're probably quite likely to lose Issa Diop this summer, so as a result I think the best way to replace him is to look at how we've used Diop and then try and bringing someone who may perhaps be more suited to doing it. For the most part since Andersen cemented his place back in the team, we've used Diop as the right-sided Centre-Back in a three- and I think in general if we want to get the best out of Andersen next season we probably need to be playing him as the middle Centre-Back in a three. So with that in mind one thing we can look at signing profile wise is almost a hybrid Centre-Back/Right-Back who would be ideal for that right-sided Centre-Back role and that's where I think someone like Rosenfelder would flourish.
Rosenfelder was a pretty big part of the success Freiburg had this season, putting in some big performances as Freiburg ultimately just fell short of getting Champions League on the last day of the Bundesliga season- and going back to Andersen and getting the best out of him, I think a big selling point for me would be Rosenfelder's speed which should go some way to mitigating Andersen's probably biggest draw back.
Kota Takai (Kawasaki Frontale)
What if I was to say the best Centre-Back in Asia right now in-terms of form wasn't Koulibaly or Smalling or Laporte, or any of the other mega money players playing in Saudi Arabia- but instead a 20 year old Japanese player who hasn't played in Europe yet. Takai was absolutely phenomenal for Kawasaki Frontale as they reached the final of the Asian Champions League, including an absolutely top class performance in the Semi Final as he stood up to the challenge of Jhon Duran and Cristiano Ronaldo as Kawasaki Frontale knocked Al Nassr out to reach the final. Regardless of your thoughts about the overall standard in Asia/Saudi Arabia, Duran was giving Premier League Centre-Backs a hard time prior to his move in January- and that was the performance from Takai that really peaked my interest.
Takai has all the potential in the world right now, and I would expect a lot of clubs to be in for him this summer. In general Takai pretty much represents a lot of what I want out of this transfer window in-terms of signing a high potential young player, with a very high ceiling and then hoping to develop them over the next few years.
It should also be worth saying, while this isn't a primary motivation for my interest in Takai by any means, this isn't a Man Utd signing Dong Fangzhuo situation, signing someone who has the potential to be one of Japan's best players over the next few years could do wonders for us in a commercial sense. You have a club like Brighton who at best are only marginally bigger than us being able to go on a lucrative tour of Asia pretty much just off the back of Mitoma, and who knows how many new fans they've made from Japan just based on interest in Mitoma in general. Like I said I genuinely believe Takai can be up there as one of Japan's best players in a few years, and we could reap the benefits in more ways than one as a result.
Armel Bella-Kotchap (Southampton)
I realise this isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, and in fact it might even put some people off, but my logic for wanting Bella-Kotchap is pretty much what I imagine the thought process of the club was when they signed Terence Kongolo. I say that because Southampton and Bella-Kotchap are currently in a set of circumstances where he wants to leave, Southampton will want to let him leave, and he only has 1 year left on his contract which means there isn't much room to negotiate on Southampton's side.
There definitely is a player in Bella-Kotchap as well, he didn't get taken to the last World Cup by accident, but for a wide variety of reasons whether it's injury or loss of form the last couple of years of his career have been less than ideal to put it nicely. Like I said, I do genuinely believe there's a player in there somewhere, and given a lot of our transfer policy since we returned to the Premier League can be boiled down to a mentality of "I can fix them" I think Bella-Kotchap could well be a player we look at this summer, and I wouldn't really be against it despite the season he and Southampton have had.
Fikayo Tomori (AC Milan)
Moving on from a new right-sided Centre-Back option, like I said from the outset the biggest question we probably have transfer wise this summer is over the future of Antonee Robinson, and if he does leave how we replace him. The Left-Back market is terrible, I'll say that straight away. You have some elite ones who we wouldn't have a hope of signing, and then a series of more and more risky bets that may or may not pay off. So with that in mind, one thing I wonder if we'll consider should Robinson depart is moving Calvin Bassey to Left-Back and then signing a new Centre-Back where relative to Left-Backs there is an abundance of potential options.
I don't even think it's such an "out there" proposal, it's easy to forget that Bassey basically made his name in that Europa League final for Rangers playing at Left-Back- and I think we've seen glimpses of what a Left-Back Bassey could look like with some of the runs he's been going on, especially when he's played as the left-sided Centre-Back in a three. I think it's also worth mentioning that for as much as I do like Bassey, I wouldn't be opposed to introducing a new "dynamic" at the back with a different Centre-Back. I know xG is a "divisive" statistic, but in-terms of xG the only clubs that conceded less than us over the course of the season were Arsenal and Liverpool. So we're clearly doing something right in-terms of team setup. But for a wide variety of reasons we just couldn't keep a Clean Sheet to save our lives and bringing in someone new might go some way to addressing that issue.
The fact Tomori is even a consideration for this is probably illustrative of something going wrong at Milan compared to a couple of years ago where he was a big part in them winning the Scudetto playing to the left of Pierre Kalulu. This season has pretty much been a disaster for Milan in every sense, and with them not having any form of European football for next season sales are pretty much inevitable- and I think Tomori is very likely to be one of them.
This move would be very ambitious both in-terms of transfer fee and also just trying to attract someone of Tomori's "stature", but I think we need to show ambition in this transfer window to sort of set the course for the next few years at the club. We do have some factors that work in our favour as well in the sense that Tomori will probably want to leave, Milan will want the money from him leaving, and should he leave we could offer him the chance to sign for a club that's played at a good level over the last few years and perhaps most crucially in an area of the country that he'll already be very familiar with from his time at Chelsea.
Alexsandro Ribeiro (Lille)
Tomori is very comfortable playing as a left-sided Centre-Back, but there's definitely something to be said for having a left-footer as that left-sided Centre-Back just in-terms of build up play and overall balance of the team. Which is why I'd also be looking at Alexsandro as a very viable option for this hypothetical opening we would have if Bassey was shifted to Left-Back. Alexsandro was one of the standout defenders in Ligue 1 this season with Lille's defence being arguably the main reason they found themselves in the very exciting race for the Champions League that Ligue 1 ended up having this season. Alexsandro would also be a lot more secure and composed on the ball compared to Bassey, who I think at times can be a bit frenetic shall we say- and make mistakes like he did for Ipswich's first goal over the Christmas period for instance.
Matte Smets (Genk)
We're now in a hypothetical scenario following on from a hypothetical scenario of a hypothetical scenario (at least you know I've put some serious thought into this preview)- but I think there's also a world where we could see Bassey at Left-Back with Jorge Cuenca as the main left-sided Centre-Back. I feel as though there's a sort of predominant narrative in regard to Smith Rowe that he'll be better with a full pre-season and players are usually better in their second season under Silva e.g. Lukic. And I think the same can apply to Cuenca as well. I remember at the start of the season Silva was really hyping up Cuenca as a potential game changer, so with that in mind we could look to sign someone a bit younger and bed them in as Cuenca takes the reins so to speak.
Smets is quite an interesting player, he's spent the large majority of this season as a left-sided Centre-Back, but he is right-footed. And I think in an era of Football where it feels like the system is as much, if not more important than any individual player- having Smets who would pretty much be a like for like replacement for Andersen could be interesting in that sense. And when I say like for like, I do genuinely mean like for like. He's probably best off playing in the middle of a three, he's not the quickest, but he has an absolutely incredible passing range on him.
Smets could very comfortably deputise for both Centre-Backs next season, and if Andersen were to get injured or suspended as he did at various points of this season- we could bring in Smets and not have to alter how we set up tactically at all which I think is gold dust from a managerial perspective when you consider our current alternative Diop's shall we say limited ability on the ball.
Omar El Hilali (Espanyol)
Shifting over to Right-Back now, and while it's not confirmed he's leaving yet- I do think we're more likely than not to have seen the last of Kenny Tete in a Fulham shirt now. As a result the question then becomes how do we replace him, and I've tried to find the most "Kenny Tete like" Right-Back out there who still fits my other criteria in-terms of age etc.- and I think El Hilali is pretty much it.
El Hilali is just a very good defender, in the sort of mould we've had with Tete over the last few years. I mentioned a fair few amount of times in January that I wanted El Hilali when we came out openly and said we wanted to sign a Right-Back as a result of Tete's injury before we ended up only signing Willian (try and make sense of that one) and I just think if we don't want to significantly change how we set up on the right-hand side of the defence then El Hilali is pretty ideal and ticks a lot of boxes.
I think it's also worth mentioning that I've tried to avoid players who are potentially AFCON bound next season for this preview. We're already losing Iwobi and Bassey, and especially with AFCON starting just before Christmas this year I'd prefer to have as many players available as possible for that run of games. Which is why I wouldn't be overly keen on signing Samuel Chukwueze for instance- especially in Chukwueze's case because that would essentially mean we'd have to go without both of our likely first choice wingers for a run of games that can be season defining in-terms of what your ambition can be for the rest of the season.
But the good thing about El Hilali being Moroccan from this perspective is that arguably Morocco's two best players are also Right-Backs in Mazraoui and Hakimi and as a result El Hilali is still uncapped at a senior level. That could obviously change, and if one of them got injured then El Hilali would be the next one up, but Castagne is more than fine as a backup option should that happen.
Marc Pubill (Almeria)
If only we had form for signing young full-backs who have failed a medical at a top Serie A club in their recent past. For context, Pubill was seemingly all but signed for Atalanta last summer off the back of Almeria's relegation to the Segunda Division before they got cold feet when they detected a potential knee issue. However, with the amount of games that Pubill's played for Almeria this season- whatever they detected clearly isn't hampering him too much.
Pubill is just a very good modern right-back, and he has a lot of very good attributes that lend themselves to developing into one of the absolute best right-backs in the game. One big selling point to me with Pubill is that not only can he overlap and do "traditional" full-back things, but he can also invert and do that side of the game. The reason that's a big selling point to me goes back to what I said about the wanting to be better against "bad" teams and wanting to dominate more games, and inverting your full-back was pretty much invented for that purpose by Pep while he was at Bayern. It would be a departure from what we've done so far under Silva, but we're at a stage now where we need to find new and different ways to win football matches especially when we come up against low blocks.
It's also worth mentioning going back to what I said about set-pieces that Pubill would be another player who could be a direct or indirect set-piece threat given his size. Pubill's been very strongly linked with Barcelona where he would almost certainly be coming in as backup to Jules Kounde, but this goes back to my point about being an "in between" club in the sense that Pubill wouldn't start for Barca, but he would for us. So give us a couple of seasons, and then if everything's gone to plan, everyone wins and Pubill has more chance of going into a team like Barca, or Real Madrid or whoever else as an actual starter.
To be honest my biggest concern when it comes to this signing is just when we could actually sign him, because Almeria are very likely to be involved in the Play-Offs to get back to La Liga, and those usually run until the end of June so when you factor in that and then the rest he'd need after it could be less than ideal as far as pre-season preparations go.
Igor Serrote (Gremio)
Pubill and El Hilali would both be coming in as my first choice ahead of Castagne, but we can of course back Castagne next season as well and bring in more of a prospect. A lot of what I talked about in regard to El Hilali defensive wise also applies to Igor, so I'll try not to repeat myself, but from a defensive standpoint Igor has all the makings to be an absolute worldie. Igor really turned heads with some of his performances in youth tournaments, but I think my biggest thing with him is you can tell he really has the mentality to be an incredible defender. You can find compilations of some of his defensive work online, and by the time you get to the time where he literally dives in head first to try and stop a pass you start to wonder if it's a parody.
In fact, one of the big negative things as far as signing him this summer is as a result of one of those "actions" shall we say in the sense that he flew in to a tackle in a Copa Sudamericana game fairly recently and broke his wrist. However, as it's not any sort of muscle related injury or an ACL or something along those lines, and we saw with Tim Ream doing it a couple of years ago that it shouldn't impact him as far as missing games next season goes it wouldn't put me off by any means.
He's still very raw, and he's only played a handful of senior games for Gremio, but if coached and developed right he could turn into an incredible signing for us, and if/when we do lose a fan favourite like Tete I think bringing in someone like Igor who is very easy for fans to get behind with how he plays could go a long way towards softening the blow.
Maxim De Cuyper (Club Brugge)
Moving on to Left-Back now, and as I've already said earlier, the Left-Back market is just terrible. The problem these days is that most Left-Backs just aren't really Left-Backs. It works in our favour in the sense that Robinson might not suit some top clubs who want someone who can invert for instance, but it also works against us because if we do lose Robinson it's pretty much impossible for a club our size to find someone who would even be approaching the same sort of level we've seen from Robinson over the last couple of years.
De Cuyper was another player I talked about last season, so I'll try not to just repeat the same things about him. My big thing with De Cuyper is just his attacking output. It would probably sound weird to any "outsiders" after Robinson was one of the top assisters in the Premier League, but De Cuyper would give us a much more reliable final ball into the box than we usually get from Robinson which again goes back to what I've said before about wanting to be better against worse teams. We'd lose a bit defensively compared to Robinson with De Cuyper- but short of moving Bassey there or signing a left-sided Centre-Back and playing him there I think that's inevitable anyway. With that in mind, I think the way to address and cover that loss is to shift focus and try and get more of an output at the other end of the pitch which again goes back to what I've said before in regard to finding different ways to win football matches next season.
Francisco Chissumba (Braga)
De Cuyper is about as sure a thing as I think we can realistically look to sign this summer, but even he would be a bet in the sense that it's hard to gauge how he'd fare week to week in the Premier League against some of the best right-wingers in world football. Beyond De Cuyper, you're just looking at more and more risky bets, but it's not impossible that they'd deliver a big payout when all is said and done.
To my mind Chissumba right now is pretty much where Milos Kerkez was at AZ Alkmaar when Bournemouth signed him. Chissumba broke into the first team at the turn of the year for a club that's just below the "elite" teams in his league, and he's never really looked back since. He's had some very good games, and everything he's shown so far indicates his ceiling is very high. But he still needs to play more and develop more before he can take that step up to one of the "elite" clubs in world football, like it seems very likely Kerkez will this summer with how strong the links to Liverpool currently are.
And that's where we come in. As I've already talked about in regard to us being an "in between" club, a lot of Brighton's success is based in that sort of philosophy of not being afraid to say "we know you want to play for 'x', and we'll help you get there" and that would be the sort of transfer this would be- but before he does "get there" so to speak we can develop him and hopefully get a good few years of good performances out of him.
Neo Rapoo (SuperSport United)
I'll talk about Robinson more later on in the Outs section, but there's definitely a world where he stays this summer, and then the question pretty much becomes what does Silva see Ryan Sessegnon as going into next season. I know he's not a left-back, any Fulham fan who was watching during his first spell at the club knows he's not a left-back- but we did re-sign him to be a left-back. He's obviously been moved further up the pitch during the run-in, but it remains to be seen if that was out of necessity because of injuries or more of a long-term vision on the part of Silva.
If Sessegnon is permanently moved further up the pitch and Robinson stays, then we need a new backup. In putting together this preview, I've tried to widen the net as much as possible when looking at potential signings- because as a club we should be scouting everywhere to find potential players and I think part of my problem with our current recruitment is it just seemingly being very narrow in-terms of where we're looking. Which brings me to the Under 20s AFCON that just finished where Rapoo was probably the best player in the whole tournament, although he didn't win player of the tournament, as the "Amajita" of South Africa won the whole thing with Rapoo captaining the side. It remains to be seen whether Rapoo would be of the standard required for a Premier League side- even as a backup, but ultimately every signing is a bet in some respects, and for what would be a relatively cheap price I think Rapoo would be a bet worth making.
There's actually half a dozen or so players I'd be keen on taking a look at off the back of the tournament, with some of the most notable ones being Ebenezer Harcourt a 15 year old Keeper who's playing way above his age bracket and still flourishing and Odinaka Okoro another Left-Back- with them both being at Sporting Lagos in their native Nigeria.
I think this suggestion also goes hand in hand with another more broad point when it comes to it almost becoming a need now that the Khans buy another club to set up a sort of "network" that will allow us to sign players like Rapoo, Okoro and Harcourt for instance and have a place for them that wouldn't involve just sitting on the bench bar a League Cup 2nd Round game against Newport County.
It's clearly something they've thought about because the link to buying Ternana in Italy was there in the not too distant past, which was too random of a link to be completely made up, and it feels like more of a necessity when you look at how many clubs we're competing with now that have that sort of setup in the sense that it's not just City doing it anymore. Teams we were directly competing with this season (Brighton and Bournemouth) have for want of a better way to describe it a feeder club and when it comes to just trying to remain competitive even at the level we're currently at, it's something that needs to be explored in my opinion.
Midfielders
I think the midfield is where we're likely to see major surgery this summer. The extensions of Jimenez and Traore probably received quite a mixed response, but to my mind, it isn't healthy to just have half a squad leave and try to replace them all in one go- and when you consider the departures we're likely to see in the midfield especially, the extensions make sense to me. We obviously have the numbers point of view, but I think in-terms of the profile we look to recruit the midfield signings we can potentially make do a lot for my sort of overall "aim" I would have for this transfer window.
Berge and Lukic together are more than fine from a defensive point of view. When we go to Anfield, the Emirates, the Etihad and all those sorts of grounds I have literally zero problem with that midfield pairing. But beyond those sorts of games, I think they leave a lot to be desired in an attacking sense- and going back to my want to be better against "worse" teams, my main aim for this summer midfield recruitment wise is to make our midfield more dynamic and very crucially add more goals.
Going back to what I talked about right at the start of this preview, the back to back 5-0s against Forest and West Ham last season, who both played low blocks, were in large part down to the midfield being as attack minded as it was with Cairney in as good of form as he probably ever has been in the Premier League and Pereira either side of Palhinha who we trusted to do enough defensively to allow the other two to play further up the pitch and we reaped the rewards of being bold in that regard.
Just for some perspective, Christian Norgaard, who I wouldn't say is the most attack minded midfielder in the world, playing for a team that finished one position and two points ahead of us this season has more goals than literally all of our midfielders bar Emile Smith Rowe combined. Prior to literally the last minute of the last game of the season, the last time we'd seen Sander Berge have a dangerous shot at the Cottage was when he scored for Burnley against us. We just need different things from the midfielders we recruit this summer simply put- even if it means we lose a bit from a defensive standpoint as a result in order to achieve it. But for the record, if we did want to sign a first choice out and out defensive midfielder this summer then my absolute first choice would be Kaishu Sano at Mainz.
Davide Frattesi (Inter Milan)
Like I said right at the start of this preview, I've been putting together this shortlist for a couple of months at this point, and when I first put Frattesi's name down it didn't feel nearly as ambitious as it does now. But here we are, a couple of months and two late winners against Bayern and Barcelona later. It's funny that it's happened the way it has though, because those winners pretty much feed into why I had Frattesi's name down to begin with.
Despite the obvious headline making moments he's had recently for Inter, Frattesi just isn't that good of a player. He has a real tendency to go missing in games, and he can be quite frustrating at times. For instance in a fairly recent game that Inter lost to Roma, in a rare start for Frattesi, across 80 minutes Frattesi completed 4 passes. That's not a typo. 4. But despite these drawbacks, Frattesi just has a knack for scoring goals, as he proved in the aforementioned Champions League outings.
In trying to find a comparison I'd pretty much liken him to how Scott McTominay was viewed while he was at Man Utd just when it comes to the fact that despite all the negative aspects he demonstrated, it seemed like he'd always pop up with a goal when it mattered. And I think we need more of that from our midfield as we go into next season, we saw how big Cairney's goal against Brentford was just when it came to the momentum of the game.
It would probably be a hard sell to Frattesi to convince him to sign, I would imagine Inter would be happy to sell him given he's basically been a permanent super sub for Inter this season, but given his recent heroics on top of what he does offer generally I'd be surprised if we were the only club interested in him this summer. But I go back to what I was talking about with Tomori when it comes to showing real ambition in the window to try and keep up the upward trajectory we've had over the last few years.
Mahdi Camara (Brest)
Looking beyond Frattesi to a perhaps more realistic option, Camara was one of the big reasons (along with Micah Richards) that Brest became such a big story in the early stages of the Champions League that Frattesi is now a finalist of. Camara just in general is pretty much a stereotypical box to box midfielder and his energy in midfield is great. He'd offer a lot from a defensive point of view still- in fact I'll talk about something a bit later on in regard to that with another player, but the main selling point to me would be the goals he can score from that deeper midfield position which will just give us something different to what we have with our current midfielders who are playing in that role.
Neil El Aynaoui (Lens)
Staying in France, El Aynaoui isn't as defensively minded as Camara is, but at the same time he would offer us more going forward so it's all about trade offs and finding the right overall balance. El Aynaoui missed the start of the season due to injury, but once he got his fitness back and really got into a rhythm around the turn of the year for my money El Aynaoui was one of the absolute standout midfielders not just for Lens but in Ligue 1.
Going back to trade offs, the thing El Aynaoui would offer that someone like Camara couldn't is set-pieces. El Aynaoui pretty much takes everything for Lens and I feel safe in saying his set-piece delivery would be a marked improvement on anything we've had this season. By the way, when I say takes everything, I include penalties in that statement which would be another selling point to me. I'm not sure what we're planning game time wise for Jimenez and Muniz next season, but having someone who isn't Jimenez who can reliably take a penalty on the pitch can never hurt- especially if we end up losing the other two players in our squad that I'd back from the penalty spot this summer in Willian and Pereira.
Elias Montiel (Pachuca)
Looking beyond just general improvements, we also need to look at replacing outgoing players- and I think the biggest potential one is Tom Cairney just in the sense of what he's meant to the club over the last decade. I'll talk about Cairney more later on, but as of writing this, Tom Cairney won't be a Fulham player next season- and as such we need to look at signing a replacement. I think Cairney's role in the squad is one where we can afford to look young, because Cairney's been pretty limited game time wise as far as the Premier League goes- and those sorts of minutes can be good for a young signing to bed in and then go from there. And I know what some people will be thinking with that in mind, what about Josh King? To me, for now at least until he's developed more, I think King needs to be playing further up the pitch than Cairney has this season so we need to fill the potential Cairney shaped hole with a signing.
When I think of what Cairney's offered to us over the last few years, a lot of what Cairney brings I can see Elias Montiel also bringing to us. He's happy to get his foot on the ball in deep areas and bring the ball up the pitch, he's composed on the ball, he has a good eye for a pass, and when he gets into the final third he can create chances and be dangerous. He wouldn't be coming in to start straight away, not just because of his age, but also the obvious step up in league quality and especially the physicality difference would probably be a challenge for Montiel at first- but like I said, he doesn't need to start straight away. We're now in a position where we're "allowed" to take a few gambles on these sorts of signings because we have a pretty solid base to build on.
It's also worth mentioning that Montiel will be at the Club World Cup this summer, so I would ideally hope to get him signed up before the tournament, even if he still wanted to play in the tournament for Pachuca. Just in case he puts in a few performances that pique the interest of clubs who would have more "allure" than we would, on top of what he did at the tournament that used to be known as the Club World Cup back in December where he didn't look out of place playing against Real Madrid in the final.
Lennon Miller (Motherwell)
From Mexico to Motherwell, a sentence that has probably never been uttered in human history before. Ryan Sessegnon's renaissance has probably given us as fans a refound appreciation for just how special his first spell at the club was. For him to come in to the team as a teenager and be one of, if not the best player at the whole club is so special, and so rare to see. Lennon Miller has done exactly the same thing at Motherwell, perhaps even more so given he's already captaining the side and received a senior call-up for Scotland in March.
Miller just has a bit of everything to be blunt, I think he'll eventually settle into a deeper box to box sort of role wherever he ends up which I think is best suited to harness what he offers- but whether we want to play him in that role or further up the pitch he'd be more than up to the task. He still needs to develop more, and I don't think he would be an instant starter for us, but he definitely has the potential to be. In fact taking a bit of a step back game time wise long-term could even be good for Miller. We've seen with Sessegnon's injury problems prior to rejoining that playing as much he did at his age probably wasn't best for him long-term, and Miller isn't a million miles off of reaching 100 games of senior football despite only being 18.
The problem with a talent like Lennon Miller, especially when they're going into the last year of their contract, is pretty much half of the football teams in the world will want to sign him. I've seen links as varied as Celtic and Rangers to Strasbourg and Werder Bremen, and I wouldn't be surprised if some Serie A clubs were looking at him either after the success of Lewis Ferguson at Bologna. Ultimately if we did want Miller we'd have to sell him on why we would be the right fit for him, and that again goes back to showing ambition, but also being "happy" to be used as a stepping stone to something bigger further down the line.
Amadou Kone (Reims)
In Miller and Montiel I've looked at players who can impact a game in an on the ball attacking sense because that's what Cairney's brought to us, but we can of course look to sign someone more defensively minded. I would be more than content if our defensive midfield options were Berge, Lukic and let's hypothetically say Mahdi Camara next season- but if we did want to bring in someone else, then Amadou Kone would be top of my list.
It's fair to say it's been a bit of a mixed bag of a season for Reims, reaching the French Cup final, but also finishing 16th thanks to a last minute Le Havre penalty and ending up in the relegation play-off against Metz which as of writing is 1-1 going into the 2nd Leg. Despite their league struggles, or perhaps as a result of them, Kone's done more than enough to demonstrate what he has to offer as a defensive midfielder this season. I think there's also something to be said for having a left-footed midfield option, just balance wise, which we wouldn't have if Cairney left and Kone would also bring that to the table.
Giannis Konstantelias (PAOK)
Like I said, I'll talk about potential outgoings in more detail later on, but I don't think it's a secret that we're probably saying goodbye to Andreas Pereira this summer. I'd like to see Josh King get more game time next season, but I would also like to see us sign someone else as well going back to what I said from the outset about wanting a bigger squad next season. We could also end up loaning Josh King out to get him consistent game time at a top end League 1 or maybe even Championship level in which case signing a direct Pereira replacement would be even more relevant than it already is to my mind.
I'm not sure if you can go as far as to call Greece's current crop of players a golden generation when they won the Euros in 2004, but without exaggeration there was at least 5 or 6 Greek players in my consideration for this preview who missed out for one reason or another- with Konstantelias ultimately being the one to make the cut. I'd see Konstantelias as being quite like for like with Smith Rowe, which goes back to my earlier point about systems- and I think Konstantelias is at an age now where in order to keep progressing he needs to join a better league than the Greek one. I wouldn't see him as an instant starter, but he definitely has the potential to be, especially if Smith Rowe underperforms again- and given he can also play on the wing he gives us a good option to have for multiple positions.
Gustavo Sa (Famalicao)
No relation to Orlando, don't worry. Like I said, I see Konstantelias as more of a Smith Rowe "build" (not in the literal sense thankfully), but I see Gustavo Sa as more akin to the player we tried to turn Pereira into this season. The midfield we started the season with playing Smith Rowe and Pereira was probably Silva trying to do what I've talked about quite a lot in regard to taking a step forward from where we'd been and being more attack minded- but ultimately Pereira just isn't suited to playing deeper and hindsight being hindsight we would have probably been better off cashing in when Marseille came calling and signing someone who could actually play that role effectively.
Better late than never I suppose. Regardless of which role we wanted Sa to play he could play it without a doubt, and coming off a very good season for Famalicao he should be able to carry in some confidence and fearlessness that someone his age brings which I feel like we've missed at times this season, which is the other side of pretty much exclusively wanting experienced and "weathered" players. It's worth mentioning as well that should we want to sign Sa, we should have a bit of an inside track in-terms of getting to know his character and such because our former goalkeeper coach Hugo Oliveira left mid-season to take his first managerial job at Famalicao and I would assume given he spent well over half a decade working with Silva prior to that move they'd still be in touch.
Aleksey Batrakov (Lokomotiv Moscow)
I've avoided suggesting Russian League players for the last few years, just because logistically I didn't think they'd be possible given the sanctions imposed on Russia and Russian assets as a result of the ongoing Ukrainian invasion. But then last summer something happened, PSG spent a pretty large amount of money to sign Matvey Safonov from Krasnodar, and in a move that would be more relevant to us, a team we'll be playing next season in Sunderland spent money to sign Wilson Isidor (who just as an aside I've been really impressed by this season) from Zenit.
I think the Isidor move in particular is relevant, not just because it was an English club that did it, but also because Zenit are the most state owned/associated of all the clubs in Russia with their Gazprom affiliation. So clearly it is possible, and that opens up literally a whole new leagues worth of potential transfers, for instance another Keeper I looked at was Stanislav Agkatsev at Krasnodar- and to my mind Batrakov is the absolute pick of the bunch.
I think one thing we've really missed this season is just having a bit of an X Factor sometimes. Even when you compare us to teams who finished below us like Palace and Wolves, they had players like Eze and Cunha who on their day can almost single handedly be difference makers. We're very well drilled, and we can give any team in the league a game on our day, but sometimes you just need that little bit of magic to make a difference. Iwobi was giving us that before Christmas, but the second half of the season has just felt like a slog- and I think that lack of just that little bit of extra something is a large reason as to why. And that's where Batrakov comes in.
I wouldn't expect Batrakov to come in and instantly be a difference maker at the level of Eze and Cunha, but you can tell he just has that little bit of magic in him, and being one of the best, if not the outright best player in the Russian League at just 19 years old is pretty special and if we could sign him and keep developing him then we could genuinely have a very special player on our hands.
Forwards
As with the midfielders, it feels as though we're due for some major surgery in forward areas this summer- although perhaps not as much we initially thought after the extensions for Jimenez and Traore. Even with those extensions however, we're still losing Willian and Reiss Nelson minimum, and with how short we've been at winger at times this season, and it being pretty clear Iwobi isn't fit enough to start every game, I'd personally be looking to add someone else in at winger on top of replacing those two. That third option can be Ryan Sessegnon, but like I discussed earlier on it ultimately just boils down to what Silva sees Sessegnon as positionally.
Dan Ndoye (Bologna)
Adding more quality in wide areas has to be one of our main priorities this summer, if not our just outright focus. Prior to Christmas when Iwobi was on form we were seeing him be a real difference maker, and I think we saw in that run of games for Iwobi what having genuine quality in wide areas can give us. I'm not really sure if Dan Ndoye is too ambitious or not this summer, because Ndoye's had a very good season for Bologna who overall did incredibly well to bounce back from losing as many key figures as they did last summer to be in European contention for the large majority of the season and end up winning their first Coppa Italia since 1974.
Ndoye scored the goal that won them that trophy, to cap off probably his best season in senior football, but despite qualifying for the Europa League, as we saw last year with the departures of the likes of Joshua Zirkzee and Riccardo Calafiori despite Bologna qualifying for the Champions League if the right offer came in for Ndoye I don't think they would be opposed to selling him. Whether we could convince Ndoye is another thing entirely of course, and we don't know what the "right" offer for Ndoye would be, but when it comes to showing ambition Ndoye is pretty much exactly what I mean.
Jean-Matteo Bahoya (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Another player who might end up being a bit of a "hard sell" is Bahoya, with Frankfurt qualifying for the Champions League at Freiburg's expense on the final day of the Bundesliga, but Bahoya isn't an absolute guaranteed starter for Frankfurt already, and who knows who they'll end up signing this summer. Bahoya's still very young compared to a player like Ndoye, but the one thing Bahoya would bring in spades is pace. Bahoya is literally the fastest player in the Bundesliga, and when it comes to trying to get the best out of Smith Rowe, I think having pace around him to stretch defences and create space for him is a big part of what we can try and do. I don't think it's a coincidence that we saw the best of Smith Rowe at the start of the season when we had Traore playing relatively well simply put.
The difference between Bahoya compared to Traore to me is that Bahoya's young enough to keep developing his end product, which is already quite comparable to Traore's, and he has a significantly better work-rate than Traore when it comes to tracking back. We'd lose some of Traore's explosiveness and power if it was a choice between the two, but there is still a place for Traore in the squad even if we did sign Bahoya, but ultimately Bahoya is significantly younger, can fulfil a similar role and I'd be very surprised if Traore stays beyond next season.
Baris Alper Yilmaz (Galatasaray)
I've mentioned a few times already about our (lack of) depth this season, and how it really hurt us in the run in- and I think in that regard something we really missed this season was a Bobby Reid type player who'll just play anywhere. I'm especially thinking in-terms of Right-Back during the time we had Tete injured and by the sound of it Castagne's ankle was hanging on by a thread. I'm not saying I would've played Yilmaz at Right-Back consistently, but when we played Wigan for instance we could have just to give Castagne a bit of a break.
Yilmaz is primarily a winger, and that's where I'd look to use him for the most part, but when I say Yilmaz will play anywhere I literally mean anywhere. Over the last year or so for Galatasaray he's played at Left-Back, Right-Back, Left Wing-Back, Right-Wing Back, Left-Wing, Right-Wing and he spent last summers Euros playing up-front for the Turkish side that reached the Quarter Finals. From a winger perspective, Yilmaz is also just a very good player. He's another player who has a significant amount of pace and his goal record for Galatasaray this season speaks for itself.
Kevin Santos (Shakhtar Donetsk)
The three wingers I've talked about so far I'd look at signing as first choice options, but I think with the options we already have, and especially if we signed a winger with genuine quality on top, winger is another area where we can look to sign more of a long-term prospect. Kevin really caught my eye before Christmas when he put in some very good performances in the Champions League, and he showcased in games against the likes of Bayern Munich a lot of the attributes I'd be looking at this summer in the sense that he's a very direct runner with the ball, and he's very comfortable in that role.
I'd be surprised if Shakhtar weren't open to selling players this summer as well, not just because of the ongoing war and how that's no doubt impacting their finances, but also from a footballing finance perspective given Shakhtar missed out on securing Champions League football this season with Dynamo Kyiv winning the Ukrainian League. But the big thing and the big concern for me as far as feasibility for this transfer is whether Shakhtar would be open to selling players to us, at least without us paying a premium. I didn't like how we handled the Manor Solomon transfer a couple of years ago, especially for a pretty minimal fee, and I don't think Shakhtar would have appreciated the way we went about that move either- so from that perspective it would have to just be wait and see.
Abbosbek Fayzullaev (CSKA Moscow)
Following on from what I talked about earlier with Batrakov, Russian League signings are seemingly back on the menu. The one big stumbling block though as far as Batrakov is concerned is a work permit. I'm not sure what the exact situation was, but Russian national Arsen Zakharyan wasn't let into the UK earlier in the year when Arsenal were playing Sociedad- so that could prove to be a stumbling block still.
That of course wouldn't be an issue for Fayzullaev as an Uzbek international despite playing for CSKA Moscow. Fayzullaev is going into an interesting phase of his career at the moment, because Uzbekistan could very well be qualifying for their first World Cup in the upcoming international break- and from a personal point of view I think Fayzullaev needs to make a move to a better league at this point of his career. He's had a good couple of years for CSKA Moscow coming off the back of being the standout player at the 2023 Under 20s Asian Cup- and I think Fayzullaev has a lot of aspects to his game that could be good for us. He has a really low centre of gravity, he's good on the ball, he has a goal in him and he can play in any of the three positions behind the striker.
William Boving (Sturm Graz)
While they aren't the same player by any means, and they offer different things, I see Boving as quite similar to Alex Iwobi in the sense that he does his best work in that sort of inside left channel. Boving's coming off the back of a very good season for Sturm Graz both in a goalscoring sense and also in-terms of assists, as they once again won the Austrian Bundesliga ahead of Salzburg (despite selling our former academy prospect Mika Biereth in January) and like I've said for a few players now, I think Boving's now in a position where he needs to take that next step in his career. Boving's also shown that he can play multiple positions as well which is something I've really tried to look for as you can probably guess. From a finance perspective he shouldn't be an extortionate price either given his contract expires next summer.
Richarlison (Spurs)
One of the positions Boving's shown he can play is up-front, albeit with a strike partner, and that sort of profile is something I'd really be looking at this summer. I had these recommendations ready to go before the report that came out that we were looking to sign someone to replace Carlos Vinicius' role in the team, and I presume we've already scouted the local dojos and come up empty- so here we are. I don't think we can sign an out and out striker to fill Vinicius' role in the squad. Any Striker worth their salt isn't going to sign for us when they'll only make the bench if one of Muniz or Jimenez gets injured, so I think the best way to go about this particular signing is to sign someone who can play out wide and also up-front.
I suggested Richarlison a couple of years ago as a bit of a fanciful one with the ultimate sort of goal of making Silva happy to get him to sign a new contract. And here we are again, I want to sign Richarlison to make Silva happy and sign a new contract. Compared to a couple of years ago though, I don't think Richarlison would be out of reach for us this summer, despite Spurs qualifying for the Champions League. I would go as far as to say Richarlison is made for this team as well, we've been missing that sort of talismanic presence since Mitrovic's departure, and like I talked about earlier with Igor Serrote a player who plays in such a way that fans can take to them easily is half the battle.
I've seen Richarlison almost single handedly keep Everton up, and when it comes to games like for instance the Palace cup game, I don't think Richarlison's the sort of player who would take that sort of game and performance lying down. He would've done something to try and get the fans back involved, even if it was just something like to paraphrase Roy Keane "kicking someone to make himself feel better". From Richarlison's perspective I assume he'll have options this summer, I think I've seen Leeds and a potential Everton return rumoured, but from a coaching perspective having Silva would hopefully give us an edge in the sense that Silva trusts Richarlison and Richarlison trusts Silva. The signing would be a risk given Richarlison's injury record over the last couple of years, but if we can get Richarlison back to his best he'd be one of, if not our outright best player.
Arnaud Kalimuendo (Rennes)
Kalimuendo has pretty much exclusively been an out and out striker during his career, which doesn't really lend itself to what I was looking at. However this season he's had a bit of an interesting development at Rennes where at times he's started playing off a very interesting prospect in Rennes' 17 year old Striker Mohamed Meite.
Kalimuendo is another very ambitious target, suggesting that we sign someone who's a very good talent, at a good age, who's just scored 17 goals in one of Europes top leagues would have been unheard of a couple of years ago. But I think with the position we're in at the moment we need to be showing this sort of ambition in the transfer market both in-terms of who we look at signing, and also how much these sorts of players will cost if we really want to kick on and keep progressing.
Adam Daghim (Salzburg)
What would one of these previews be without a trip to Salzburg? I think when looking at these players profile wise it ultimately boils down to who else we sign. Someone like Richarlison wouldn't be signing for us to sit on the bench and wait for their opportunity, whereas someone like Daghim given his age and relative lack of experience would probably be a bit more content to wait for their turn if we signed someone else more first team ready as our other attacking signing. Daghim is definitely the most winger-y of the three names I've mentioned for this section, but he can play up-front as well, and as he keeps developing both from an experience perspective but also just physically I do think he could turn into a pretty good striker.
Daghim's another player I've targeted because he's a very direct runner with pace and just overall has so many parts to his game that I think we should be looking for and need this summer. A problem for us as far this one goes, as I mentioned earlier with Elias Montiel, and it also applies to Frattesi, is Daghim is Club World Cup bound with Salzburg this summer- so it would remain to be seen how willing Salzburg would be to lose anyone prior to the tournament.
Outs
Shifting focus away from the entrance to the exit door now. I've already sort of made reference to this, but I think we're probably looking at quite a few departures season- some more welcome than others. From an FFP perspective we do still need to be making some sales this summer to keep the wheel turning, but I don't think that's as relevant as it has been the last two years. Our net spend over the last couple of seasons in Premier League terms has practically been nothing, and unless our wage bill is beyond ridiculous we shouldn't have any problems from an FFP perspective in-terms of being able to spend big without making a sale first. But I think it's probably a good habit to stay in, and I think being able to refresh the squad constantly with new faces is a good thing.
Antonee Robinson
The obvious big sale we can make this summer is of course Antonee Robinson. Like I've already talked about from the perspective of incomings I think of the players we've lost over the last few years Robinson would be by far and a way the hardest to replace. Mitrovic wasn't the best Striker in the Premier League, Palhinha wasn't the best Midfielder in the Premier League, Robinson is, to me at least, the best Left-Back in the Premier League currently. I genuinely believe that the Robinson we had before he started having these tendon issues over the last month or two could walk into any team in the world and not look out of place.
With all that said, I'm not sure a Robinson departure is as locked in as Palhinha's departure was last season for instance. The top end of the Left-Back market is a very narrow field, but when thinking about what other clubs will be looking for, I think Kerkez has a big edge on Robinson given the age difference, and even someone like Ait Nouri would probably be looked at as being at least on the same level as Robinson value wise because of that factor. Then when you consider the tendon issues I talked about earlier with Robinson, that they haven't really found a solution to, like I mentioned with Marc Pubill earlier it could make a club nervous about signing him- especially with the amount of money we'd be asking for to sell Robinson this summer given how long he has left on his contract.
I'll also make the point here that one thing I absolutely will not accept this summer is if we get fed a narrative that without a Robinson sale we can't afford to spend big money this summer. Like I've already talked about, our net spend over the last two summers has been practically nothing relatively speaking between the sales of the likes of Mitrovic, Palhinha and Stansfield, and we can make up the amount of money we'd bring in from Robinson with other departures as well.
Andreas Pereira
One of those players we can sell is of course Andreas Pereira. I think we're heading to what I'd call a pretty amicable divorce with Pereira right now. I'm not suggesting we let him go for cheap, but as I've talked about quite a few times in regard to incomings, I think Pereira's at a stage of his career now where it's best for him to move on- and given Pereira's contract expires next summer (albeit we have an option) I think this summer is just the right time. I've been as frustrated as anyone with Pereira at times this season, and like I said I do think it's time for him to move on, but I do think Pereira still deserves a level of respect from the fanbase and an acknowledgement of the role he played in his first season to help re-establish us in the Premier League.
Issa Diop
Along with Pereira, another player who was a big part of that first season who probably just doesn't have a place next season is Issa Diop. This season's probably been quite a harsh one for Diop in the sense that I genuinely think you could make an argument that he was our best Centre-Back for a large majority of the season. But ultimately we signed Andersen for big money for a reason, and we're at a point now where Diop wasn't even making the matchday squads for most of the run in.
I do think Diop still brings something to the table, but I just don't think he's the right fit for what we're trying to develop into- because we're at a point now with the squad where it's not as simple as just looking at whether a player is good enough or not for the Premier League, because they pretty much all are. It's why we're going into a 4th consecutive year in the Premier League and we've really never even been in danger of going down across the three seasons we've had.
Harry Wilson
Another player we could be looking to bring in a fee for this summer is Harry Wilson, despite the option in Wilson's contract being triggered. The option stuff was surprising to me with Wilson just in the sense that I don't think anyone even knew he was out of contract this summer to begin with. I'd be disappointed to see Wilson go this summer after some of the moments he's had this season, but from a business perspective I can see the logic in selling Wilson rather than letting him leave on a free if he won't sign a new contract.
I should say this exact same thing also applies to Traore (and Jimenez) but of the three I think Wilson would be able to bring in the biggest transfer fee by far, and given Fabrizio Romano was tweeting about the move there's probably already groundwork being done behind the scenes in regard to Wilson moving on this summer if he won't sign a new contract.
Harrison Reed
I think it's a really big shame that Harrison Reed's Fulham career has most likely ended with that injury he picked up against Villa. Along with something else I'll discuss later, it just feels like it deserved a better ending given the years of service we've had from Reed since we initially signed him on loan. Like it is with Pereira, it's just the right time for Reed to leave this summer. I'm not sure if saying we've outgrown him is too harsh, but it just feels like we can do better than Harrison Reed now. That's not a knock on Harrison Reed, he played a massive part in getting us to where we are now, but much in the same way we said goodbye to Tim Ream last summer and signed Cuenca we need more "floor raising" signings to keep evolving the squad.
I'll also be really interested to see where Harrison Reed ends up this summer in the likely event he departs, I do believe in the right system he could still do a job in the Premier League, but he also might end up going to a top end Championship level team- and you feel like a Southampton reunion could make a lot of sense for everyone.
Steven Benda
If/When we do sign a new Keeper this summer, it remains to be seen how happy Benda would be to essentially just be putting the cones out for the last year of his contract. There's definitely value in keeping Benda around in the sense that he's classed as homegrown, but if he wanted to get back out and play football consistently again then I don't think we'd be standing in his way.
Carlos Vinicius
In these outs sections I try and make a point of only talking about players who have made first team appearances, just to keep this part of the preview relatively short- and owing to the couple of cameos Vinicius has had over the season he "qualifies" for a mention. I'm not disappointed to see Vinicius go to put it bluntly, but whatever else you can say about Vinicius he's been part of two of our absolute best moments since we've come back into the Premier League with the assist to Solomon at the Amex and then of course scoring the winner at the Cottage against Chelsea.
Willian
I'm not sure the Willian signing this time around was very smart. Like I mentioned earlier, we went into the January window with a publicly stated aim of signing a Right-Back, and we ended up with Willian. Even without that aspect of it, Willian was never really in a position where he could get himself properly match fit after re-signing and all in all it's just felt like a bit of a waste and I feel like the signing is almost symbolic of a January window that really let the club down in-terms of what we could have potentially been doing in the back half of the season if we actually went for it more.
Kenny Tete
Another player out of contract this summer is of course Kenny Tete. I think we're at a weird crossover point with Tete, where I'd be very keen to renew Tete for next season, but at the same time I think he's also probably peaked and if we gave him a new 3 year deal for instance, I think by the end of Year 2 we would probably be looking to move him on and wanting someone younger in. Especially when you consider Tete's had pretty significant injury problems for pretty much his whole Fulham career as well, it might be best for everyone if Tete moves on this summer, despite the fact that he's definitely better than Castagne and still has a lot to offer us at least in the immediate term.
Tom Cairney
If the Man City game was the last time we get Tom Cairney in a Fulham shirt, then the (lack of) send off Cairney was given by the club is an absolute disgrace. For someone who's meant as much as Cairney has to Fulham over the last decade, to not get anything special from the club, whether that was a tifo, a presentation, or at the very least an announcement so we as fans could say goodbye knowing it was the last one. It wouldn't surprise me though, I still have memories of the current regime releasing one of our greatest servants of the modern era in Brede Hangeland by email and only releasing a very short statement thanking him.
Until we actually know it's hard to really gauge the sort of overall feelings on this one. I think if Cairney had the send off he deserved and has earned against Man City then I'd be content to see him ride off into the sunset- especially if he did get a move like Wrexham which would do wonders for the media career he's clearly been planting seeds for over the last year or two. But now the City game has been and gone, and he only got "that" it almost feels like we have to give Cairney another year just so we can send him off properly at the end of it. Football is a very ruthless business, and there's very little room for sentiment, but in this case I'd be happy to let the heart rule the head.
Marco Silva
Despite what Silva said after the City game in regard to staying, I feel like we're approaching a bit of a cross roads when it comes to Silva and his time at Fulham this summer. I don't have enough good words to say about Silva and the job he's done since he was appointed. I do think there are some things Silva can do better still, and being willing to work with a bigger squad would be a big thing I hope Silva will take into next season with how much we struggled in the run in- but overall the only Manager I'd put above Silva since I started supporting Fulham is Roy- who probably took us to a level that we won't ever see again realistically.
With that said, it just feels like one way or another something will give this summer. Either we show genuine ambition to keep improving and progressing and Silva signs a new contract (which would be the outcome I would be very desperate for), or we have another summer like the last two with a pretty minimal net spend and essentially relying on Silva working another miracle and as a result Silva takes the jump when a job that takes his fancy becomes available.
I'm not worried about Saudi Arabia, and I never was this time around despite the renewed links. If Silva was going to take the money move he would have two years ago when the option first came around and we were in a significantly worse position as far as potential stability in the Premier League with Mitrovic forcing through a move and our whole pre-season just feeling like an absolute disaster in general. But if, for example, the Spurs job became available, then I think Silva would be very keen on having a conversation with Daniel Levy let's put it that way.
We would then be looking at how to replace Silva, and just to give you a shortlist, in no particular order I'd be looking at Marco Rose, Raffaele Palladino, Imanol Alguacil, Danny Rohl and Carles Martinez Novell. I think there's also a potential world where the anti christ himself Jose Mourinho finds himself back in South West London- which would provide some good entertainment if nothing else.
Next season is shaping up to be an interesting one for us I think it's fair to say. When you consider how much turnover we could end up having over the summer, it'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out and what sort of shape we're in as we line up for the first game of the season in Mid-August. You would like to think we've got ourselves properly established in the Premier League now, but realistically a club our size is only ever one bad summer and a more competitive crop of promoted clubs away from being firmly back in "looking over shoulder" territory. I do think we'll see at least half of that next year, because I think Leeds with Red Bull backing are the best placed of any of the previous nine promoted clubs to stay up.
With that said however, hopefully we have a positive summer, and we go into next season with the aim of at the very least repeating the season we've just had. As Silva said post-City, that 54 points is the benchmark now, and the aim should be to beat it next season and hopefully try and push on to at least finishing Top Half. It'll be a very tough ask, especially because you would expect Spurs with Champions League money and pull, and Man Utd being Man Utd to be significantly more competitive next season- on top of the teams we've already finished behind- but it's a challenge we need to be up for.
Thanks for reading these transfer blogs as always. I think you can probably tell by just the sheer length of this one in particular that I've really put a lot of effort and time into getting this prepared and written, so hopefully you still enjoy reading these and finding out some potentially new names- because I still really like "scouting" these and just generally putting it together. I'm at a point with Football now where I'm just tired, and I'm really looking forward to these next couple of months off after the season we've just been through. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you all have a good summer, and then before we know it we'll be back at the Cottage in August ready to do it all over again.
