Fulham: 26/27 Summer Window Preview

Well, here we are again. I think my main sentiment coming out of this season is just "thank god that's over". It's really felt like a slog over the last few months especially, and I'm at a point now where I'm just ready for a break. I always like to do a review of sorts of the season before I go into the transfer talk, and this season is definitely one of the harder ones for me to really sum my feelings up on since I started doing these previews. Objectively, I don't think you can call it a bad season for us. Especially around October/November time if you had told pretty much anyone we'd be as comfortable as we have been- I think you'd take it. I vividly remember walking out of Everton's new stadium thinking we were really in trouble. In fact, if you look at what I said in last years preview- we actually did a lot of what I was saying we should do this season. We even signed Kevin. 

With that said, as it did last season, you can't help but feel like we've left something on the table. I'm not entertaining the train of thought that boils it down to "if we beat Wolves we would have got Europe", because Football doesn't really work like that- and if we had to play the Newcastle game with pressure on then it would have probably been a different outcome. However, when you look at the bigger picture, and you see the teams that did qualify for Europe this season- you can't help but feel like it's a missed opportunity. The two teams we got promoted with, and were objectively better than at the time, have now both qualified for Europe- and newly promoted Sunderland have managed to leapfrog us and qualify for the Europa League at the first time of asking and that should sting. 

But here we are, and we're going into probably our biggest summer in recent memory. There's so many different things that we need to sort out this summer, and if we make too many wrong decisions it could all go downhill very quickly. This feeds into the "philosophy" I'd be approaching the transfer window with as well. We need to make decisions, and make them decisively. This isn't a summer to mess around and leave everything until the last minute, we need to sort out our manager situation as soon as humanly possible so we can start planning properly for next season- and the same goes for signings. We need to break the habit of a lifetime this summer if we want to give any prospective new manager a fighting chance of succeeding next summer. If, for instance, we do what we did last summer then I'm not even going to get on the new managers back- because they'll have been set up to fail by the decision makers above him. 

With that in mind, one of my big priorities when looking for players this summer has been to try and avoid players who are World Cup bound. In my opinion at least, we need to try and have as many players as possible at Motspur Park on Day 1 of Pre-Season so the new manager can start getting his ideas and philosophy over to the players. Beyond timing of signings, a big thing that we have to look at this summer is, well, big-ness. It's fair to say it's not been a vintage Premier League season, there will be very few teams and fanbases who look back on this one fondly- and a large part of that has been the shift to being a very physical, set-piece based league. I don't think anyone really enjoys it, unless you're Arsenal fans, but that's the league we're in- and it's a set of circumstances we're going to have to adapt to if we want to continue to be in it. 

I should say I haven't tried to find someone with a Michael Kayode-esque long throw, from my perspective at least I don't think there's much point. It's pretty much impossible to do long throws successfully at the Cottage with how tight the pitch is and the little ramp up, so when you're only looking at it potentially being useful in 50% of your games I don't think it's a big factor for us. What I have put a big emphasis on though is size, physicality and aerial ability with set pieces in mind as you'll find out as this preview progresses. 

The other part of my philosophy for this transfer window is just my view that this club and squad needs a big refresh and reset. Silva's inevitable departure helps this thinking, in the sense that it feels like it would be a good time to do it, but even if Silva did somehow stay this squad needs a big, big overhaul if we want to keep being competitive. Right now there isn't a single aspect of our play that I'm happy with. On a basic level we don't score enough and we concede too many. Factoring in the players we already know we're losing, and then the players who to be blunt I'd be quite happy to lose- we're looking at needing to recruit a very significant amount of players- which will cost a very significant amount of money.

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. It's a massive summer, and there's a lot to get through, so let's get going. 

Ins
Goalkeeper
We need to talk about Bernd Leno. I don't think I'm as down on Leno as I think some in the fanbase are after this season, in the sense that I think some people would want Leno to leave this summer and think he's completely finished at a top level. I still think Leno is a decent Premier League Goalkeeper. In a way, the problem for Leno is that he's set such a high bar for himself over his time at the club. And as a result, when he has a season like he has, alarm bells start ringing. 

That's not to say I'm happy with our current options though. Leno has one year left on his current contract, albeit with a one year option, and I do think we need to start looking for a long-term successor. Beyond Leno, I think Lecomte has done the job he was signed to do. He's a solid enough "cup keeper" who can save penalties, as he demonstrated against Wycombe. However, if Leno gets injured, especially in this current Premier League "era" where set-pieces and physicality seem to be the order of the day, I'd be absolutely terrified if we had Lecomte in goal when we have to play Arsenal or Everton for example. So when you consider that, and also just Leno's form seemingly trending downwards, I think we need to look at signing a new Keeper who can as an absolute minimum compete with Leno for the #1 spot next season.

Radek Vitek (Man Utd)
There's quite a few things I've had to consider in my search for a new Goalkeeper, as I've already made reference to though, size and command of the box at set pieces has to be near the top of any list this summer. As boring as this Premier League season's been in my opinion, as a club our size, you need to adapt to your circumstances. You'll notice a bit of a theme for this years preview in-terms of wanting more size and more physicality and Goalkeeper is arguably the biggest example of needing it.

Enter 6'6 Radek Vitek who has had an absolutely phenomenal season on loan at Bristol City, where he was very briefly managed by Roy Hodgson of all people at the end of the season. I watch a lot of the Championship, and while another loanee in Carl Rushworth at Coventry rightly got most of the plaudits this season- for me Radek Vitek was genuinely the best Keeper in the Championship. Especially when I think of it in-terms of having form translating over to the Premier League, Vitek as a keeper in a team who weren't a "dominant force" feels like he'd be very suited to a team like Fulham and I think we can give him a good platform to kick on after his successful loan spell. 

The challenge with Vitek would presumably be whether he'd be happy to join and initially sit on the bench after a season where he's played as much as he has. Especially because I would imagine most of the Championship would be wanting Vitek on loan again next season as an instant starter. I don't think Leno gets instantly dropped for next season. However, as I've already made reference to, Leno's trajectory is definitely trending downwards- and I think outsiders can also see that. Combine that with Leno's age and also Man Utd's signing of Senne Lammens probably killing any chance Vitek had of "making it" at Utd, provided it was "pitched right" to Vitek, I think he would (rightly) see it as a very good route into being the #1 Keeper for what has been a stable Premier League club over the last few years. To put it simply, Leno would start the season, but I'd be very surprised if Vitek didn't finish it. 

Kayne van Oevelen (FC Volendam)
Our first trip overseas now, and a lot of what I've said in relation to Vitek also applies to van Oevelen. He has the size and the physicality that should stand him in good stead for the "challenges" that are presented to Goalkeepers in the Premier League right now. In simple terms, van Oevelen is the only reason Volendam even had a chance of staying up in the Eredivisie this season, after being one of the big reasons they were promoted the season prior. I'd be lying if I said I was a Volendam ultra, but I'd be incredibly surprised if he wasn't their Player of the Season- and the fact he missed their relegation playoff against Willem II through injury which they ended up losing only further highlights that point. 

He's not the finished article by any means, but I wouldn't expect a 22 year old keeper with one proper year of top division Football under his belt to be. What I do see is so much potential, and with a year of bedding in, potentially two depending on if we activate Leno's option, I do genuinely believe van Oevelen can be a very good Premier League level goalkeeper. 

Rui Araki (Gamba Osaka) 
In last years preview I recommended Japanese based Centre-Back Kota Takai who went on to sign for Spurs, with a large part of the recommendation coming as a result of him having an incredible game against Al Nassr against the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo. So here we are one year later, and I'm recommending someone Japanese based largely as a result of them having an incredible game against Al Nassr against the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo. 

For those of you who may not be followers of the Asian equivalent of the Europa League (the horror), Gamba Osaka beat Al Nassr 1-0 in the final of the tournament in basically an away game as the Asian Champions League and "Champions League 2" final stages are hosted in Saudi Arabia. Regardless of 'level' an 18 year old cementing themselves as the first choice Goalkeeper for any club is impressive. And for that keeper to then go on and deliver a Man of the Match performance in the circumstances I've mentioned to win a major trophy is even more impressive. It's not just the one game though, Araki was Japan's keeper when they won the U23 Asian Cup at the start of the year with Araki being named the best Goalkeeper at the tournament- and as I made a point of doing last year, I really want us to start scouting these tournaments to unearth potential gems. 

As is the case with van Oevelen, he'd need at least one season to bed in. But I think that's time we can afford to give because like I've said already, I don't think we're at a point with Leno where we need to look for an instant replacement for next season- and the potential upside with Araki (or van Oevelen) is huge, especially at what I'd be certain to be a very reasonable price.

Defenders 
The defence is where the proper "reset" I've talked about really starts. Whether it's structure, lapses of concentration or just general lack of quality, there's very few teams in the league who I'd back less to keep a clean sheet. And when you combine that with the sort of goalscoring run we've ended the season with, it becomes very hard to win football matches. I'm going to go into potential outgoings later on, but for now let's just say if it was up to me there's definitely places up for grabs in the backline next season. And of course we don't even know what system whoever we have in charge next season will want to play, so from my perspective I've tried to cover bases and have players who would suit a 4 and 5 at the back. 

Ismaelo Ganiou (Lens)
In-terms of realistic(ish) dream signings, Ismaelo Ganiou along with someone I'll talk about later in the midfielders section is at the absolute top of my list this summer. Lens have been one of the stories of the season in Ligue 1, with them running PSG pretty close for the title, and whenever that happens given the finance difference it's always interesting. 

It's funny how Football works sometimes, because the only reason Ganiou got a chance in the Lens team was as a result of Jonathan Gradit breaking his leg around October/November- and it's fair to say he hasn't looked back since. To put it simply, I honestly and genuinely believe Ganiou can be a world class Centre-Back. He just has everything you need from a "modern" Centre-Back, and in theory he should only improve further as he gets more experience of top flight football. He would take some time to adapt as any young player would, especially if we're playing a 4 back next season given Lens play a 5. But of all the players in this preview, Ganiou is one I'd be absolutely dead set on signing this summer regardless of cost. 

I'd imagine it might be a bit of a hard sell to convince Ganiou to join. Lens have qualified for the Champions League next season which for obvious reasons would probably play a factor in Ganiou's choice to stay or go. But my hope is that given the financial situations of any Ligue 1 club not named PSG, we would make a good enough offer to the club and player to where it's pretty much impossible to say no. And I do think Lens make sales this summer despite the Champions League qualification, their Keeper Robin Risser (who's likely to be France's #1 this summer) is definitely going to be one to watch- and my hope is we're not far behind with Ganiou.

Leopold Querfeld (Union Berlin)
Ganiou is my first choice Centre-Back this summer, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. However, for the reasons I've already talked about it's worth exploring other options as well. And also looking at different profiles of players, because we don't know what a new manager will want out of his defenders next season. Just as a hypothetical, someone like Nuno will want a completely different player to someone like Ange for example (I wonder why Forest struggled this season). 

I think it would be fair to say Querfeld would struggle if we played a high line next season, he's not the quickest player you've ever seen- but in the right system he'd be an absolutely phenomenal option. He's similar to Andersen in a few ways in-terms of having very good technical ability, and he's probably best suited to playing in the middle of a back three- but where Querfeld really stands out to me is his aerial ability. 

Like I've mentioned a few times, set-pieces and general sort of physicality and aerial "superiority" should be quite high on our requirements for any potential new signing this summer. As I've already said, for me it's adapt or die for a club our size in-terms of putting together a team that suits the league that the Premier League is seemingly becoming. And Querfeld would be a very good option at both ends of the pitch in that respect. Plus, seeing as we're seemingly letting defenders take penalties after the Wolves game, Querfeld actually has a pretty good penalty record for Union Berlin. It can't be a bad thing to have as many viable options as possible as we approach a Jimenez-less world where penalties were as good as goals after the dark days of Mitrovic taking them.

Charlie Cresswell (Toulouse)
Charlie Cresswell is a name I'm expecting to see linked with pretty much every mid-table and below Premier League club this summer. And it's easy to see why, Cresswell's had a very good season for Toulouse showing all the signs that he's developing into a very good young Centre-Back. Then when you factor in the fact he's homegrown, and he wouldn't command a "homegrown price" you'd normally expect to pay a Premier League club for someone of Cresswell's calibre because of the finances of Ligue 1 clubs- he's someone that will make a lot of sense to quite a few clubs.

For me, it basically just depends on who's in charge next season. In a lot of ways Cresswell is similar to Querfeld when it comes to his physicality and aerial ability, but where Querfeld excels technical ability wise, Cresswell isn't as good in that aspect- but he's better than Querfeld if you're looking for a "traditional" defender. For want of a better way to put it, Cresswell would be the perfect signing if we end up with a Nuno type of manager who doesn't mind having 30% possession, inviting pressure and then playing on the break. In fact, I was incredibly surprised West Ham didn't sign him in January. 

Tiago Gabriel (Lecce)

I'll talk about outgoings more later, but there's definitely a world, at least in my mind, where we're looking for two new right-sided Centre-Backs this summer. And as a result, I'm looking at players who can come in as backup, as well as potential starters like the three I've already discussed. 

When putting together these previews I inevitably end up looking at stats and stats profiles to narrow down the search. And one of the key stats I've been looking at, as you can probably guess, is aerial duels and how successful players are in them. The only Centre-Back aged 23 or younger who's better in the air than Gabriel is Leopold Querfeld when it comes to defending their box. So you can probably guess why Gabriel (as well as Querfeld) has made an appearance in this preview given what I'm looking for this summer. And believe it or not, there's more to come from this particular stat later on. 

Gabriel has been one of the standout young defenders in Serie A, and like I said earlier with van Oevelen- he's one of the main reasons Lecce even had a chance to stay up this season. Gabriel is probably similar to Cresswell in some ways, in the sense that he's definitely more of the "backs to the wall" variety of defender- but given he's only 21 there's still time to develop other aspects of his game and he's shown he has a very strong "base" to build on.    

Henrik Falchener (Viking)

If only we had form for signing tall Norwegian Centre-Backs who started their career at Viking. I don't think there's much of a debate as to what the story of Norwegian football has been over the last few years with the way Bodo/Glimt have equipped themselves in Europe. But lost in all the deserved praise for Bodo is the fact that they didn't actually win the Norwegian Eliteserien last season, Viking did. And as of writing/publishing they look like they could be on for a repeat performance this season. 

Falchener is one of the stars of the Viking team, deservedly earning his first cap for Norway in the most recent international break and is also World Cup bound this summer. In general I am trying to avoid those players like I said from the outset- but with Falchener's potential being as high as it is, being as good as he is at set-pieces and the fact he'd initially be joining as a backup I'm willing to make an exception to my self imposed rule. 

Just as an aside, if we ever wanted to actually be a serious football club and appoint a proper Director of Football, Viking's current one, who clearly knows what he's doing, is one Erik Nevland. 

Lautaro Di Lollo (Boca Juniors)

For our first trip to South America in this preview we're starting with one of the big boys in Boca Juniors. I feel like a general sort of perception of South American football would lead you to believe that a defender coming over would struggle with the physicality of a league like the Premier League. When it comes to Di Lollo I wouldn't have any doubts about his ability to adapt in that sense. He's very physical and very good in the air, despite not having the same height advantage as some of the Centre-Backs I've talked about before. 

A bonus with Di Lollo as well is that he's also comfortable playing as a Right-Back if required, so if we ended up wanting to have a Ben White sort of "profile" at Right-Back, then Di Lollo would more than fit the bill. 

Konstantinos Koulierakis (Wolfsburg)

Moving on to left sided Centre-Backs now, because one way or another I feel like we're going to need to sign a new one this summer. I remember talking about Greek players last year, and the number of players they have coming through specifically in relation to Giannis Konstantelias but Koulierakis was another player who was very high in my thinking last year as well despite his absence from the finished preview. 

Since then Koulierakis has been a bit of a mixed bag form wise, which you'd perhaps expect given Wolfsburg spent the very large majority of the season looking like relegation certainties before managing to put enough points together to avoid the automatic relegation spots and get into the relegation playoff against Paderborn. One part of Wolfsburg's turnaround has been Koulierakis' knack of scoring important goals, including the opener in what was essentially a relegation playoff before the relegation playoff against St. Pauli on the final day of the regular Bundesliga season. 

This all essentially goes back to my desire to be more physical and more of a threat from set pieces- and just have more goals in the team in general. To give some context, in a league season that's 4 games shorter than the Premier League, the only players we have that have scored more goals than Koulierakis, a Centre-Back, are Jimenez and Wilson. Which is both a criticism of our players and also highlights what Koulierakis brings to the table. In the right structure I do believe there's a good defender in Koulierakis as well, and given time to adapt coming in initially behind Bassey or Cuenca I think we'd have a good player on our hands. 

Taras Mykhavko (Dynamo Kyiv)

Looking outside the traditional "top" leagues, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better Centre-Back than Taras Mykhavko- especially in his age bracket. Going back to what I talked about earlier with Querfeld and Tiago Gabriel, they're 1st and 2nd in the aerial stat I mentioned. Mykhavko is 4th- and just for the record Di Lollo is 7th. 

As we've seen with Kevin this season, a signing from the Ukrainian League is going to need time to adapt- but coming in initially as a backup he'd be afforded the time to, and when he does everything I've seen from Mykhavko indicates he could be a very good Premier League Centre-Back. With Shakhtar reclaiming their throne at the top of the Ukrainian League, Dynamo Kyiv might be more in need of player sales than they otherwise might have been had they won the league again as well.

Victor Gabriel (Internacional)

After a season where having a Gabriel at set-pieces was a large reason for the success of the league winners, why stop at one Gabriel in Tiago, let's have two. I don't want to keep labouring the same points when discussing Centre-Backs in-terms of being good in the air etc. at this stage I think it's fair for you to read between the lines- so with Victor Gabriel I'll just add that he's a very good all-round defender. Like any player coming from a foreign league he'd need some leeway as he adapts to new surroundings- but the potential is most definitely there as my quest to build a team of high jumpers continues. 

Arnau Martinez (Girona)

Kenny Tete's agent played an absolute blinder last summer. In last years preview I specifically mentioned that I'd be wary of giving Tete a 3 year deal (or longer) because of his injury problems- here we are a year later and because of potentially dubious links to Everton Tete pretty much got exactly what he wanted. Saying this doesn't take away from how much I like Tete as a player, when he's fit. The problem with Tete pretty much across his whole Fulham career is that he's injured almost as much as he's not. 

That leaves us in a tricky position as far as Right-Back recruitment goes. We essentially need to sign another first choice Right-Back- because with the amount of game time our Tete alternative gets that's essentially what they are. I'll talk about Castagne more in the Outs section, but he's played more minutes than Tete this season- and ultimately that's why we need to be recruiting at a certain level for any potential new Right-Back in the window.

One of the most interesting stories in Football in the latter stages of the season has been the relegation battle in La Liga. With two games left there were a handful of teams who could realistically qualify for Europe or get relegated, which is just absurd. But after the dust settled and the final ball of the season was kicked Girona and Mallorca were the two teams who failed to beat the drop- and as usual when a team gets relegated the vultures will start circling trying to pick the bones and I am no exception. 

Someone is going to get an absolute bargain when they buy Arnau Martinez this summer. Martinez is a standout Right-Back in La Liga, but when you combine Girona's relegation with the fact Martinez is going into the last year of his contract whoever does buy him is going to be getting him significantly below what he "should" be worth- and hopefully that's us. Martinez is very good technically, and something that could prove very handy next season is his ability to play pretty much anywhere on the pitch to a pretty decent level. 

It's also worth mentioning that Girona's relegation is a timely reminder to the Khans of how quickly Football can change. Girona were playing Champions League football last season, and now they're heading to the Segunda Division. The Khans might think we're nice and settled in the Premier League now, but with how much change there's likely to be they need to be very, very careful with the moves they make this summer. 

Andrei Ratiu (Rayo Vallecano)

In an ideal world, I probably wouldn't be looking at Ratiu. I'd be looking for someone younger and therefore cheaper- at least wage wise, who has the potential to make us a profit down the line. But like I've said already, with the position we're in with Tete and his injury record we essentially need to have two first choice Right-Backs and as a result there's less room for taking risks. 

Ratiu is very much a "for now" signing, he'll be 28 by the time next season starts- in other words he wouldn't be a signing we make with resale value in mind, but that's not to discredit him ability wise because he's a top class Right-Back. He's probably the closest thing out there to a right-sided Antonee Robinson (pre injury) with his pace and the energy he gets up and down the pitch with (at least in the sorts of price ranges we can realistically shop in) and if Rayo Vallecano are to have any chance of getting a result out of the Conference League final in a couple of days then Ratiu will almost certainly need to have a good game.

It's for those reasons that Ratiu wouldn't be cheap, especially if Rayo do win the Conference League and qualify for Europe again next season. But considering where we are with Tete we need a genuine "#1 Right-Back" level player to come in as an alternative to him- and that will cost money regardless of who it is. 

Ethan Galbraith (Swansea)

One of few things I was actually quite happy to see us do this season was starting to invert one of our full-backs. I talked about it last year as something we should look at doing in order to be more effective against the "bad" teams, and for the most part I'd say we have been with the only real "outliers" being the loss at home to West Ham and the draw against Wolves. 

If that's something we want to keep doing next season with whoever's in charge, then it's worth looking at potential options for that role. I really like Galbraith, he's very secure on the ball and if he did come in to play as an inverted Right-Back I would have no complaints- but I'm mainly using this section to discuss something I've been thinking about over the last couple of months on a similar train of thought.

I think we should make Sasa Lukic a Right-Back. It might sound stupid, it probably is, but I'm at a point with this team where I think we need to start thinking a bit more outside the box. It's a trend you'll have probably noticed over the last couple of seasons with players like Matheus Nunes, Mats Wieffer and Lewis Cook all playing there- and the more I've thought about it the more it actually makes sense. Lukic would defend with the same sort of aggression that Tete does (and Castagne doesn't), he can cover a lot of ground getting up and down the pitch- and tactically it would give us another good option while also probably extending his Fulham career by a couple of years because as a midfielder I'm not sure how long Lukic has left.  

Mats Rots (FC Twente)

More often than not our inverted full-back this season has been Sessegnon and assuming that (when fit) Kenny Tete will be our first choice Right-Back next season, if we want to continue down this path with whoever's in charge then I'd like to sign more of a "specialist" on the left. Say hello to Mats Rots. I don't think you can ever really do complete like for like comparisons with players, but it's almost impossible not to mention Nico O'Reilly when you talk about the sort of profile Rots is. 

They're both about the same size, they're both essentially midfielders who have been converted to Left-Backs and both players "Football IQ" is very high. If we got anywhere close to the performances City have had with O'Reilly this season with Rots then I'd be a very happy fan- and I do think Rots has the potential to deliver those sorts of returns. 

Stephen Mfuni (Man City)
I'm sure a lot of the people reading this will know what I'm talking about when I say sometimes when you're watching the Championship you can instantly just tell a player you're watching is a level above. I had it with Viktor Gyokeres, I had it with Gabriel Sara and I had it watching Stephen Mfuni. So despite the fact Mfuni only played a handful of games on loan at Watford before an injury ended his season, I'd be all in on signing him this summer. 

He's calm on the ball, he reads the game well, he's quick, he uses his size- and he's versatile as well. He can play as the left-sided Centre-Back or as a Left-Back, which gives us options in-terms of team selections. I probably wouldn't trust him to slot straight in at Centre-Back in the Premier League given his age and lack of experience which is why I have him down as a Left-Back, but it's definitely a role he could grow into and going back to what I said with Lautaro Di Lollo he'd give us the option of having an "Arsenal type" defence of essentially having 4 Centre-Backs to try and be more solid. 

Jorge Salinas (Racing Santander)

Off the bat I feel like it's worth mentioning that the last time I recommended signing a full-back from the Segunda Division it was Marc Pubill last year, who has since turned into a key player for Atletico Madrid and been called up to Spain's World Cup squad.

With that in mind I kept my eye out hoping for a repeat performance, and all roads have led back to Jorge Salinas. While I've focused on an inverted full-back and essentially a Centre-Back playing Left-Back so far, Salinas is more of the traditional variety- and purely from the perspective of how I want Football to be played a full-back bombing up and down the wing, overlapping and getting into wide attacking areas will always have a special place in my heart. As is the case with most of the players in this preview, he still has to develop and grow, which you'd expect from any player Salinas' age- but I really think Salinas would be an absolute gem. 

Midfielders
I went into last years midfielders section talking about the area needing major surgery, and we ended up signing literally nobody. Here we are a year later and the only change compared to last year is we don't have Andreas Pereira. I think it's fair to say I'm not a big fan of our current midfield. I'll talk about outgoings later, but genuinely the only midfielder I'd be disappointed to see go this summer is Josh King. I've talked about potentially converting Sasa Lukic into a Right-Back already to mirror the sort of "trends" we've seen with clubs we've been competing with over the last few years- and I'm genuinely not opposed to a complete reset of our midfield and midfield dynamics this summer. Something has to happen, because it just isn't good enough. 

Morten Frendrup (Genoa)

My first order of business in this midfield reset is to bring some energy and bite back into the mix. Up until a couple of weeks ago I really thought we could have tried to bring Joao Palhinha back this summer. But between Spurs staying up and De Zerbi saying he wants Palhinha to stay- and also reports linking him back to Sporting I don't think he'll be coming back to "our Cottage". So in the absence of Palhinha, it's time to look at alternatives. 

Frendrup is someone I brought up before when I was directly looking for Palhinha replacements a couple of years ago. He's not as big and physical as Palhinha is, but he's just as aggressive out of possession and a big thing for me when talking about this "reset" is the energy that Frendrup would bring to the midfield. It's definitely too far to compare him to someone like Kante, but I think the comparison works in the sense that Frendrup covers so much ground for Genoa in the role he's in. Especially over the last couple of months everything has just lacked energy and any sort of hunger, and adding someone like Frendrup would go some way to addressing that specific issue. 

Kodai Sano (NEC Nijmegen)

As I talked about at the start of this preview, one of the big things I was looking for player wise in this preview was players who aren't going to the World Cup. And with that in mind, Sano wasn't on my original shortlist, because I just assumed Sano was almost a given to go with Japan after the season he's had for NEC as they qualified for the Champions League qualifiers. But here we are, and Sano has the summer off. 

Sano is just an absolute standout to me. He's very much an all rounder in the sense that he does more than his fair share defensively but he also pops up with goals and assists- and that would be another aspect of the midfield I'd be keen to improve. As I'm sure everyone else is as well when you consider Berge is afraid to shoot and Lukic can seemingly only score at St James' Park. 

I'd be interested to see how viable the Sano signing would be, at least early doors, because like I've said before this summer categorically needs to be one where we break the habit of a lifetime and get at least a large part of our business done before pre-season really gets going. Much like we had with Kevin last summer, I could see a world where NEC want to hold on to Sano, at least until their European qualifiers are done. But even if it means we have to pay a bit more I'd be more than happy if that meant just getting it done because Sano would definitely be worth it. 

Caspar Jander (Southampton)

To be a Southampton fan right now. If an intern wasn't caught hiding behind a tree I think it's a fair bet that we would've been playing Southampton next season- because since the head of German MI5 Tonda Eckert replaced Will Still them and Coventry were the two standout teams in the Championship by some distance. 

I suppose you do have to asterisk their form a bit in hindsight, because I have a bridge to sell anyone who believes they only spied on the three games the admitted to- they probably spied on us before the cup game. Although I don't think any amount of spying can tell you Andersen will give away a stupid penalty in the 90th minute. As a result of everything going on, there's probably going to be a queue at the exit door at St. Mary's this summer. There's already rumours of the players suing the club for loss of potential bonuses, earnings etc. and as more stuff comes out over the summer it's probably going to get even worse for them. 

That presents opportunities for other clubs, and I'd be at the front of the queue for Caspar Jander this summer. Jander was a standout midfielder in the Championship once Southampton really got going, and his energy and defensive output is just incredible. He's not bad on the ball either, he found himself in more of a defensive role for Southampton but the season prior at Nurnberg he was their main creative force and that adaptability will be good as we try to put the pieces together of hopefully a very new look team next season. 

Leon Avdullahu (Hoffenheim)

In the Ismaelo Ganiou section I mentioned that Ganiou was one of the players I was absolutely dead set on this summer along with someone else. If you said out of everyone in this preview we could only sign two players, it would be Ganiou and it would be Avdullahu. Especially in Avdullahu's case just because of what it would mean for us as a club, and the change in dynamic it would give our midfield compared to what we've had this season. 

As basic as it sounds, I just want someone who'll pass the ball forwards. I was pretty content if we didn't renew Cairney's contract last summer- but we've just gone through another season where Cairney was our only midfield option who wants to actually get his foot on the ball and move it up the pitch. He's 35. We can't keep going on like that forever, even with Cairney signing another extension- which for the record I didn't agree with. Especially not in January. For me it just stinks of doing the cheap option and kicking the proverbial can down the road as far as replacing him. 

Avdullahu would bring our midfield to a completely different level. I don't think you can do exact 1-for-1 comparisons like I've said before, but I think the closest one I can make is to someone like Adam Wharton- and when you consider the sort of impact he's had at Palace you can probably imagine why I'd be so desperate to sign him. Especially with Hoffenheim missing out on the Champions League, I'd like to think if we put in a good enough offer we could sign Avdullahu- and if we could pair Avdullahu with let's say Frendrup as our two deeper midfielders that would give us a much better balance and just be such a big improvement on what we've had for most of the last two years. 

Kevin Danois (Auxerre)

As was the case earlier with Ismaelo Ganiou, while I do have a very clear preference, it's still worth looking at alternative options. There's not too much to add with Danois on top of what I've said with Avdullahu because they're very similar profile wise which is obviously what I've been looking for in-terms of having a new "passing" midfielder. 

The one thing worth adding when talking about Danois is that his set-piece delivery is usually very good. There's no use signing any/all of the aerially dominant physical monsters I've talked about in the defenders section if we're hitting the first man from every corner. I'm not expecting Arsenal levels of set pieces, but I'd like to at least be a consistent threat from them. 

Sydie Peck (Sheffield Utd)

Avdullahu is my first choice as far as a "passing midfielder" goes, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. But with the level of investment the squad needs this summer and the amount of signings we need to make, I do accept that we're going to have to try and be smart in some areas of the pitch if we're going to recruit to the level I think we need to. A good budget option for this role in my opinion would be Sydie Peck. Sheffield Utd's parachute payments have run out after a complete disaster of a season when they would have expected to at least be in the mix for promotion after losing the Play-Off final a year ago. As a result they'll have to cut their cloth accordingly this summer. That's not to say I think we'll get Peck for 10p and a greasy chip butty, but he shouldn't be anywhere close to price that would be unattainable for us.  

Peck was one of Sheffield Utd's standout players, despite the underwhelming season, and I think the thing that's really stood out to me with Peck is just his attitude as much as anything else. When a team is struggling some players hide, especially young players- but Peck is someone who from what I've seen is always willing to stand up and show for the ball regardless of what else is going on and having that self belief and confidence can go a long way. 

I hope you all respect my restraint to have a Sheffield Utd player in this list and for it not to be Gustavo Hamer.

Yuto Ozeki (Kawasaki Frontale)

In a further effort to completely reshape our midfield, I'd also be looking to sign a young midfielder for relatively cheap who we can treat as a bit of a project player to develop over the next few years while we phase Berge, Lukic, Cairney and Reed out. They wouldn't be coming in to make an instant impact, and with all three players in this mini section I wouldn't even necessarily expect for them to be signed and in the building straight away. I'd be happy to accept all of them being loaned back to their current clubs and then join up in January given all three play in leagues that run through the summer. 

As I mentioned with Rui Araki, I've tried to start really paying attention to all of the international youth tournaments that happen- and Yuto Ozeki is someone who really stood out at the U23 Asian Cup at the start of 2026. You do have to asterisk it slightly, because Japan were by far the strongest team at the tournament- but Ozeki had a stand out tournament and overall he just looks like a very good all round midfielder. In todays market for a club our size we do have to try and find value for money when possible, and in that sense looking at markets like Japan is something I wish we'd do more- because much like Brighton and Tony Bloom worked out a long time ago now- there are good players everywhere if you know where to look. 

Cauan Barros (Vasco da Gama)

While our focus in-terms of midfielders based in Brazil is seemingly on former Forest midfielder Danilo, I've tried to look a bit further in the search for someone a bit younger, a bit cheaper and who won't be going to the World Cup. I was split between two players in the end, Barros, obviously, and Victor Hugo at Atletico Mineiro. The reason Barros edged it for me is I think his skillset lends itself more to being able to adapt to the Premier League. He has a bit of an edge in-terms of general aggression, physicality and being better in the air- plus he's more secure on the ball which is probably a key thing to look at when you consider the amount of time he'll get on the ball if he was to make the step up to the Premier League.  

Adri Mehmeti (New York Red Bulls)

The youngest player of the three in this mini section, but the one with highest potential by far is Adri Mehmeti. There's been a bit of a youth revolution at New York Red Bulls with Mehmeti breaking through at the same time as Matthew Dos Santos and Julian Hall- but for my money Mehmeti is the pick of the bunch. 

He obviously still needs to grow and develop more, he's only just turned 17, but based on what he's shown so far he has all the tools to be a genuine top level midfielder one day. Mehmeti has a very good first touch, he's very composed on the ball, he's happy receiving the ball on the edge of his own box and for someone his age the fact he's quite press resistant in that role is incredibly impressive- and like I made a point of mentioning with Avdullahu he actually passes the ball forwards. It will obviously be a big step up coming to the Premier League, and he'd be tested in the press resistance sense a lot more with the upgrade in intensity- but as long as he can keep developing, his technical ability, read of the game and other "fundamentals" are already absolutely top drawer. 

Plus if we end up selling Robinson this summer we need an American in the mix- and as I'll discuss later I don't want that to be Ricardo Pepi. 

Kamory Doumbia (Brest)

I'm going to talk about Emile Smith Rowe more later, but for now let's just say I'm happy to look at alternative options for the #10 role to compete with Josh King. When looking for alternatives, I think my criteria basically boils down to "what does Smith Rowe not do?". As harsh as that may sound, I really think it is that simple. 

Compared to Smith Rowe, someone like Doumbia is an absolute dream for a manager. If we end up with a manager who wants to press with intensity high up the pitch next season, firstly Smith Rowe would die within about 20 minutes, but Doumbia would be absolutely perfect. The amount of energy he puts into pressing and winning the ball high up is incredible, and if we had Doumbia and say Frendrup in the same midfield we'd be an absolute nightmare to play against from a pressing standpoint in theory. Doumbia isn't a slouch on the ball either and he'd be more of a creative force than Smith Rowe's been for us as well (granted that isn't saying much).  

Eliesse Ben Seghir (Bayer Leverkusen)

Ben Seghir's move to Leverkusen last summer was one of the transfers I was really excited by, in the sense that I thought Ben Seghir had the potential to really take the Bundesliga by storm based on what he'd shown at Monaco. Considering I'm currently linking him to Fulham, you can probably guess how that's gone. It's with this perceived potential in mind that I'm breaking my own rules and asking for someone who'll be stateside with Morocco this summer though- maybe he can be roommates with Issa Diop and we get a good word put in. 

I'm not really sure why Ben Seghir's move to Leverkusen has turned out as badly as it has. He's had some injury problems, but for whatever reason he just couldn't string performances or consistent game time together. As a result, you have to think if the right offer came in for Ben Seghir then Leverkusen would consider selling him. Especially as they "only" qualified for the Europa League and the financial difference that will make for a club who have had Champions League income over the last few seasons. 

Ben Seghir won't press like Doumbia will, and his strengths definitely lie on the ball- but ultimately until we know who the manager is next season we won't know what said manager wants out of his different players and roles so consider this hedging my bets. 

Gustavo Sa (Famalicao)

Part 3 of hedging my bets after one "pressing" #10 and one "traditional" #10 is to recommend a #10 who isn't really one. I highlighted Gustavo Sa in last years preview, and when we sold Pereira he would have been the absolute top of my list replacement for him- especially compared to what we ended up with. Sa isn't really a "proper" #10, and the role he'd fill for any potential new manager would be if whoever we had in charge wanted to set up similarly to how we did under Jokanovic for example with Cairney and Johansen either side of McDonald as opposed to having a "proper" attacking midfielder who plays higher up the pitch. 

I'm not going to talk too much about Sa, because as I said I highlighted him last year as well- but I think he'd be a very smart signing for us and depending on who we have in charge next season he might even have a bit of a head start coming in (more later). 

Forwards

Goals. When thinking about recruiting this summer, above anything else, that one word has to be what people keep coming back to. Especially when you consider the fact that we're most likely losing the only two players who actually have decent goal returns this season on free transfers this in Wilson and Jimenez. Even beyond that our general attacking play and goal threat has been absolutely awful for a while. The goal drought we've had at the end of the season has highlighted it more, but when our only routes to goal for a large chunk of the season were essentially a Harry Wilson worldie or Jimenez scoring a penalty- it was never that sustainable. It's not as simple as "just" buying Strikers either, we need a complete rethink when it comes to our buildup play and how we go about trying to create chances- because right now we just don't. 

Jacob Murphy (Newcastle)

With what I've just said in mind, I think my best way to sum up what I want out of this window in-terms of winger recruitment is just different options tactically. As of now, we have Oscar Bobb and Kevin (and Iwobi if you're counting him) who both want to cut in on their strong foot from their respective wing. So with that in mind, rather than making Chukwueze permanent who'd be more of the same, my priorities for this window would be a right-footed right-winger and a left-footed left-winger who'll stay wide, go on the outside and give an opposition full-back something else to think about. 

I feel like people might turn their nose up at someone like Jacob Murphy just because he's not a shiny new wonder kid from Ecuador. Over the years I've always highlighted my want for balance when it comes to experience and getting our average age down- and with Bobb and Kevin we have two young wingers who are likely to be first choice next season who can't have more than 25 Premier League starts between them. There isn't a doubt in my mind as to the ability of both of them, but with the sort of season I feel like we're going to have next year- I'd feel a lot better about things if we had some genuine Premier League experience and know how at the club as well. 

I think it's fair to say Murphy isn't at the level he was a year or two ago when I would have genuinely put him up there as one of the best wingers in the league just for attacking output and numbers- but I do think he's quite underrated by a lot of people. With Newcastle having a perpetual need to sell players to keep up with FFP combined with Murphy's age and the fact he's going into the last year of his contract I'd like to think we could get Murphy for a pretty decent price this summer. 

And if we did sign Murphy, whatever else you can say about him, and he does have drawbacks- Murphy's crossing ability is absolutely sublime. Going back to what I said about "routes to goal" Murphy's delivery more often than not will be good enough, as was highlighted by Arne Slot when he was asked about Isak's underperformance earlier in the season. For as much as everyone (including me) gets excited about signing a young player like Ismaelo Ganiou for example, I genuinely believe Jacob Murphy would be one of our smartest signings this summer. Plus I feel like he always scores against us, so we'd at least be taking that off the table. 

Federico Chiesa (Liverpool)

I realise it's quite hypocritical of me to go straight from talking about how much I'd value Premier League experience in the case of this particular signing role-wise and then going straight into discussing someone who's been noteworthy for the lack of game time he's had in the Premier League over the last two seasons- but here we are. 

Chiesa is someone I'm sure most people were aware of, even before signing for Liverpool- and it's easy to forget just how good of a player he was before picking up an ACL injury while he was still at Juventus not long after he'd starred for Italy at Euro 2020(1). If he was still that player, we wouldn't be able to sign him. But even the player Chiesa is now has potential to still be a really good signing for us in my opinion. It's a bet, but ultimately every signing is, and it's a bet I feel like we've taken quite a few times since promotion where we sign a player who people perceive to be finished with a mentality of "I can fix you". 

Wages would be a problem if Chiesa's on what he's reported to be on at Liverpool, but assuming Slot stays at Liverpool over the summer, we could probably try and get Chiesa on loan with Liverpool paying a percentage. It's not like the Serie A clubs who'll probably be after Chiesa will be offering better terms, and if we could pull that off Chiesa would represent a relatively low risk, high reward signing going into next season. 

Ansgar Knauff (Eintracht Frankfurt)

Knauff has been on my radar if you want to call it that for a few years now, specifically since he put in some very big performances in Frankfurt's successful Europa League campaign in the 2021/22 season. In that campaign he played as a Wing-Back, but for the most part over the last couple of years owing to a change in formation he's found himself playing as an out and out winger. The wing-back thing would be interesting to me depending on who we have in charge though, and I think there's potential for Knauff to turn into our new Bobby Reid type figure who'll just play anywhere and seems to have a knack for scoring goals at the right time. 

Knauff has turned into a bit of a bit part player for Frankfurt this season, which is a large part of why I think this would be a good time to try and sign him because the price shouldn't be extortionate. In a sense I think Knauff would bring what we lost when we sold Traore, or rather he'd bring what we thought we were getting when we signed Traore. Knauff is lightning quick, giving us a genuine possibility to play on the break and in transition, which is a huge selling point to me because I genuinely think we're the worst in the league at doing so currently. Regardless of who the manager is next season I would imagine that's one of the first things they'll look at, because a club like ours who has to play on the back foot in some games can't afford to be as limp on the counter as we are.  

Factoring in the pace, the finishing, the potential availability and positional versatility as well as Knauff being a "good" age at 24 compared to the two players I've talked about previously- all of the ingredients are there for potentially a very shrewd signing on our part in my opinion. 

Christopher Bonsu Baah (Al Qadsiah)

Shifting focus to left-footed left-wingers now, and if it was entirely up to me I'd just have Sessegnon in that role. Especially as there isn't one perfect option as I'll discuss because all three of my "recommendations" do have drawbacks. Plus I don't think many Fulham fans would disagree that Sessegnon's probably the best finisher at the club, or at least the most natural. As it is, I think whoever we have in charge next season won't see it the same way- which is a shame because I genuinely think Sessegnon has a double digit goal return in him if he got consistent enough game time as a winger. 

So with that said, it's time to look at alternative options and we're starting with a trip to Saudi Arabia with a team managed by Brendan Rodgers of all people. Bonsu Baah was on my radar last year when he was still in Belgium and he was linked with a host of clubs at the time, but he took the money move to Saudi Arabia. However one year on, there seems to be some cracks appearing in the Saudi Football "project".  

There are a lot of rumours about the Saudis cutting back on pretty much all of their sporting investments for a variety of reasons that are probably worth an entirely different blog. But from a Fulham perspective this could provide opportunities. This isn't me saying we can get Bonsu Baah on a free, but I'd definitely like to test the waters to see how willing he would be to join the Premier League- especially as his registration for next season could end up getting complicated as he won't be eligible to be one of the two Under 21 foreigners Saudi clubs are allowed to register separately from 8 "normal" ones. 

It's far from a sure thing, and while as of writing Ghana's World Cup squad hasn't been announced- I'd be surprised if he wasn't involved which is another potential drawback. But, if we did sign Bonsu Baah we'd have a very good player on our hands. We saw with Chukwueze before AFCON what having a left footed left-winger can potentially give us- and I think we'd get that more consistently from Bonsu Baah in-terms of his directness on the ball and just with his overall ability. 

Maxi Araujo (Sporting CP)

Another player who, while not officially yet, will be headed to the World Cup this summer is Sporting's Maxi Araujo with Uruguay. It's not ideal for reasons I've discussed, but like I said already, there isn't one perfect option for this role- we just have to make do. 

World Cup aside and availability taken out of the equation, Araujo is a great footballer.  On paper he would probably be down as a Wing-Back, or maybe even a Left-Back- but with the way Sporting play, Araujo pretty much plays as a winger. The position thing is a positive from my perspective though, if we end up with a Manager who wants to play with Wing-Backs for example then Araujo would be even higher in my priority list- and in general being versatile can never be a bad thing. I would see Araujo primarily as an out and out winger for us though, he's a great finisher and in general a lot of what he's good at lends itself to the more attacking side of the game. The defensive side can just be a bonus. 

Filip Kostic (Juventus)

I've already talked about our need to be smart when it comes to money we spend, just because of the amount of positions we need to sign players in and the financial limitations we'll be operating with this summer. Both in-terms of the new Squad Cost Ratio rules coming in and also just how much money Shahid Khan is willing to put in generally speaking- because I worked out what my "ideal" transfer window would be and it would comfortably cost over 200m which I'm not sure is very realistic even with some big player sales. 

With that in mind, signing someone like Filip Kostic on a free transfer makes a lot of sense to me when it comes to what I perceive us to need. Like Araujo, Kostic can also play in a more defensive capacity as a Wing-Back if we end up having a manager who wants to play a 5 back- but like my first choice on the other side of the pitch in Jacob Murphy the thing that's always impressed me with Kostic is his crossing ability. 

Regardless of who we have in charge next season, one thing we need to improve greatly is the amount of service we give whoever's up-front- and having someone like Kostic in the mix would give us a great option on that left-wing in a crossing sense. He'd be a completely different proposition to Kevin stylistically, which goes back to what I said from the outset about wanting different options to give opposition full-backs different things to think about rather than just having to worry about the 27th time in a row someone's tried to cut in on their strong foot. 

Kostic obviously isn't a long-term solution given his age, but in a window where we're likely (hopefully) to have so much change in the squad as a stop gap option we could do a lot worse.

Liam Delap (Chelsea)

After the season he's had I realise this may sound ridiculous to some people, but for the sort of money we're supposedly trying to throw at PSV for Ricardo Pepi I'd rather just buy Liam Delap. I feel like pretty much everyone could've told you last summer that Delap moving to Chelsea was a bad idea. Delap had a very good season for Ipswich, but the step up to Chelsea just felt like it would be too much too soon- and that's how it's turned out. I understand why Delap would've wanted to make the move, but it's just a case of trying to run before you can walk. 

I don't think Chelsea are going to stand in Delap's way should a good enough bid come in for him this summer, and if Delap did sign for us I do think we could get his career back on track with less of a microscope on him and giving him the leeway to grow and develop that he was getting at Ipswich. We've seen first hand what Delap is capable of given he has a knack for scoring at the Cottage seemingly- and with the right coaching and just telling him to calm down I really think there's a very good player in there.

Igor Matanovic (Freiburg)

I'm breaking my own rules again with this one, as Igor Matanovic is World Cup bound with Croatia. But like it is for left-footed left-wingers, the Striker market is just hard. Especially for a club our size who can't just go out and spend whatever they want- finding the right player for the right price is very tricky. 

It probably isn't great for the sales pitch that I'm asking for Freiburg's main striker just after the Europa League final that took place last week, but here we are. Although I think in general that final, and the final Palace will most likely have in a few days just shows how strong the Premier League is in relation to the rest of Europe- and why I'd be so desperate for us to get a run at the Conference League one day because it would provide a very good potential route to us winning our first ever major trophy. 

Europa League final aside, Matanovic has had a very impressive season for Freiburg. He's big, he's physical, he's good in the air and he has a good eye for goal. He wouldn't be my first choice, just because of the World Cup, but in isolation if we had Matanovic up-front for us next season I definitely wouldn't be disappointed.

Gianluca Scamacca (Atalanta)

Someone who doesn't have the problem of a World Cup this summer thanks to Italy not qualifying is Gianluca Scamacca. Scamacca's probably best known to most people with a Premier League bias for his underwhelming spell with West Ham- and specifically when it comes to Fulham being one chapter in the saga of Chris Kavanagh vs Fulham. 

While I'm not saying he's blameless, I don't think Scamacca failing at West Ham is all on him. West Ham went through a weird phase with Strikers where they'd always end up circling back to Michail Antonio because of what David Moyes wanted out of his striker- and very good strikers like Haller and Scamacca ended up taking a back seat as a result. I still rate Scamacca despite his previous spell in the Premier League, from my perspective I think the problem he had can be boiled down to being mis-profiled as a stereotypical target man because of his size when he really isn't that. Scamacca from a technique perspective is absolutely first class, and if we played to his strengths we'd have a very good option on our hands. 

Jovon Makama (Norwich)

We need to sign two strikers this summer. Last year I was quite relaxed about "only" having two striker options with Jimenez and Muniz and wanted to sign a winger who "can" play up-front as our third option. After the season we've just had, I won't be making the same mistake. Watching a barely fit Jimenez run himself into the ground every week for months over the winter wasn't fun- we need to sign another viable option so we're not in that position again should one of our two main strikers get injured.

I know there's a sort of romantic train of thought related to signing Mihailo Ivanovic at Millwall as a "new Mitrovic" given his idolisation of Mitrovic and the celebration etc. but if we're signing any striker from the Championship this summer it has to be Jovon Makama for me. Before picking up an injury around January, for my money Makama was turning into the best striker in the league. He has the physicality, which you'd expect from someone his size who's grown up in the lower leagues, but he's also just all round quite a good football player, and one thing that really stands out to me is that he can create chances and shooting opportunities for himself. A bonus with Makama as well is he doesn't necessarily "have" to play up-front. Despite his size, he's quite a unique profile in the sense that he's played quite a few games on the wing, which goes back to a point I've made a few times about having tactical versatility.  

Alvaro Rodriguez (Elche)

I talked about the relegation battle in La Liga earlier with Arnau Martinez, and the goal that ultimately led to Girona's demise was scored by Alvaro Rodriguez in what was essentially a relegation play-off between Elche and Girona on the final day. It was some goal by the way, try and find it on Twitter. 

Not for the first time in this preview, the thing that's really drawn my attention to Rodriguez is just the fact he's an absolute monster in the air. Initially I was just interested in Rodriguez because the rumour was that if we signed Ricardo Pepi in January, PSV would sign Rodriguez. When it comes to talent ID and just generally being smart in the market, I know who I'd favour out of PSV and Tony Khan- so I decided to look into it more and see if it was potentially worth cutting out the proverbial middle man and going straight for Rodriguez instead. 

Rodriguez is still a bit raw, which is understandable given his age, but you can see why he got some game time for Real Madrid as he was breaking through and he's really come into his own this season as he's been getting more consistent game time for Elche. While his aerial ability is what has really sold me on him, he's not bad with the ball at his feet either- and if you need proof you should really go out of your way to find the goal Rodriguez scored against Girona because wow. 

Out of everyone I've talked about in this striker section, Rodriguez is the closest thing I can find to a potential "new Mitrovic". He doesn't have the same outright aggression, but he can make the ball stick when it comes to him and with his aerial ability the good old fashioned cross to the back post we scored so many goals with over the years with Mitrovic could be back on the menu provided we can get the service into him. 

Olivier Giroud (Lille)

I've already highlighted with a few players my want for experience in the forward areas, because as I've said already I do think there's a tendency as fans to fixate on the "shiny new toy". Especially the way Football is nowadays you see entire clubs (Chelsea) who just want to sign the latest wonder kids. There's definitely a place for that, but when it comes to Strikers I'm not sure if it would be the smartest move for us this summer. Despite highlighting all these other strikers, I still think it's more likely than not that the "main" striker we end up with is Ricardo Pepi. That makes me nervous. 

Especially with how Muniz has ended the season, having Muniz and Pepi as our main two striker options doesn't fill me with confidence. It's a very big bet, and while Muniz isn't that young anymore it still feels like we'd be going into the season relying on two relatively inexperienced strikers- and to me that could go wrong very quickly. So with this third striker option, rather than have a young Kusi Asare type, I'd feel more secure if we had a "been there and done that" player who will have his limitations, but would still be quite reliable if called upon. 

There's a reason a club like Brighton for all of their amazing recruitment and scouting still have Danny Welbeck up-front, and have players like James Milner in the squad. The balance has to be right, and if we had two (or three) inexperienced strikers I'm not sure it would be. I don't think there's much need to go into any depth about Giroud, so instead I'll highlight a few of the other players I considered for this spot. Those players were Callum Wilson, Alvaro Morata, Edin Dzeko and of course potentially just giving Jimenez another year. 

Outs
Calvin Bassey

There are players I want to sell this summer coming up later and there are players who we might need to sell in order to fund the sort of transfer window I've talked about us needing this summer. If it wasn't obvious Bassey falls into the latter category. Bassey's overall performance levels are very good, and the way he's developed over the three seasons with us has been great to see after his Ajax stint didn't go well to say the least. But contract wise, Bassey essentially has two years left with the option we have- so if we're going to cash in at his "proper" value it has to be now. 

Then when you factor in the new Squad Cost Ratio rules coming in, it essentially means a club our size has to make player sales if we want to spend at the sort of levels we'll need to this summer in order to refresh the squad. Especially factoring in the money we've spent over the last year on Kevin and Oscar Bobb while only selling Pereira I feel like we'll need do some book balancing if we want to spend further. And in-terms of "sellable assets" Bassey is one of the players we can actually get a really good fee for. That's not to say I'd be forcing Bassey out the door, he's still one of our best players- but like I said, for me, this feels like the right time.

I wouldn't even be that nervous about selling Bassey to be honest. For as good as he's been, I've been very impressed with Jorge Cuenca when he has played for the most part. On the face of it, I feel like we've actually had a rare moment of good squad planning where we've done what serious clubs like Brighton do and got our replacement in the building before letting Bassey leave. 

Alex Iwobi

I'm not really sure how controversial it would be to say sell Iwobi this summer. Because he is, objectively, one of our best players. In-terms of "Football IQ" I'd say he's definitely our smartest player, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind- and regardless of who's in charge next season having someone like Iwobi around who can play multiple positions to a high level can only be seen as a positive. 

With that said, in a similar vein as Bassey, I think Iwobi is someone we might need to sell this summer as opposed to actively wanting him to be sold. He has two years left on his contract, so value wise, especially with Iwobi's age, this summer is realistically when we should be trying to cash in- and when I look ahead to next season I'm not really sure Iwobi fits into the "vision". 

He's a very good footballer, but for left-wing I'd have Kevin and a left-footer and for centre-mid I'm not sure having Iwobi there gives us a good enough balance compared to what I'd personally be looking for with a pairing of Avdullahu and Frendrup for example. And as a result Iwobi might end up being a bit of an odd man out, and he's too good and too valuable transfer fee wise to be that for us- so from that perspective cashing in and reinvesting the money could make sense.

Antonee Robinson

The third player we have who I think will be in demand and could fetch a half decent transfer fee for us this summer is Antonee Robinson. I don't think you can say we should have cashed in last summer, because realistically he wouldn't have passed a medical- but we're here a year later and Robinson definitely hasn't hit the same heights he was hitting pre-injury to put it lightly and Robinson definitely isn't worth what he potentially could have been this time last year.

As is the case with Bassey and Iwobi, Robinson has two years left on his contract- and my hope is that Robinson still has enough of a "reputation" built up from the season prior to fetch a half decent transfer fee from any potential new club. A half decent World Cup for Robinson can't hurt his value either, but the World Cup is also part of why I'd be quite keen to sell. 

Sessegnon is probably already our first choice Left-Back, but with the fitness issues Robinson's had, having the World Cup this summer which will disrupt his pre-season just cements Sessegnon there even further in my view for next season. So to put it another way, what club our size could afford to turn down a 20-25m offer for their backup Left-Back. A backup Left-Back who can't cross and hasn't even really been that good since he picked up a bad injury no less. That's probably harsh, because he has been phenomenal over his career at Fulham- and I do genuinely believe he was the best Left-Back in the league last season- but this summer with everything factored in feels like a good time to thank him for his service and everyone moves on to something new.

Harry Wilson

Speaking of moving on to something new, I don't think it'll be a surprise to anyone when we announce Wilson's departure on a free transfer at some point in the next few weeks. I think my big frustration with Wilson isn't that he's leaving necessarily, it's just that we can't cash in on the season he's had. Although I suppose you could probably argue he wouldn't have necessarily played the same way if he wasn't essentially playing for the last big contract of his career. 

As frustrating as it is having Wilson leave on a free, we just have to accept it and move on. There's no ill will towards him, at least from me. He's responsible for some of my favourite Fulham memories in the last few years and he's also probably the only reason we weren't in a relegation scrap this season if we're being honest. I don't think as fans we can realistically say Wilson shouldn't take the chance to play in the Champions League if he does indeed up at Villa Park as has been heavily rumoured. 

Raul Jimenez

I already brought it up briefly when talking about Olivier Giroud, but I really wouldn't be opposed to giving Jimenez another year. For the reasons I've already talked about, I don't see any negatives to keeping someone with Jimenez's experience around if we do end up with Pepi and Muniz as our other two striker options. I suppose ultimately it will come down to the money on offer and what Jimenez's preference is after getting the World Cup out of the way- but from my perspective the door should definitely be open. 

Emile Smith Rowe

I was willing to give Smith Rowe this season before really forming an opinion on him, because last season was always going to be about Smith Rowe just playing Football again. This season was the one where Smith Rowe had to start playing like the 30m player we signed him to be, and of all the things you can describe Smith Rowe as this season- I don't think that would be one of them. 

It would be one thing if he was giving us a lot off the ball for instance like a Kamory Doumbia would, but he doesn't. As our #10 he doesn't have a single assist this season. He's played one full 90 minutes in two seasons. It's ridiculous. The problem we'll have with Smith Rowe is just whether any potential suitors would be willing to take him at a price we'd take. But with Smith Rowe and the player I'll talk about next, I do think it will be a bit of a sunk cost fallacy to keep them, and provided it doesn't nuke our potential window as far as being able to spend I'd be happy just to cut our losses, take what we can and move on. 

Joachim Andersen

Do I think it's likely that Joachim Andersen departs this summer? No. Do I want Joachim Andersen to ever wear a Fulham shirt again? Also no. I feel like by Football fan standards I'm not that reactive or prone to exaggeration. When it comes to Joachim Andersen, I think it's entirely fair to say he ruined our season. Other players and Silva aren't blameless of course, but between the stupid red card against Bournemouth and giving away the penalty against Southampton that cost us our place in the cup- I don't think you can come to any other conclusion. 

Up until Bournemouth I wasn't as harsh on Andersen as some people, but for Andersen as one of our supposed "leaders" to get sent off in the manner he did in the context of the game was just the final straw for me. Like I said though, I don't think it's likely Andersen does depart, I can't see any team out there being willing to pay Andersen the wages we put him on to get him out of Palace- and then you have to factor the hit we'd take when we inevitably sold Andersen at a loss as well. This one is probably more wishful thinking as I've said, but like Smith Rowe, Andersen is someone I just want to see the back of in my hopes that this summer can be the full reset this team really needs.

Timothy Castagne

I've actually debated in my head about whether to include Castagne. I usually start putting these previews together months in advance, and Castagne was always someone I've felt we needed to sell this summer. I still do, but to give Castagne his credit he's probably been our best player over the last couple of months- granted that's not a particularly high bar. 

However, with all that said, I still think it's the right time to move Castagne on. He's going into the last year of his contract, he's turned 30 and despite the praise I've given him- in the bigger picture his overall performances still leave a lot be desired. Then factoring in this desired reset I've talked about quite a few times that I think we need this summer, if it was a simple question of whether I'd have Castagne or Arnau Martinez for example there is literally zero debate for me. 

Issa Diop

Something I've mentioned a couple of times in this section already is my view that if someone has two years left on their contract it's time to cash in or renew. And I stand by that when it comes to Bassey, Iwobi and Robinson. It means you're not risking losing someone on a free, like we are with Wilson, and in general I think it's quite a healthy way to do business. 

This is what we should have done with Issa Diop last summer. That's nothing against Diop, from my perspective he's very good at what he can do- which in essence is be a "proper" defender and for certain games and scenarios that's exactly what we need. But he does have his limitations, which are very obvious for anyone with eyes- and given Diop is going into the last year of his contract now we basically just need to take whatever we can get for him. It can't hurt his value if he has a good World Cup, seeing as one thing that's changed since last years preview is that Diop is Moroccan now. 

Harrison Reed

Harrison Reed is in the same boat as Diop in the sense that we should have been selling him last summer with two years left on his contract (assuming we won't activate the option in his contract)- but I suppose everything happens for a reason and if we had sold Harrison Reed last summer we probably don't have arguably the moment of the season with the goal against Liverpool. 

We do have an option on Reed's deal, so in effect we could have another two years, but to be blunt I don't think there's much point activating it for the amount of game time Reed gets- and just the fact Reed probably isn't good enough these days beyond the occasional cup game. As is the case with Diop I think it's just a case of taking what we can get with Reed and moving on- and there should definitely be suitors in the Championship for him. 

Benjamin Lecomte

If we sign a new backup Keeper, and we should, then Lecomte will obviously become surplus to requirements. Like I said right at the start of this marathon preview, I think Lecomte has done the job he was asked to do this season. I highlighted last year the need for our "cup keeper" to be someone who can save penalties after Steven Benda's outing at Deepdale- and Lecomte came good when it mattered against Wycombe. But age-wise and just overall ability and size-wise, Lecomte just isn't going to challenge Leno for the #1 spot- and we need someone who will. 

Marco Silva

If the Newcastle game is the end of Marco Silva's tenure as Fulham manager then at least we ended with a win. For as significant as Silva's been to the club over the last 5 years, if the final goal of his reign is the sort of trademark Tom Cairney goal then it feels like a fitting way to end it. And what a reign it's been. I can understand the frustration I've seen a lot over the last couple of months, and when you see newly promoted Sunderland qualifying for the Europa League ahead of us it does sting. But in the bigger picture I don't think you can underestimate just how good of a job Silva's done for us. 

I always say Football is about memories, and Silva has delivered some of my all time favourite memories supporting Fulham. A decade from now we're not going to be looking back saying "remember that time we finished 11th", but we are going to look back and remember Mitrovic's scoring the 7th against Luton. We're going to remember Mitrovic's late winner against Brentford. We're going to remember beating Chelsea for the first time in over 15 years. We're going to remember Iwobi's winner at Old Trafford. We're going to remember Wilson's late double against Brentford. We're going to remember Muniz at Stamford Bridge. We're going to remember Harrison Reed against Liverpool. This is what Football is about, and for half a decades worth of kicking a ball around I'd say that's a pretty good return. 

Has Silva been perfect? Of course not. Do I wish we could actually be a competitive football club in the run in of a season? Of course. I think when Silva looks back on his Fulham career his main regret will probably be not getting the chance to take us to Wembley, especially when we came close so many times. In fact I think this season was the only one since we've been in the Premier League under Silva where we haven't been one game off a Wembley trip. In general I think that can sum up why I know some people are ready to move on from Silva this summer though. It just feels like we're destined to be the "almost" team under him. We almost got to Wembley, we almost qualified for Europe and "almost" can get old very quickly. 

For what it's worth, if it was entirely up to me I'd want Silva to stay next season. Like I said he's not perfect, but he's got us competing at a level we've not seen us competing at for such a long time. The only Premier League team we haven't beaten with Silva in charge is Man City, which to me is remarkable given how we'd fared against the traditional big clubs prior to Silva. Considering the rebuild we're going to have to do this summer, there isn't many realistic options out there who I'd rather have than Silva to be blunt. In simple terms, I'm not really sure it gets better for us than what we've had over the last half a decade. 

The Khans have been in charge for well over a decade at this point. In their tenure we've had 8 permanent managers- and the only one to find any sort of success in the Premier League under them has been Marco Silva. If we actually behaved like a serious football club, got signings in early and let Silva have a proper pre-season with them who knows what difference that could make to our overall outlook. As it is, I think that point is probably the main sticking point for Silva. If we were trying to convince Silva to stay, not spending a penny until Deadline Day last summer probably wasn't the best sales pitch. If Silva is to stay I'd imagine he'd be demanding some sort of guarantee over transfers and the promptness of said transfers- because at times it feels like he's having to fight with one hand tied behind his back. 

As it is, I do think the full-time whistle against Newcastle brought Silva's Fulham career to an end. Whether it's Benfica or someone else, I think Silva's ready to move on- and I'm sure there's people in the fanbase who will be looking to move on now as well and hope the grass is greener. But much like a lot of people said in relation to David Moyes and West Ham fans- I do think it could very much be a case of "be careful what you wish for". We could be in West Ham's shoes in the very near future if a lot of right decisions aren't made over the summer- and to be blunt I have very little confidence in the people who will be making those decisions. 

Manager

For as much as I've loved Silva being our manager, the world will keep spinning after he's left- and we need to get his replacement through the door as soon as humanly possible. None of what I've talked about in this preview matters until we know who's in charge next season. I've hedged my bets and tried to cover a lot of bases- but until we know what manager and style we're going to have next season there's not much point trying to recruit players. 

My first choice for Silva's replacement, by quite some distance, is current Olympiacos manager Jose Luis Mendilibar. The last manager we had with Olympiacos on their CV turned out alright after all. Stylistically Mendilibar and Silva aren't very similar, but I think for the sort of club we are being a successful Olympiacos manager makes you a pretty good fit. We'll have some games where we need to be on the front foot and attack, as is the case with 99% of Olympiacos' league games- but you also have to be adaptable and be willing to set up defensively to have any success in the Champions League as one of the weaker teams in the competition. 

Mendilibar really stands out to me in that sense because not only has he picked up some respectable results in the Champions League, but as the manager of a non English team he managed to win the Conference League with Olympiacos- beating Aston Villa along the way and any non English team winning the Conference League is very impressive given the finance difference. Having that experience of winning trophies has to be a factor in our managerial recruitment this summer for me- because that ultimately has to be the goal. I'm not saying it'll be easy, but if everything aligns as it did for Palace last year- having someone who has the know how to get it over the line like Glasner did can make all the difference. 

Mendilbar is currently employed, and especially with "Mr Marinakis" at the helm he might not be the easiest manager in the world to get out of his contract- so it's definitely worth looking at other options as well. Raffaele Palladino is someone I mentioned last year as a potential Silva replacement, and I think the perfect illustration of why I rate his managerial ability is the season he had with Fiorentina last year, and then the season Fiorentina had this year after his resignation. 

Palladino has had a job in between, taking charge of Atalanta when they realised giving the keys to Ivan Juric after he'd flopped at Southampton wasn't the smartest decision straight after losing their best ever manager Gasperini. For the most part, barring an absolute battering by Bayern Munich, Palladino's managed to steady the ship in Bergamo without hitting the heights they might have hoped he would or they were used to under Gasperini. Perhaps as a result of that, as of writing, while not official, Palladino seems like he's going to be getting sacked by Atalanta with them appointing Maurizio Sarri as his replacement. That makes Palladino a very tempting proposition for me, I really like him as a coach and I think the way he sets his teams up suits a club like ours perfectly. 

The challenge will just be to get Palladino out of Italy, because I feel like every top Italian coach ends up managing every top Italian club at some point in their careers- and there are jobs going at Lazio, Milan and Napoli as an absolute minimum this summer. Another top Italian coach I'd be interested in is Vincenzo Italiano at Bologna, yes that is his real name- but given he'd require compensation (assuming Palladino is sacked) there's a very clear preference for me.

Looking a bit closer to home now, depending on what the Khans actually want from their new manager, I think Nuno Espirito Santo might end up ticking a lot of boxes. As of writing it's being reported that Nuno is going to be sacked following West Ham's relegation, and given we seemingly have quite favourable links to Jorge Mendes I feel like Nuno will end up very high in our thinking. He wouldn't be my first choice, but he is a very good manager, despite West Ham's relegation- and with a full pre-season I don't have any doubt in my mind that Nuno would comfortably keep us up next season as an absolute minimum. And I feel like the Khans see safety as enough, despite my talk of trophies earlier, and in that respect Nuno is very much the safe option both style wise and also having a lot of Premier League experience under his belt.

I've looked at quite a few other options as well. If we don't want to pay compensation, the other four names that made my shortlist are Adi Hutter, Carles Martinez Novell, Marcelo Gallardo and someone I've seen fans mention a few times already Filipe Luis. If we don't mind paying compensation, an additional four managers I'd like us to consider are Carlos Corberan (Valencia), Danny Rohl (Rangers), Eric Roy (Brest) and our former goalkeeper coach, currently plying his trade at Famalicao Hugo Oliveira.

If you've made it this far I salute you. Thanks for reading these transfer blogs as always. I'm sure you can probably tell just by the length and depth I go into with these that I still really enjoy writing and "scouting" them- and hopefully you can at least potentially learn some new names from leagues you might not otherwise even pay attention to or even be aware of. As I said right from the start, my sort of attitude to club football right now is very much "I need a break". We've got the small matter of a World Cup this summer and before we know it we'll be back at the Cottage to do it all over again. And literally nobody can honestly say they know what we'll be seeing in a black and white shirt- which is equal parts intriguing and terrifying. Thanks again for reading, hopefully it comes home- and hopefully next season can be a good one.  

Fulham: 25/26 Summer Window Preview

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.