Thursday 3 August 2017

Fulham: 17/18 Season Preview

On the eve of the season, it's time for another Fulham season preview by yours truly. Unlike last year we're not kicking off the Football League season, but let's hope we end up with a similar outcome as we got this time last year. This preview will effectively cover all things Fulham that have happened over the summer, and what I expect we'll see over the course of the next 10 Months.

Given the time of year, there's only really one place to start, and that's the transfer window. Which in typical Fulham fashion has been without any incident, controversy and newsworthy happenings at all.

The Transfer Window
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Marcelo Djalo (Lugo)
Look, I don't know anything about him. And by the sound of it, not even many people at the club do. However, I'm not going to write him off just yet. However naive that may be of me. There's a few reasons for that, the first one being he's only 23. I'd say Centre-Backs generally peak around the 26-30 age range, with some going on even longer like a certain John Terry who's dropped down for the coming season. I'd also argue the large chunk of the abuse Djalo's received this Pre-Season is unfair and largely down to how he's perceived to have been signed rather than his actual ability.

Because when he played the 2nd Half against West Ham next to Tim Ream who's probably our best Centre-Back on the ball, and in front of McDonald who's such a calm player- I thought he actually looked alright. I'm not saying I want him to start every week, but being in the Real Madrid Academy and having a spell at Juventus means he does have a bit of pedigree to him. So I won't completely write him off before he's had a proper go.

Ibrahima Cisse (Standard Liege)
With the signing of Cisse and another player I'll discuss later, I'd say we have the best central midfield in the league. We've now added good depth to the midfield three that in my albeit biased opinion were the best midfield in the league last season. Depending on Kevin McDonald's fitness and his potential (more later) transfer to Forest we could see a lot of Cisse in the near future. I have high hopes for this one, because much in the way of McDonald this time last year he's someone we've tried to sign previously and there's a reason for that.

Lucas Piazon (Chelsea, Loan)
I would've preferred a permanent move for Kalas particularly, but with Slutsky being at Hull, I'm just happy that we've got Kalas and Piazon back in the first place. Piazon's pretty much the perfect squad player. He showed what he's capable of at times last season with some of the goals he scored, with the one against Forest immediately jumping to mind, he clearly likes being here, and he's a decent player first and foremost. You need depth in the Championship, that's just the nature of the league, and winger and centre-mid are the two positions I'd say where we've got quality depth- with Piazon being a part of that.

Oliver Norwood (Brighton, Loan)
As I've already said, the midfield three of Cairney, McDonald and Johansen were in my opinion the best midfield in the league last season. However, it has to be said we without a doubt got lucky last season when it came to injuries, or the lack thereof for those three players. I think Cairney missed 1 game, McDonald only missed games through suspension and Johansen didn't drop out of the team once he'd got his place.

We've already seen in Pre-Season that we probably won't be so lucky this season considering McDonald missed the game at the weekend and Cairney's had some knee issues. So we needed to add players capable of coming in and playing to a high level, and in Norwood we've done that. Everything about him seems perfect for how we play in-terms of how comfortable he is on the ball and his general style of play. Plus, if Cairney is injured when we go to the Madejski second week of the season he'll probably score a 30 Yarder against Reading.

Tomas Kalas (Chelsea, Loan)
As I've already said, I would have preferred this to be permanent, but with Hull being in the mix the way they were I'm just happy to have him at all. I'm hoping now that Kalas and Ream have had the best part of a season together we can be more secure at the back with said pairing. Because if we want to go up, and we absolutely have to go up this season, we need to concede less goals than we did last season. Even during our run at the end of the season we were winning games 3-1 or 4-1 most weeks. That's not sustainable over the course of a Championship season, and there will be games like Blackburn and Wolves at Home that immediately come to mind where it'll cost us points if we keep on the same trajectory defensively.

However, it does have to be said that Kalas in-terms of how Slavisa wants us to play is pretty close to being our perfect Centre-Back and I think the reaction to his signing said a lot about how much we needed him back this season to hopefully go that one step further than we did last season.

Aboubakar Kamara (Amiens)
Our brand new AK47! This one is interesting to me for a number of reasons. But first, let's address the elephant in the room. WE SIGNED AN ACTUAL STRIKER! When I saw the fact that Kamara's the first Striker we've signed permanently since Matt Smith, when we still had Felix as Manager, it took all I had not to burst out laughing.

At least on paper, Kamara looks to be the perfect Striker for us, and the fee we've paid for him would definitely suggest the stats department etc. agree with that. He looks like a very pacy, powerful player who knows where the back of the net is. I said it during either my Season Preview or Transfer Window Review last season, we're always going to score goals.

Even before we signed Kamara the attacking options we have and the way we play mean we'll score goals in the majority of games we play. It's that minority that we wouldn't score in which is why we've brought in Kamara and are looking to sign another Striker on top of him. Just to add the (hopefully) consistent goals from a Striker could be that little bit extra we need to push us over the line in some games. We 100% need another Striker, because we can't be reliant on Kamara when the only other out and out Striker we've got is Cauley Woodrow- but getting Kamara in with basically a week before Norwich to settle him in a bit was a massive "must" for us. Both in-terms of getting the team ready for the start of the season, and also from a negotiation perspective with potential other incoming Strikers (more later).

Outs
For this section I thought I'd just go through the players that actually appeared in a senior game for us last season.

Scott Parker (Retired)
I said I was in the minority in my Window Preview when I thought Parker would go on for another season, and that's because I was in fact wrong to think so. I will say I'm disappointed that Parker didn't take an official coaching position with us considering that's basically what he's been for the last two seasons- but to go to Spurs and work with a Manager like Pochettino is probably most young coaches dream.

Ryan Tunnicliffe (Millwall)
I said it a lot when I was doing consistent match reviews, I liked and still do like Tunnicliffe. You need a work horse like player in the team to do the "dirty work" so to speak. We're just very fortunate that we've now got Stefan Johansen who'll chase down players for 90 Minutes, and actually possesses the technical skills of a Football player. Whatever else you can say about Tunnicliffe, his goal at Bristol City away two seasons ago was probably the highlight of my whole season being in the Bristol City away end for it.

Jozabed (Celta Vigo)
I said in my aforementioned Transfer Window Preview that if Tom Cairney left I would've wanted to see Jozabed fill his role, as it was that became a non issue so there wasn't really a place for him. I've said a few times on Twitter and in my Window Preview that Jozabed's not a bad player by any means, I just don't think he ever really settled with us. Whether or not playing consistent Football will have helped him we'll never know. However, he's gone now, and I believe we sold him at a profit which is good business from us- and good for FFP as well. So it's a win-win.

Scott Malone (Huddersfield)
Depending on whether you'd class Chris Martin as a "Starting XI" player for us last season, Malone's the only one we've lost from the team last season now that Kalas has returned. There seems to be two camps with Scott Malone, the camp that say he's a massive loss for us, and the camp that says he's a bit overrated, suspect defensively and covers for it by scoring goals. I'd say I'm more in the latter camp, because he's 100% replaceable for us.

The signing of Malone in exchange for Jazz Richards, and subsequent sale for 3.5 Million has to be considered one of the best bits of business we've done in the last few years. Up there with Cairney for 3-4 million. Getting that amount of money for someone who's very replaceable is a no-brainer from a business perspective. I think Odoi will start at Left-Back on Saturday and we'll work to sign a new Left-Back before the end of August. A few of those potential incomings I'll discuss later.

Richard Stearman (Sheffield United)
I think it's funny looking back to this time last year where I'd say the majority of Fulham fans would've gone Kalas, Madl, Stearman, Ream in-terms of ordering our Centre-Backs. Now at least in my view I'd go Ream, Kalas, Madl, Stearman. Stearman's a solid player for this level without a doubt, but he's not at the level that we want to be at, and he's not the type of player (like Ream) who could've settled into Slavisa's style of play. So we've got a fee for him, which makes it a good deal for all sides.

Jesse Joronen (AC Horsens)
I think Joronen's a case of "what could have been" from a Fulham perspective. When we got relegated it was pretty much a fight between Joronen and Bettinelli for the #1 spot for the whole of Pre-Season. Joronen started the season, and because we were a complete shambles didn't keep many Clean Sheets, Bettinelli got his spot and the rest is history. I wish him all the best, because by all accounts he's a top guy off the pitch and by the sounds of it he's had a good start at his new club so let's see where he is after a couple of seasons.

Lasse Vigen Christensen (Brondby)
I saw many, many people call this sale a mistake, and I do understand why, although I'd disagree with said people. I loved Christensen when he had just broken into the team and was in my opinion for the first few months the best midfielder in the Championship. However, I think at this point we're all in on Slavisa as Manager. As a result, it's best for Lasse to move on because Slavisa clearly didn't rate Lasse enough to include him in the Matchday Squad, let alone the first team- and Christensen's at the stage of his career where he needs to be playing every week to keep developing now. As with Joronen, it sounds like he's had a good start at his new club- and I get the feeling he'll be back in the Championship, or maybe even the Premier League if he can get back his early Fulham form back. Because the Christensen from the first few months of his run in the first team was a Premier League level player.

Ragnar Sigurdsson (Rubin Kazan)
The latest departure which has happened today is Ragnar Sigurdsson going back to the Russian League on loan. I've said it a few times now, I don't believe Sigurdsson's a bad defender- but he just struggled to adapt to English Football. I'm presuming the only reason this isn't permanent is the fact Kazan couldn't afford to make it so, but provided they're covering his wages which I think are quite large I'm perfectly content with this deal. Sigurdsson's one of the last "dead weight" players we have in the squad, and with his wages freed up hopefully it can speed up the signing of some players. Which is a nice segue to the next section of this blog.

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Potential Transfers
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Diego Rolan (Bordeaux)
Let's just get this one out of the way seeing as it's been the transfer that's consumed many a Fulham fans summer. This one reminds me so much of the Lewis Dunk transfer a few years ago now in that we just seemingly wouldn't give up on him. However, the key difference in the case of Rolan is that we at least seemingly have actually moved on with sufficient time to get the team sorted before the start of the season which is evidenced by the signing of Kamara.

I've seen a lot of people slagging Rolan off on Twitter because of his reluctance to sign because they only want players who want to play for the badge and all those other cliches. So let's talk about that. This next season is a World Cup season, and when Rolan's got Cavani and Suarez firmly ahead of him, he's realistically competing with Abel Hernandez, Cristhian Stuani and a few other Strikers in South American leagues for a place in Oscar Tabarez's 23 Man Squad that's going to Russia.

While he hasn't left yet, given the way Hull seem to be doing things, I would think if the right offer came in for Hernandez they'd sell him- and I could easily see him at a Mid-Table La Liga or Serie A team. Stuani's already left Boro to join a newly promoted La Liga team- and in short, they're more visible, more popular leagues. Rolan would be stupid to not consider his World Cup prospects when making the decision to "drop down" to the Championship from a Bordeaux team who have qualified for the Europa League. Especially when Premier League Newcastle have registered an interest in him by all accounts.

I genuinely don't believe we've heard the last of this deal, because Newcastle seem to be going for Lucas Perez among others, and if they sign him and/or some other players we'll suddenly become an option Rolan wants to explore again.

One more quick point, if Rolan does sign, he's not going to not put any effort in. He's a Footballer, he's paid to play Football and score goals- and if he did sign for us I'd expect him to do both because whatever else you can say about him he'd be a top drawer player to have at this level.

Sheyi Ojo (Liverpool, Loan)
This one's a weird one, just because it seemed like Ojo would be at a new club at the time of writing this- but everything's been quiet for just over a week now.

Ojo's an interesting one. Because as I've already said, winger is one of the areas that we already have really good depth. As I'll discuss in the "potential outs" section, that could change- but as of writing this it's fine. As a result I'm not really sure how this would make sense for us. Because to the best of my knowledge Liverpool put "game time" clauses into players' loan deals specifying they have to play "X" number of minutes/games. While Ojo is undoubtedly a good player, I'd rather play players we already have consistently than effectively help develop another teams player which stifles the game time of a player who's under contract to us like say Kebano.

As far as actual solid links I think that's pretty much it at the time of writing, so now I'll be moving on to "my" more speculative potential incomings based on the positions I think we need to strengthen and players I believe would be able to fill those roles.

Rudy Gestede (Boro)
We've got Kamara who's the quick, more "Aluko/Ayite" up-front type Striker, so now in my opinion we need to sign more of a Target Man/Hold-Up type Striker to wear the #9 so we have some variety in our attacking play and a good option to either start or come off the bench in games. Enter Gestede who, I think is the 5th choice Striker at Boro just 7 Months after signing for them considering he presumably has Assombalonga, Bamford, Braithwaite and most recently Ashley Fletcher all ahead of him.

As a result, you have to assume he'd be available to sign, whether it be on Loan or Permanently for 3-4 Million. I'm sure there's another Target Man in a foreign league who we'll no doubt be looking at, but in-terms of a tried and tested Championship player him or Cameron Jerome would be our best bets.

Quickly on Cameron Jerome, are there seriously people saying they wouldn't have him? His goalscoring record at Championship level is great, and in a team like ours he'd be a near perfect fit. While the rumours around him have died down a bit now, if he were to come in I for one wouldn't have a single complaint.

Moussa Marega (Porto)
This one is completely out of left field for many of you I would assume, so let me introduce you to Moussa Marega. Who at least on paper is close to the perfect player for what I think we need. He's big and strong, but he's also quite quick, and based on last season where he scored 13 Goals in 25 games on loan at Vitoria Guimaraes he knows where the back of the net is as well. His cost would also be manageable for us as well because to the best of my knowledge he's in the last year of his contract. The fact he's not represented by Jorge Mendes means we at least have a chance of signing a Portuguese League player because it's not a guarantee he gets vacuumed up by Wolves.

Plus it's been a while since we've had a Moussa at the club now.

Erik Johansson (Copenhagen)
Moving on to Centre-Back now, we were very briefly linked with Mathias "Zanka" Jorgensen early in the window before he moved to Huddersfield, so I thought I'd look at the Danish League and see what else it had to offer, and I've come up with his Centre-Back partner. Reading up about Jorgensen, it was actually interesting, because a lot of Copenhagen fans seemed to rate Johansson more so than Jorgensen and were saying that the reason Jorgensen played as well as he did was because of Johansson. Let's just put it this way, he's better than Djalo, Sigurdsson and Madl and would provide genuine competition/option to Ream and Kalas for their places in the team which we simply don't have at the moment. Plus if my timelines are correct Kebano's played with him before, so hopefully he can get in his ear. We need to move quickly as well, because he turns 29 in December.

Rami Gershon (Gent)
It wouldn't be one of these transfer blogs without a trip to Belgium now would it? Enter Rami Gershon, who to me, is the player who can come in if Tim Ream doesn't carry on as he finished last season. He's basically a slightly taller, and based on how they've played in their respective leagues last season, slightly better version of Tim Ream. He's Left-Footed, very assured on the ball and he can play with both feet based on some the games I've seen him play which albeit isn't very many.

At least to me, based on the sort of profile of player we look at signing, he's the near perfect signing for us. Especially coming from the Belgian League he'd probably be relatively cheap. In short, he'd provide genuine competition and potentially play ahead of Tim Ream which we need this season.

Edgar Badia (Reus)
I still think we need to sign a new Goalkeeper, and with our new Goalkeeping Coach Jose Sambade Carreira coming in being Spanish, I can see us going into the Spanish market which I would hope he knows quite well for said Keeper. Enter Badia, who at Liga Adelante team Reus conceded just 29 goals over 42 games last season. There's not much more to it than that really. He seems a decent Keeper, although he may have an issue in-terms of the physical side of the Championship. However everything else he'd be golden with.

Raúl (Levante)
Badia was the second best Keeper in Liga Adelante last season, Raúl was the best. Plus, unlike Badia he's 6'5 so the physical side of the Championship shouldn't be as much of an issue for him as it would potentially be for Badia.

Because of how we play, I think signing a Spanish, or Spanish League Keeper is our best bet for a Keeper. Everything about how they train is based around passing, which is where Slavisa's got most of his "style" from as a Manager after spending the majority of his playing career and some of his managerial career in Spain. They train Keepers differently to how we do in England, and now we've got a new Goalkeeper Coach to replace Tim Flowers I would assume we're leaning more toward the Spanish style which is a lot of Rondo's involving the Keeper and a lot of the Goalkeeper training with the outfielders rather than being isolated for large parts of training sessions.

Jere Uronen (Genk)
Moving on to the last position that I believe we need to strengthen, and that's Left-Back. I don't think this one is completely out of nowhere like most of this section is because I think I read we're interested in him on FriendsOfFulham a few days ago. I definitely wouldn't have any objection to signing him because he'd be a really solid player for us. He's a very dogged player, and from what I've seen of him he looks better defensively than Malone- but not quite as good going forward. It's basically a question of what we'd prefer, and considering the job title of a Left-Back is "Defender" I know which one I'd prefer.

Isma Lopez (Sporting Gijon) 
Gijon, and a certain Fernando Amorebieta with them went down from La Liga last season. However, Lopez is one of the better players at the club, and at least to me looks like he fits the profile of the type of Left-Back we want. He's a Left-Back, but he's literally played as a winger in his career, and he definitely has a goal in him. Basically picture a Spanish Scott Malone, and there you go. Given the nature of Spanish contracts and Release Clauses which are in the news these days with the Neymar move, if we could pay the Release Clause which I would assume is attainable we could hopefully convince him to join us and everyone lives happily ever after.

Those are the four areas I still think we need to strengthen between now and the end of the window; Goalkeeper, Centre-Back, Left-Back and Striker. If we strengthen those 4 positions with quality, I genuinely believe we can have a crack at automatic promotion this season. We may end up needing to further strengthen if there's any significant departures though, which brings me on nicely to the next section of this.

Outs
Sone Aluko
Aluko's an interesting one to me, because even before what Slavisa said after Wolfsburg I've always thought there was something substantial to the Reading rumours. It might be because we've been interested in Ojo, but Aluko could very well be off. I'd be torn on whether or not that's a good move for us. On his day, Aluko's one of the best players in the division. His performance against Huddersfield in the 5-0 was probably the standout individual performance of any player for us last season.

The thing is though, there's also times where he can be the most frustrating player to watch ever thanks to him not being a clinical finisher. He could and should have had double the number of goals he finished on last season. In many ways Aluko summed us up as a club last season, a very tricky, quality player who needed 10 shots for every goal they scored. If a very big offer came in for him I'd be open to selling him provided we did sign Ojo, because I think Kebano has a higher ceiling than him and if Kebano were to settle into a regular starting role I believe he'd get more goals than Aluko over the course of a season.

Of course goals aren't everything, and I'd like to see Aluko stay without doubt- but I'm not entirely against it.

Kevin McDonald
This one has been bubbling for pretty much the whole summer and it seems to have flared up again over the last week or so. Unlike Aluko, I would be 100% against selling McDonald at any cost. Especially this close to the new season. The job McDonald does makes us tick simply. He probably isn't the best DM in the league now Wolves have signed Ruben Neves, but he's definitely up there based on last season- and if we are to go up we need McDonald at the club. It really is that simple.

Marcus Bettinelli
If we do sign a new Keeper, which I think/hope we will- I think Bettinelli's the more likely Keeper to depart of him and Button. I don't think Bristol City have signed a Keeper yet, and that's the team he's been linked with pretty consistently so if he were to leave it would likely be to them. I'd be sad to see him go, but I'd understand why he would want to go- and in-terms of purely on the pitch provided we signed a good replacement like one of the two I've mentioned above I'd be fine with it.

That's that as far as transfers go for me, so it's time to move on to other aspects of the summer and the coming season.

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Tom Cairney and Ryan Sessegnon's new contracts
One thing that absolutely has to be mentioned from the summer is the new contracts for Tom Cairney and Ryan Sessegnon. This will likely be the best bit of business we do this summer regardless of what else we do in the next month. That's both in-terms of keeping them here for the coming season, but also for the potential value should we sell them in the future. Especially when it comes to Sessegnon we've seen in recent years with players like Dembele how brutal the market can be for clubs if a highly rated youngster doesn't sign a new deal.

Now that we've got Sessegnon on a 3 Year deal we can pretty much name our price for him, and with the way the market's going that price if he has a similar season to last could be north of 20 Million which if we don't go up could be massive for us given this coming season is our last of Parachute Payments.

When it comes to Cairney I have absolutely no doubts he loves being at the club. However, I think the new contract was signed under the promise of no promotion this season and he's off next summer to a Premier League team willing to pay our asking price- and I wouldn't blame him one bit if he did. This season really is make or break in many respects for us, with Cairney perhaps being the most obvious example of why we need to go up this season.


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New Kit Reaction
I absolutely love our new kits. Especially the away one. They're nice and simple, and that's really all I want. The one thing that has to be talked about though, because I saw some reactions like this on Twitter and the Forums. Having Grosvenor Casino as a sponsor. For some reason, that I genuinely can't work out- there's some people against us having a Casino sponsor us. Despite the fact we've had betting companies as a shirt sponsor as recently as 3 seasons ago, and had Coral plastered all over the Cottage and literal Coral betting stalls set up at the Cottage- all while we've been in the SkyBet Championship.

It's not a coincidence that pretty much every team outside the Top 6 in the Premier League are sponsored by a Gambling Company. It's literally where the money is, and as long as they're paying a good price I couldn't care less who's sponsoring us as long as the players in the shirt are winning.


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The Season Ahead
As I've already said, this season is a massive one for us. Last season there wasn't much expectation on us, and I think up until Newcastle Away we were largely under the radar despite the fact we'd had a couple of 5-0 wins against promotion hopefuls and were playing some really good Football pretty much every week. This season, we're one of the favourites to go up, and we need to deal with the pressure, and the different type of games that come with that. Every single Manager in the Championship will have seen the way Reading played against us in the Play-Offs and how effective it was against us and try to replicate that way of playing because Jaap Stam's set the "blueprint" on how to get the better of Fulham and Slavisa Jokanovic. Put simply, we're going to have to work doubly hard to play "our" game this coming season.

While Top 6 was ambitious last season, it's the absolute minimum we should expect from this season- and anything less is simply put a failure. With the current squad I don't believe we have enough to push for automatics, however with some signings between now and September I may revise that. I wouldn't go as far as saying anything less than promotion is a failure, but no Top 6 would be.

Also, just a quick point- the Slavisa stuff is getting massively overblown in my opinion. Until he's gone, I won't believe it's as bad as some people have tried to make out.


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Predictions
I hate making Predictions, but as you may have seen on Twitter I've done my yearly Championship Top 6 and Relegation Prediction- and for once, Fulham are in it so I thought I'd expand on them here. I've predicted;
1st. Boro
2nd. Derby
3rd. Fulham
4th. Reading
5th. Wolves
6th. Norwich

That's my Top 6 for the season, with us beating Norwich and Wolves beating Reading in the Play-Off semi's and Wolves beating us at Wembley.

Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to a new season of ups and downs. Thanks for reading as always, I'll most likely be back on Deadline Day with a Live Blog or just after Deadline Day for a Transfer Window Review depending on how active we are in the rest of the window. Thanks again for reading and let's hope we go one step further this season.

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