Football News: Team Review - Fulham
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Team Review - Fulham
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League Position: 18th
Goalkeepers:
Alphonse Areola
Marek Rodak
Fabri
On the face of it, it looked a very good group of keepers for a season in the Prem, even if Areola was only on loan from Paris Saint-Germain for the season. In practice, Areola's tendency to make mistakes became a liability for a struggling club and cost them at key moments.
Defenders:
Joachim Andersen
Tosin Adarabioyo
Alfie Mawson
Michael Hector
Terence Kongolo
Tim Ream
Antonee Robinson
Joe Bryan
Ola Aina
Kenny Tete
Denis Odoi
Their best defender, Andersen, was only on loan and they are still stuck with a lot of players that have been proven to be a long way from good enough, such as Ream, Hector and particularly Odoi. They desperately need to clearout players, rather than look to add more to those they already have.
Midfielders:
Andre Zambo Anguissa
Mario Lemina
Kevin McDonald
Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Harrison Reed
Tom Cairney
Bobby Decordova-Reid
Josh Onomah
Once again key players on loan means they are significantly weaker for next season, with little hope of replacing them with anything like the same quality. They do have a very good midfielder in Anguissa to build the midfield around, Reed is decent enough, but then they are left with the same old players that have always shown they are not good enough for the top flight. If they do manage to bounce back, they are going to have yet another major rebuilding job on.
Forwards:
Ademola Lookman
Ivan Calaleiro
Aleksandar Mitrovic
Josh Maja
It is the same old story with the forwards, loanees who will be gone, leaving a weak forward line that is in desperate need of real investment, rather than more stop-gap loan signings.
Manager: Scott Parker
He managed to get some fight out of his team, which looked beyond them in the early days of the season, but they never looked in any way likely to escape relegation. The question is whether the spat with the owners at the beginning of the season was part of the problem or did it help unlock some funds? It looks to me like it got them to open the wallet to a degree, but only for loan signings, which are never a solution if the intent is to battle against relegation. Loan signings rarely have the heart for the fight, as they will be back to their parent club at the end of the season regardless.
Conclusion:
They are an utter mess. They built their house on sand and now they have to build it all over again replacing all their best players, as they have returned to parent clubs. This is happening time and time again with Fulham. They achieve promotion and completely rebuild bringing in scores of players, only to drop straight back down and lose them all. Then they repeat it. Again and again. At some point they need to learn their lesson and actually stop wasting the Premier League millions they receive on a bunch of loanees. Building for the long term is the only way to stop being a yo-yo club.
Written by Tris Burke May 26 2021 08:19:25
