Summer '08: Ins and Outs

This is an ignorant statement. 24,000 fans a game and Fulham is supposedly rich. Thank God you aren't on Fulham's board.

 

It isn't ignorant at all. Like I said, if we invested, we'd get better, we'd get more fans, we'd be in the top 10, which gains us more money. What do you not understand about this?

 

Invest with what money? Leave Craven Cottage? Merge with Q.P.R.? Is 9th place all that important?

 

Let's put it this way. Capitalism is about gaining capital, right? Well, you don't gain capital by having your team be piss poor in the bottom half. And if something isn't working, what do you do? You fix the problem. Signing rubbsih players hasn't worked, so by spending a little more on wages, you can fix the problem.

 

Spend on higher wages with what!!?!???

 

With money that they have. Don't tell me Mo doesn't have the money because he does. He had it when we first came up and he has it now.

 

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED. We're trying to find a guy who brings the same skill set as McBride did, thus hearing names like Crouch and Elmander and Kitson and (previously) Ljuboja, and why we brought in Kuqi on loan when McBride was hurt. Not necessarily because they're OMG TEH AWESOME but because they're a particular TYPE of player, which Doyle and Cisse are not.

Because Don doesn't try to argue that Fulham should act as if they're Luton, but you're trying to argue that Fulham should act as if they're Inter.

Given that Mo has made, over the course of his life, more money than I can even imagine, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on deciding whether spending money like you're calling for would be a wise investment.

 

Have you seen how much debt the clubs at the top of the table have?

Anyhow, we're not signing Kitson. We're not selling Bullard. Our manager is currently out of the country, working for UEFA. I have no idea why these papers expect us to believe that Roy has been spending his time on the phone with Steve Coppell, hammering out a deal for Dave Kitson.

 

Let me ask a question, ok two questions:

1) This doesn't solve anything now but isn't there talk about expanding Craven Cottage to add capacity? Anyone know how many seats that would be?

2) Does Fulham have enough of a population center around it to draw say 40,000 fans a game, assuming their is a quality product being delivered? (obviously I have never been there.

Thanks.

 

Who says we need to sign another Mcbride? Why can't we change it up a bit and go for the skill?


Also, I do not think we should do what Inter does. How you get that, I'll never know. Saying that we should go after a few players that are good is not what Inter would do. If I was wanting us to do what they do, I'd say to have our owner tell Chelsea to fuck off and to spend money on only the best players.

 

1 - I believe they're hoping to go up to 26k or 27k next season
2 - Maybe, if the product is good enough. Not too long ago, nobody would have expected Chelsea to draw as many as they do.

 

The Cottage is in the process of being expanded (or maybe has already been expanded, I don't know how far along it is) to 30,500 seats.

For what it's worth, this is still significantly below the average attendance at a Premier League Match, which was 36,186 in 2007-08.

 

Hey guys who thnk we don't have the money, if we're gonna sign Siminuc, how much do you think he will cost on wages? Probably around the 40-50K mark I'm talking about. But again, we don't have the money.

 

There are plans to expand to 30,000... but that still would keep Fulham under 20 or so other English clubs. Leeds United, in League One, is a bigger club than Fulham for example. Derby is actually a bigger club than Fulham. Nottingham Forest definitely is.

Fulham is definitely trying to become the next Blackburn or Bolton, in success, but it isn't that easy. And Blackburn is apparently getting into deep financial trouble since their trust fund has or is running out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008 ... .blackburn

 

Thanks Lyle. Yikes for them. I saw something somewhere that said Fulham's debt load was significant (top 10 in the league), much of it personal loans to the team from MAF.

I appreciate where your coming from, like you, I hope they can do more with less with Hodgson skippering the ship. I would just like to see incremental improvement, rather than expect a meteoric rise up the table this next season. There are a lot elements to this becoming a reality, and challenges, like you say we have to compete with other teams who are most likely trying to do the same.

 

Because signing a small, quick forward would be redundant with Kamara and Healy and Johnson and Nevland. Roy obviously likes to have a big forward available or he wouldn't have taken Kuqi on loan. Big forwards can give other teams' defenders matchup problems and help a team's defense on set pieces. The fans appreciated McBride's effort and voted him player of the season after 2006-07. Healy has stated that he likes to play off a big forward.

Those are some reasons why we would want to sign a player with a similar skill set to McBride.

 

Just FYI, saying Kitson is "injured a lot" is like saying Jimmy Bullard gets injured a lot. Kitson had one really bad injury that cost him most of Reading's first season in the Prem. He had a couple of minor knocks the 2nd season, but nothing to give him a bad injury rap.

 

These Simunic rumors are getting heavier and heavier . . I wonder if this is a real possibility. Do a google news search, you'll see. He could be an excellent pickup.

 

From the Times Online just a few hours ago:

They make up rumors but I don't think they generally make up direct quotes. Included the part about Keller because it's worth noting that the offer to KK is still on the table.

But from an article from a few days ago:

So I suppose we'll see. As I said before, he and the Hangman would be a tremendously imposing pair.