January 2009 Transfer Window Summary

Thanks to the snow I spent most of Monday at home checking the Internet and sports news to see if we'd signed anyone exciting. Inevitably, despite being quite busy regarding the movement of fringe players on loan deals, we didn't make a late bid to purchase Kaka from AC Milan or steal Arshavin from under the noses of Arsenal. I'm coping with the whole transfer window shenanigans much better these days, and generally trying very hard to ignore it, but I have to admit I wasted an awful lot of time yesterday tapping the F5 key.

In
Giles Barnes (Derby County) LOAN with OTB*
Olivier Dacourt (Inter Milan) LOAN
Elliot Omozusi (Norwich City) LOAN RETURN

Out
Jimmy Bullard (Hull City) £5Million
Gabriel Zakuani (Peterborough United) £undisclosed
Lee Cook (QPR) £undisclosed
TJ Moncur (Wycombe Wanderers) FREE
Hameur Bouazza (Birmingham City) LOAN
Seol Ki Hyeon (Al Hilal Al Saudi) LOAN
Leon Andreasen (Hannover 96) LOAN with OTB*
Andranik (Barnsley) LOAN
Adrian Leijer (Norwich City) LOAN

The club sensibly kept it's cheque book under lock and key and made best use of the loan system. Giles Barnes could prove to be a very good signing. He's going to need a fair bit of time to improve match fitness and get up to Premier League speed but it's a decent gamble and with a £2Million option to buy a reasonable price should we decide he's up to scratch. Olivier Dacourt has an impressive record, he did feature significantly for Inter last season but has been unable to break into a first team that is currently topping Serie A. I'm quite excited about Dacourt but felt similarly about Jari Litmanen this time last year so we'll have to wait and see what happens (I'm hoping Dacourt's ears are in better condition than Jari's!). No great loss if he's not up to it and a great chance for Dacourt to prove his worth ahead of next season.

Most of the outward movement is not unexpected though letting both Andreasen and Andranik go doesn't help our midfield options. We've still got eight players in that position and maybe Barnes and Dacourt can improve our reserve quality. It's up front I have the greatest concerns. Just three fit strikers leaves us vulnerable to injury and with limited options from the bench. That said Kamara is nearing fitness again and compared with Everton (who've been making do with Tim Cahill for over a month before bringing in Jo on loan yesterday) we have a multitude of riches. We might have improved this by signing 19 year old Ben Wright from Hampton & Richmond but, as Roy Hodgson explains, stepped aside to let him join Peterborough United instead.

In other news we've turned Julian Gray's loan into a permanent deal (though only until June), which doesn't mean a great deal other than freeing up one of our domestic loan slots. This probably suggests that we were close to bringing in another player on loan but missed out (the hot rumour is we may have got Caicedo from Man City if they'd got Roque Santa Cruz). Club Captain Danny Murphy signed the option to extend his contract through to June 2010 which is good news, and of course we kept Brede Hangeland. A lean squad of 23 players is no bad thing and may even give valuable opportunities to some of our academy graduates.

* OTB = Option to buy.

Taking Stock

The hours following the end of the transfer window felt very much like the calm after the storm. The arrival of the Abu Dhabi Group at Man City and their shock purchase of Robinho from Real Madrid, followed by the resignation of West Ham manager Alan Curbishley and potential departure of Kevin Keegan from Newcastle seem to point to shift in power in the Premier League.

Fulham, meanwhile, were quietly streamlining the squad. I like this. It makes things neat. There's not much point in retaining players at the club who would only ever play in the very worst of injury crises. That said, by my calculations, we're down to 25 first team players which might be leaving us a little threadbare should that injury crisis suddenly appear but also seems a respectable number of players to work with.

Players Out = 29 for approx £3.5 Million
Brian McBride, Kasey Keller, Tony Warner, Carlos Bocanegra, Philippe Christanval, Ian Pearce, Simon Elliott, Bjorn Runstrom, Jari Litmanen, Ismael Ehui, Bradley Hudson-Odoi, Corrin Brookes-Meade (all released). Dejan Stefanovic (Free transfer to Norwich), Michael Timlin (Free transfer to Swindon), Paul Stalteri (Loan return), Ricardo Batista (nominal fee to Sporting Lisbon), Nathan Ashton (undisclosed, but small, fee to Wycombe), Steven Davis (£3M to Rangers), David Healy (undisclosed fee to Sunderland), Alexey Smertin (contract cancelled by mutual consent), Antti Niemei (Retired). Plus the following players on loan; Elliott Omosuzi (Norwich), Lee Cook (QPR), Hameur Bouazza (Charlton), T.J. Moncur (Bradford), Eddie Johnson (Cardiff), Moritz Volz (Ipswich), Gabriel Zakuani (Peterborough) & Collins John (NEC Nijmegen).

Players In = 12 for approx £21.4 Million
Mark Schwarzer (Middlesbrough, Free), David Stockdale (Darlington, £600k), Zoltan Gera (West Brom, Free), Andranik (Bolton, Free), Chris Smalling (Middlesbrough, Free), Bobby Zamora & John Paintsil (West Ham, £6.3M), Frederick Stoor (Rosenberg, £2M), Pascal Zuberbuhler (free agent), Andy Johnson (Everton, £10.5M plus), Dickson Etuhu (Sunderland £2M), Julian Gray (Coventry, loan).

I wrote a piece in The Fulham Review about the players that left last season and called it "The Sanchez Cull". By comparison that was small fry. The big difference is Roy has generally cleared out players lower down the pecking order and found replacements for the key positions. One of the best bits of news not covered above is that we still have Jimmy Bullard in the squad. England International Jimmy Bullard, that is. I doubt we've heard the last of that particular story but for now we can revel in watching the first Fulham player to claim an England spot since ... err ... Zat Knight.

The Price Of Success?

A lot has been said about the proposed move of Andy Johnson from Everton over the last few weeks. It's very hard to work out when paper talk is real or fiction, but with prolonged and continuing claims from a wide range of sources it would seem that we are definitely interested and working quite hard to secure his services.

My experience of seeing him play is pretty limited. I remember him setting the league alight in his first Premier League season with Crystal Palace. A lot of those 22 goals came from penalties and there was much discussion about how easily he went down in the box. He looked pretty sharp when he played against us at the Cottage. He scored (a penalty of course) but faded as the game went on and we recorded a comfortable 3-1 win. Since moving to Everton he's stayed on his feet a lot more and has (appropriately) seen a subsequent drop in his goals tally. In fact looking at his last six seasons (even allowing for the difference in quality between leagues) there is a clear decline in his goal totals.

2002-03 C.Palace Championship  14 goals
2003-04 C.Palace Championship  32 goals - Promoted
2004-05 C.Palace Premier League 22 goals - Relegated & England debut
2005-06 C.Palace Championship  17 goals - Lost in playoff final
2006-07 Everton Premier League 12 goals
2007-08 Everton Premier League 10 goals
.
.

If his transfer fee was lower I don't think this would seem as quite so big an issue.
Playing for Everton he was one of maybe four contenders for a starting place, at Palace he was probably the first name on the team sheet. Moving to Fulham might give him that status again and provide greater opportunity to show the league what he's got. However, when a fee is reported of £10.7Million it's not surprising we fans start to get a little agitated.

For one thing there's a feeling we're being ripped off. Everton paid £8.6Million for him back in 2006 and there's not much evidence to suggest he's improved in that time. He has added to his England caps but is a long way from being considered one of the prime squad members. There's also the concern that the last time we spent this much money - and if the figure is true we are looking at a total that is only £300k below our all-time record fee - it all went horribly wrong. Steve Marlet wasn't a bad player per-say but he struggled to shrug off the expectations of an enormous transfer fee. For a club of our size to pay so much money suggests high expectations at management and board level which AJ can only really meet by scoring a lot of goals.

Should it really matter to us what price the club pay? Should it affect our judgement of how good a player is? I think it does matter. I think it is fair to have greater expectations of a player that cost £10Million compared to a player that cost £3Million. That said I'm happy to leave these decisions in the hands of Roy Hodgson. If he thinks Johnson is worth that sort of money then I'm content to accept that he is. Roy has talked of building a squad of 20 or so core players, increasing the quality so that any of those players are capable of performing for us, reducing the number of fringe players who aren't up to scratch and looking for players who are intelligent users of the ball. These are exciting times again. We earned a reprieve from certain relegation and now we're doing our best to make sure that doesn't happen again. If AJ completes his move I hope he plays a big part in doing just that.