Who Hates Fulham?
The English Premier League (suck it, Barclays!) season is just around the corner, so we here at UF are giving you everything you need to know about all 20 teams with our award-winning analysis. And no, we haven’t really won any awards, but neither has Arsenal in five years and people still seem to care about them.
Official Name:
Fulham Football Club
Nickname:
The Cottagers, Fulhamerica, The Whites, The Lillywhites (what, being white isn’t enough?)
Home Colors:
Would you believe white?
Trophy Case:
It’s spacious. Fulham have won almost nothing of note. They made a remarkable run under Roy Hodgson to the Europa League finals last year where they were bested by Atletico Madrid. They didn’t get a trophy for it, unless you consider Mark Hughes a prize. That was maybe their best finish in anything ever, assuming you hold it in higher regard than the now-defunct Intertoto Cup, which the Cottagers won in 2002-03.
They were runners-up in the FA Cup in 1975 to go with a handful of semi-final appearances (the last in 2002). They also won the second division in 1948-49 and 2000-01. The latter won them the promotion to the Premiership that they haven’t relinquished yet, despite Lawrie Sanchez’ best efforts.
2009-10 League Finish:
Twelfth
2009-10 Cup Finish:
FA Cup: Sixth Round (replay loss to some team that will be lucky to finish sixth)
Beer Cup: Third Round (Loss to Man City 2-1 in extra time)
Europa League: Runners Up
Quaint, Like a Cottage
History:
Fulham are the oldest professional team in London. How’s that for succinct?
Gaffer:
Quick, throw Sparky to Fulham! After Roy Hodgson was lured away to the big time of a seventh-place finishing (Mersey) side, Fulham were linked with Sven and Bob, before thinking they landed Jol, only to be stuck with Mark Hughes. Hey, Pete Carroll was like the seventh choice for USC and that worked out great, until the sanctions and stuff that is.
Anyway, Sparky is a pretty good fit at Craven Cottage. He’s a modestly decent manager at a modestly decent club. The Welshman overachieved at Blackburn navigating them to thuggish sixth and seventh place finishes before underachieving at Citeh (he won only two of his last ten). Prior to his stint at Blackburn he brought Wales close to a Euro qualification in 04, so perhaps he’s better suited to coaching up middling talent than at managing actual talent. Just don’t expect Fulham to be eligible for any Fair Play spots should they come the EPL’s way.
First Team:
GK: Mark Schwarzer, Pascal Zuberbuhler, David Stockdale
DEF: Stephen Kelly, Paul Konchesky, John Pantsil, Brede Hangeland, Chris Baird, Phillippe Senderos, Fredrik Stoor, Aaron Hughes
MID: Zoltan Gera, Danny Murphy, Damien Duff, Bjorn Helge Riise, Dickson Etuhu, Clint Dempsey, Jonathan Greening, Simon Davies
ST: Andy Johnson, Diomansy Kamara, Eddie Johnson, Bobby Zamora, David Elm.
Transfers In:
Jonathan Greeening: The former Manchester United seat-warmer was actually at Fulham last season on a loan from West Brom. A two-year deal was made permanent at the end of the season. For an attacking mid, he’s not much of a threat though with all of one goal in 23 appearances last year for the Cottagers.
Phillippe Senderos: Just seeing the name in print makes me cringe. But he’s Fulham’s problem now. Still, it’s Pavlovian. There is this one spot in my brain housing the movie of him continually getting turned inside out to give up a series of soft goals. Alcohol can’t erase it. Guess that sh*t is hard to get rid of.
Transfers Out:
Stefan Payne: Who?
Elliot Omozusi: [See Payne, Stefan]. Should make a preemptive mention that he played for Norwich in 08-09 when they got, you know, relegated to the third division.
Chris Smalling: Smalling was the object of a small skirmish between Arsenal and Manchester United for his services. The defender was plucked from obscurity at Maidstone United (a club that doesn’t even have its own ground) to captain Fulham’s development squad before making his debut in the last game of the 08-09 season.
Key Players:
Mark Schwarzer: The Aussie has cemented himself as one of the better keepers in the Prem. He’s everything a top-flight club could want: a shot-stopper with great wingspan and a reaction time to match; he plays with confidence and rarely gets wrong footed on set pieces.
Paul Konchesky, John Pantsil, Brede Hangeland, Chris Baird: Okay, it’s kind of punting to name the probable first-choice backline, but Konchesky and Hangeland are transfer targets that Hughes might be tempted to sell if he thinks it’ll fund the acquisition of his BFF Craig Bellamy. Suddenly they become a little thin in the part of the formation that should be their strength.
Bobby Zamora: The striker needs to continue his progress from punchline to competent. This season he needs to be ‘occasionally dangerous.”
Stadium:
Craven Cottage is old. It’s been Fulham’s home stadium since 1896. It also looks tiny on TV. But in truth, gradual expansion has put capacity at 25,700, which makes it bigger than the stadia of Hull, Wigan, Reading, and Burnley among other current and recent Premier League tourists. Still, they are the third-smallest of the current EPL clubs (God help you, Blackpool). If the club is able to keep it’s current mid-table form, the grounds will be a limiting factor in the club’s turnover moving forward. Either that or they hope demand skyrockets so they can just charge £1000 per seat per match.
Drama:
Watching the Little Club that Could knock out the holders, the Old Lady (Deuce!), and the hosts en route to the Europa League final wasn’t drama enough last season? Better have been because, not having won the European NIT and not having finished well in the league, there is no continental football for the Cottagers. So any drama that might play out is probably limited to a domestic cup run. Either that or Sparky is a disaster and that spills out of the dressing room.
Tactics!:
Sparky ran either a 4-4-2 or a 4-5-1 at City, depending on how you want to say Bellamy lined up. If you want to say he was a left winger attacking from the midfield, then you can go with the latter formation. But more realistically Citeh was playing a rote 4-4-2. Be interesting to see if any of the prevailing trends in football land their way into Sparky’s brain and he goes for some more nuanced tactical formations. He’s got enough flexibility in his squad to a least try something a little less boring.
Question Marks:
Question ‘Marks”… Get it? Get it? See, the manager’s name is Mark Hughes. Okay, that’s not really that funny. With almost a full month left before the deadline the question mark is does anyone get sold and if so who from Citeh does Sparky attempt to outbit ‘Arry for as he tries to lowball the Arabs. He’s half capitulating on Bellamy.
But the hiring of Hughes already seems to have killed Steve Sidwell’s move from Villa. The over/under on moves before the window closes is 2.5. It would also be completely unsurprising if Hughes stood pat.
Important Fixtures:
Everyone who is not: United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Citeh, Liverpool, or Tottenham. If Fulham really do aim to compete for another European spot, they can’t be dropping points at home to non Top 6 sides. They’ll also need road wins against the relegation fodder and other pretenders.
Prediction:
Ninth with something right around a 0 GD.
[* Refers to me, as I was scheduled to go this am... The belated part. Not sure I'm beloved even if I'm punctual]
You’re right on, PR. Somewhere around 8th or 9th sounds about right. Without the Europe adventure, I expect better in the league. I hope they can go get Bellamy — he could definitely add some quality. Plus, he and Deuce could start a tat-off.
I’d almost like to see the side stand pat, if only to get a sense of how good Spark is versus Roy. But yeah with fewer fixtures (and barring any serious injuries) they should be okay. The dropoff after the top is getting bigger, so the middle of the table up to the last Europa spot is up for grabs.
Greening’s extra E is for Exemplary.
Ooops. I do know a guy named Mattt (with 3 ts). Mistake on the birth certificate, so that’s his name.