Craven Cottage Newsround

It feels strange doing this at the end of days rather than at the beginning, but such is the schedule of my life at the moment. Rather than getting up in the wee small hours to write, I’m now having to excuse myself from watching Property Ladder or whatever it is our television is beaming at us. Which doesn’t seem like a bad exchange does it?

Today “the auditors” felt the need to comment on Fulham’s dangerous financial state. We’ll have more on Fulham’s finances here in due course, but suffice it to say that this is a complicated matter and not one I am qualified to address in any way. We have a mysterious sugar daddy whose finances may be anything at all, so who knows what’s afoot. What seems possible is that Premiership survival is more important to Fulham’s viability than it is to that of other clubs.

What else? Still no hard transfer news, although TFI’s mole alarm went off today with news that we’ve asked QPR for Lee Cook, Ray Jones and a friendly match. We’ve also had friendlies confirmed against Dagenham & Redbridge and Brighton, as well as the Far East tour.

Also, someone mentioned that Jimmy Bullard’s looking at late September now. It’s getting extended all the time and I wonder if it’s realistic to assume the worst now? He star shone brightly but briefly, and if he never plays again he’ll be a Fulham cult hero on the basis of three and a half games, including one in which we were hammered by Manchester United. A rare opportunity to use that lovely word ‘ephemeral‘ and I missed it.

Good evening. It’s evening because I started a new job today, so lengthy rambles on work time are out, at least for now. And look what I missed!

Our very own Liam Rosenior volleying a pass into touch! Only joking, Liam. But he’s wearing next year’s Fulham kit. I like it, and I now think we’ll stay up next year. Seriously. I’ve long thought that teams with bad home kits are always liable to find themselves in difficulty, and as such ourselves and Wigan were extremely lucky to survive last year. Keep it clean, keep it classy. So this is much more like it. A classic look that only lacks a slightly less obtrusive sponsorship logo and the old crest. Then it would have been perfect.

The away kit is the red and black vertical striped kit that Fulham teams of yesteryear have enjoyed. It was also the kit I wore for my school team, and the kit in which I marked a 16 year old Frank Lampard while at school. There’s a name drop. But it’s not germane. The Nike kit comes with a four year contract which brings in super-bucks for the club and signifies the end of the sorry Airness fiasco, which really was a shambles in every way. Fancy not having a kit ready for the start of the season. This one will be ready in July, which is good. My concern is that we’ll sell Volzy, freeing up the number 2 shirt, which Mr Dempsey will then request, thus rendering my as yet unpurchased No.23 shirt woefully obsolete before the season’s even started. Patience will be required.

So there we are. With every passing day a transfer of sorts seems more probable, but who will it be? Nothing on the rumour-wire, so we’ll have to sit tight. How hard would it be to bug Motspur Park anyway?

Daily Mail says we’ve £10million to spend, to be used on Healy, Davis (Villa) and Cook (QPR).  Davis is only 22 and seen as a possible replacement for Michael Brown (see below).  Lee Cook is suggested as a £5million buy.  Which seems like a lot.

Mirror says Boro will look at Michael Brown should Joey Barton head to Everton.

MAF talking about giving Lawrie lots of money to “take us to new heights”.  Nice.

The Times Fink Tank has worked out how well everyone played last season.  Their methods are very detailed, analysing every contribution on the pitch and establishing how this stacks up against goals scored and conceded.  So a player can do lots of fancy things well but not be well rated, simply because these things make no difference.  On the other hand, if the player makes a number of telling challenges or key passes, well he’ll be rewarded for doing that.

Here’s the top ten:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/fink_tank/article1851667.ece

And here’s everyone in the world:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/fink_tank/article1852016.ece

The Fink Tank website has three comments so far:

This is absurd dont pay any attention to it

D, CW, USA

probably benni mccarthy.until i read this i wasn’t convinced, but its obvious he must be better

ada, adelaide, Aust

Utter Crap!!!!

Abhilash Kunniramath, Bangalore, India

And these won’t be the last ones.  There’s a comment on TFI writing it off as well.

Permit me a diversion.  In the 1970s a man named Bill James started to do this sort of thing for baseball in America.  He got all kinds of trouble getting his work accepted, long standing beliefs held by the masses were not about to be challenged by some bearded weirdie in Kansas.  But James knew that, if not 100% correct, most of what he was saying had an element of truth to it.  People would say “watch the games, that’s not true” over and over, but James got better and better and over 30 years gradually became accepted as the pioneer he was.  He even began work for the Boston Red Sox.  He knew his stuff, proved it, and still people wouldn’t believe him because it didn’t gel with their own perceptions.

The Fink Tank is doing the same sort of thing.  Their task is *much* harder, as football doesn’t lend itself to this sort of analysis too well.   But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.   I’ve been reading their work over the season and most of it makes enormous sense.  Just because something runs counter to conventional wisdom doesn’t mean it isn’t true, and the Fink Tank fellows have been prepared to stick their necks out.

The important thing to remember is that this isn’t all going to be right.  If they’ve got 75% of the players pegged correctly they’re doing very well, as random variation, luck and, yes, imperfect metrics (this can measure what happens when someone does contribute, but what about poor covering/positioning, for example?), can distort things.  The trick is to look at this and not say “Rubbish, I’m not reading”, but to look at it and see what we might learn.  Remember, the Fink Tank simulators beat the bookmakers.  They know what they’re at.

This said, I can’t begin to work out how the Fulham ratings work out as they do.  Bocanegra must be up there for his goals, but as I showed earlier on, we did far worse as a team with him on the pitch than off it.  Ditto Claus.    I’m not going to get into any further discussion on the rest of the players, but it’s an interesting approach and one that we’d do well to think about rather than dismiss.  How to consider the “Brian McBride and the mystery of the missing service” problem?

So yeah, I don’t know what’s going on either, but I’m not about to dismiss it without knowing more.   I’ll email them and see what they say.

Fulham

40 Carlos Bocanegra D 67.18% 5.38

76 Ian Pearce D 55.29% 3.25

140 Claus Jensen M 27.42% 1.26

143 Zat Knight D 58.26% 1.18

154 Philippe Christanval D 49.43% 0.74

180 Alexei Smertin M 16.01% -0.07

184 Papa Bouba Diop M 51.17% -0.18

245 Collins John F 26.46% -1.43

251 Wayne Routledge M 42.43% -1.55

293 LuÍs Boa Morte F 53.45% -2.61

328 Heidar Helguson F 42.04% -3.48

329 Jan Lastuvka G 19.76% -3.51

331 Moritz Volz D 58.56% -3.54

238 Simon Davies M 67.78% -1.31

344 Antti Niemi G 80.21% -4.42

354 Franck Queudrue D 74.32% -5.05

372 Tomasz Radzinski M 64.59% -6.09

374 Brian McBride F 84.68% -6.33

376 Michael Brown M 88.14% -6.44

385 Liam Rosenior D 99.31% -7.63

Bank Holiday, and I think I’m about to be dragged to Kingston. With everyone enjoying the break there’s precious little to report from Fulham. Here’s what we do have:

Here’s that link to the Bolton/Brown story. Says he’s keen. It’d be a shame, I think a lot of the late season criticism of our captain was more than a little shortsighted. We know that Brown isn’t perfect, but he spent three-quarters of the season being a perfect nuisance in the midfield. The passes got a little wayward in the end, but he was one of a small group of players to emerge from 2006/07 with any credit. If he spends the summer in his attic looking for those shooting boots we could be in for a decent 2007/08 from him.

The Daily Mail says that we have to wait for Leeds’ mess to be cleared, but that David Healy’s on his way for a cool million (I love how everything always used to be a ‘cool’ million, do people say that anymore?) after that. Good.

The Belfast Telegraph may be making this up, but says:

With even the Premiership’s lesser lights having up to £10m to spend, a merry-go-round is guaranteed, although Wigan and Bolton - under rookie, low-profile managers - and Fulham, where Lawrie Sanchez will work on a shoestring, will struggle for big names and probably survival.

And how did that phrase come into being? We’ve also been linked to Aaron Hughes (of Northern Ireland), Lee Cook (of QPR), Michael Kightly (of Wolves, very recently via Grays Athletic, proving a point I’ve been trying to make), and… we talked about Russell Anderson yesterday.

None of these suggestions are what you might call exciting, but that’s not really what this is about is it? Steve B on TFI (which has now broken down) says that our secret signing would be considered ‘audacious’ which suggests something beyond the norm, but it might just as easily be a bit of Fulham mole-feeding spin to keep us quiet while Lawrie goes about collecting Northern Irish internationals. And to that end, why have we not been linked with Keith Gillespie? He’s no Shaun Wright-Phillips but he would fill a need here.

Right, back to the real world.

The David Healy signing draws closer, but Sammy Hyypia won’t be coming.   He, at almost 34 years of age, wanted a longer deal than we were prepared to give, and this at decent wages.   To which I say: well done the board.   If, as some suspect, Hyypia’s legs have gone (or, more likely, are on their way out), there’s simply no way you gamble on three years of high wages.  The board presumably looked him over, worked out what they thought he was worth, and decided that this made for bad business.  Good on them.  Much knashing of teeth about this, of course, but again, it comes down to every clamouring for the reassuring sound of a Famous Name.  Never mind that the Famous Name might not be a good deal.

Not a famous name is Russell Anderson, Aberdeen’s centre-back.  He’s been there for a decade and has a terrific track record, last year being nominated (not the same as winning) the Scottish Player of the Year award.    He may be a fine signing.

Finally, Matty Collins has completed his move to Swansea City.

Collins, meantime, is unlikely to be a first-team regular from the off next season with no senior appearances to his name as yet.

But the Merthyr-born 21-year-old is seen as a bright prospect by Martinez.

And though Fulham have allowed him to leave on a free, they have insisted on a sell-on clause as part of the deal for the Welsh youth international.

”He’s a young Welsh boy who was snapped up by Fulham a few years ago and looked to have a promising career in front of him,” said Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins (above).

”For whatever reason he has not made it to the first team, which is obviously quite difficult in the Premiership, but Roberto’s had a good look at him and believes he could develop into a great signing over the next 12 months.

”Matty knows there’s a lot of work in front of him if he is to become an established first-team player, but he has the potential and the ability to do that.

”He now has a great opportunity in front of him and we’re pleased to offer him that chance.’

Alright, here we go.

We’ve made a book. It’s called the Fulham Review, and inside it you’ll find:

• Match reports from all the Fulham games this year. This typically involves an overview of what happened in the same style you’re used to here, but also has the team news, referee, attendance, and basically everything you’d expect to find.
• Sixteen essays. There are a couple by me (on Jan Lastuvka, our best central defensive pairings, and a few topics relevant to the time), a whole series on general footballing issues by my friend Martin (a much more talented writer than I, Mart’s work really makes the book), one by Chopper (the longest in the book, a cracking essay on Steed and Boa) and even something by our good friend Bruce from DuNord which takes an American’s unique view of our American players. These essays are spliced in to bring light relief from all the match reports!
• Statistics. You’ve got a league table as it was every month, as well as final apps/gls/yellow/red cards.

And a load of other things that I’ve overlooked. We reckon the book’s a pretty decent overview of the season, and yeah, it wasn’t the most exciting season ever, but still, well worth having everything recorded, right? This is a record book, a diary of the season, and a lot else besides. There’s a lot in here, we’ve spent a lot of time doing it, we like it, and we think you will too!

Here’s an example of the inside. You can see the end of Chopper’s essay and the Leicester FA Cup replay report:

But you can have a proper preview here.

How do you get a copy then? Well, it couldn’t be easier. We’ve made these as Print on Demand books via lulu.com. So you can get a copy two ways. Either a printed version or an e-book. You can download the e-book for free. We want as many people reading it as possible, so we figured the e-book costing absolutely nothing might help that. But if you do like it and would like a proper, bound copy, you can buy one from lulu for a fiver. That’s under ten dollars if you’re in the US. It’s about as cheaply as we could do it and the book’s A4 size and is 84 pages long.

So go here to see it on lulu (and buy a copy!). Lulu accepts all credit cards and also takes paypal.
I don’t have a stock of the books yet (just one proof copy), but if you absolutely must have a book and don’t want to get it from lulu let me know and I can send you one when I get my stock. Contributors’ copies will be in the post as soon as I get the stock in.

So thanks to everyone who helped, and to everyone who’s read this website. As I’ve said, we’re delighted to have done this book and are thinking of making this an annual thing. We hope you like it!  And if you do, tell everyone you know!

Rich

Well there’s still no word on the street.  Every so often the papers use the word ‘Fulham’ in association with a transfer rumour, but it always has a vague whiff of nonsense about it.   Antti Niemi to West Ham was one I’d be very surprised about.  This Cook fellow at QPR is supposedly high on Lawrie’s list, except that he supposedly hates Fulham.  We can expect David Healy and Steven Davis of Villa seems reasonable, but otherwise we’re really in the dark aren’t we?   Where are these players going to come from?

I’ve been arguing long and hard on TFI that Fulham need to get creative, need to take risks.  The thinking is that in limiting ourselves to known quantities (by which I mean universally known quantities, in that all the other clubs know about them too) we’re going to have to pay more for a player than other clubs who want him will, which is fine but makes it harder to get value (and if nobody else wants him…). The rewards from taking very calculated risks can be great.  It’s what Fulham have done in raiding America (a decent but under-exploited source of players), and it’s what they need to do in the future in finding the ‘next’ America.

Where is the next America?  Wherever Premiership clubs aren’t currently looking!  Belgium for all I know, or one of Belgium’s former colonies.  It doesn’t matter, this game’s all about finding the rough diamonds now.  Supporters’ continued insistence on experienced household names is, to my mind, exactly what we can’t afford to do. This strategy will at best keep the club treading water and at worst see us slip boringly down to the Championship.  Reading may be an exception in their ability to win Premiership matches with players nobody had heard of, but to me they’re a shining example of judging players by what they can do on a football pitch rather than how well known they are.   It all comes back to having an open mind.  

This also means giving youth a chance.  In a bored moment the other day I suggested that next year we try to give Chris James as much time on the pitch as possible.  James, decorated internationally by New Zealand, has been one of the reserves’ best players and has consistently impressed everyone who’s watched him.  “No!” say supporters.  “This is no time for young players.  We have games to win.”   But since when has using talented youngsters been a barrier to anything?   I will again suggest that in all the games Tomasz Radzinski played last year, Chris James would not have been a huge drop off.   He might even have been an improvement.  But one player costs lots of money and is a household name, one is from the youth team and is tarred with the ‘unproven’ brush.   Again: which player should a team like Fulham be using?  We have relatively little money, so rather than spending serious money on proven mediocrities, why not see if the unproven young players can do the same job at a fraction of the cost?    I understand that you can’t just load up on youth players and see what happens.  But equally these players need to have a realistic hope of getting a game or a) they’ll never develop and b) they won’t come to Fulham in the first place. 

Back to the main point though.  Where is the next America?   America is worth considering because the players, as Brian Glanville put it, are cheap, speak the language, and are available.   And let’s face it, that particular mine is still not spent.  We have picked up that league’s best players and they have done well for us, but there will be more coming through.  Perhaps some of our American readers will point some of the ‘next big things’ to us.  MLS is trying to grow itself and won’t want to throw away its homegrown assets, but these things need to be considered.   Still using Glanville’s maxim, where else?  Australia has produced some fine footballers (and some that haven’t quite worked out, as we know…), most of whom should be able to adapt to the English game.  South Africa and New Zealand might be similar.  

This is all pie in the sky of course.  It’s easy for me to sit here and spout off about how I’d run the club.  But I strongly believe this is how Fulham has to operate, taking a policy of ‘controlled risks’ with players who aren’t well known but who have ability, and supplementing them with more conventional signings for that added stability/cost-certainty which is also important in avoiding a cosmic meltdown of a season (in which everything goes wrong and none of your controlled risks work out) and blowing the whole club to bits in the process.   Hey ho.  Let’s see what happens.

UPDATE:  pertinent story on the official site

Thanks to BQ for this link.

Andrew Rogers of Soccer365.com runs his opinion over the Americans in this year’s Premiership.  It should have been an interesting article, but here’s what he said about our Big Three:

Brian McBride:
Martin O’Neil: “Everyone in this country is looking for a 25 year old Brian McBride.” Fulham’s Premiership status was secure as long as they could get McBride on the field. He receives rave reviews from the writers and fans week after week. He isn’t slowing down and deserves a shot at a bigger club.

The first bit’s a nice quote from O’Neill and presumably quite accurate.  But the rest is troublesome and suggests that Mr Rogers hasn’t watched any of our games before commenting on them.   “Fulham’s Premiership status was secure as long as they could get McBride on the field”… how?  What?  Don’t get me wrong, Brian McBride is a hero to Fulham fans for reasons I’ve been repeating all year, but let’s make no mistake here:  he’s a very willing but not excessively able forward now. Nine goals in a poorish side is about reflective of his abilities.   So to suggest that we were safe as long as we could get him out there is downright weird. “He isn’t slowing down.”  Yes he is.  He’s taken good care of himself but he looked absolutely cream crackered at the end of the season, mainly because of all the lost causes he gamely chased all year.   “And deserves a shot at a bigger club.”  Who?  Why?  When?

Look, I don’t want to seem ungrateful to McBride, who pretty much deserved his player of the year award and makes me proud to be a Fulham supporter.  But let’s not get carried away here.  We’ll never know if his edge was blunted by the average football around him, probably it was, but equally he often failed to rise above things as the player Rogers is trying to describe would have.  He’s a good pro and an asset to his club and his country, but clearly we’re looking at the twilight of his career now. 

Carlos Bocanegra:
Goals and regular performances from the Cali’ native have made this season positive. But despite finding favour with Chris Coleman did not cement a regular position. He needs to define himself in one role but the question remains. If in a fully fit squad, is he good enough to start in the Premiership?

Fair enough, this.  Not sure what the answer is, but his eye for goal was indeed vital this year.   Needs to eradicate the silly mistakes now, otherwise his defensive play looked really good at times.  He’s improved though, and another leap will make him very valuable.

Clint Dempsey:
Scored the goal that kept Fulham in the top flight- “Deuce” knows when to come up big. Despite being brought in by Coleman, the Texan was kept on the bench and showed promise when coming on as a substitute. Next year is likely to be tough despite his growing confidence. New manager Lawrie Sanchez is not a big fan of passing football, and if Dempsey does get a game it is likely to be as a glorified work horse.

“A glorified work horse.”  What?  Sanchez used Dempsey in a more attacking, more fluid role than Coleman ever dared to.  Glorified work horse?  I can’t begin to understand what he’s trying to say.  Dempsey didn’t get a run under Coleman, Sanchez tried him and spotted something (Deuce was half-getting half-chances that no other Fulham player seemed to be capable of seeing) and sure enough the man delivered when it mattered most.  There’s no reason for him not to kick on next year and become a really important player for Fulham. 

So yeah, as I said, interesting idea, crazy application.   Mr Rogers, if by some cosmic happenstance you end up reading this, please explain.  Opinions are opinions, of course, and I’ve just had a can of Red Bull so jumpiness abounds, but come on…

(what do you think? this isn’t the news, incidentally….)

(was just fiddling around with the site)

Resident tfi mole Steve B has suggested that Lawrie Sanchez’s first signing is possibly going to be announced at the weekend. The player has agreed to join, the two clubs just have to agree a fee. Well, we can’t know a name at this point, but it’s not someone on the board’s radar. And - and this is the interesting bit - it’s a signing that Steve says will suggest the type of *person* Sanchez is going to sign.

Well. Does that mean he’s buying on character? Good or bad? For giggles, I went through some premiership squad lists and looked for people who were a) not particularly needed by their club or who might be available and b) had a character of sorts. Here is my list:

Jerome Aliadiere - I’m sure I remember something
El Hadji Diouf - general misdemeanors, mainly involving diving and/or spitting
Nicolas Ankelka - general
Joey Barton - general
Claude Davis - alleged razorblade misdemeanors against Adi Akinbiyi
Anton Ferdinand - general but extreme idiocy and offensive… aura
Lee Bowyer - evil
Carlton Cole - general idiocy
Marcus Bent - thug in appearance if not nature. Has played for very many clubs. Bad egg?
Sean Davis - !
Mido - general
Emile Heskey - “too nice”
Henri Camara - Bouba’s mate
Danny Shittu - huge person. Is that a type?

As you can see, I didn’t have much luck. It also shows me that very few footballers (in my eyes) have a famously affable personality. I was originally looking for famous leaders and things, but they’re really not there. Or are they? Anyway, the above list is just pie in the sky, but it’ll be interesting to see what comes to pass in the coming days. Silly season is upon us!

UPDATE:  Steve says “The type of PERSON comment was made because it will show that LS wants real 110% commited players who the crowd will love……….aka Bullard”  I don’t think he means aka Bullard, that would be weird, but there we are.   So who now then?  Damned if I know.

While the news is still slow, here’s a quick catchup on a couple of good interviews SI.com’s Jonah Freedman did recently.  Jonah has been in the UK and got to interview our three Americans, which makes for an interesting read.  All three come over pretty well, and our boy Clint tells just how much his not being used got to him. 

That was the tough one. The team paid £1.5 million to get me from MLS. To have me over here making decent money, but not have me playing, it was like, why would you want to keep a player around who you’re not getting any use out of? But it’s frustrating to think that you came all the way over here only to get knocked out of the top division. You want to be in the best league. You want to play against Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.

Then there’s this:

SI.com: Brian and Carlos, you spent the early parts of your careers in MLS. Would you eventually like to go back?

Bocanegra: Yeah, I’d like to. But that’s a lot later on — I’d like to stay here as long as I can. [Bocanegra turns 28 later this month.] If the right opportunity presents itself, I’d go back to Chicago in a heartbeat. Or obviously, being a Los Angeles-area native, the Galaxy or Chivas USA.

McBride: Yeah, of course. I have great affection for MLS. There’s a lot of interest on my part and on a few teams’ part. Whether that’ll happen we’ll have to wait and see.

Whoa there.  Sounds a little like Brian’s angling for a move back.  Correction, he obviously is thinking about it, but I wonder whether it’ll be sooner than *we* think.  He’s publicly thanked Coleman for giving him his breakthrough chance in England a couple of times and I guess there may have been a bond there.  With the change of management at Fulhma and at this stage of his career it wouldn’t be the biggest surprise to learn that he’s had enough of watching long punts soaring through the London sky all year, and that a move back to a slightly… easier?  less physical? closer to home!… league would really appeal to him.

Then Jonah’s got the goods on Mr Shevchenko of Chelsea.  And it sounds like he’s not over the moon either.

Cup final day. I don’t often get to see these: for years I always had cricket matches on Saturdays, and then I sort of lost interest in the whole thing. But this year, being at New Wembley, it’s back on the radar. I was initially down about a Man Utd v Chelsea final, preferring the excitement of a wild-card team in there, but now the day’s here somehow the matchup *does* seem appropriate.

We have past form on cup final betting too. My girlfriend, Hady, once won £75 by forecasting that Arsenal would beat Newcastle 2-1 with an Overmars opener, for instance, and missed out on huge winnings by a whisker in that England game where Paul Scholes scored a hat-trick (or did he?). Anyway, she’s good at this. I’m worried today though: I’m just off to Ladbrokes and asked for her tip. 2-1 Liverpool, she says, not looking up from the sewing machine (cushion construction is underway). Not so fast with the laughter though. This girl has talent for stab in the dark gambling, so I’ll be sure to back Liverpool to win 2-1 on Wednesday.

Tribalfootball and nobody else is saying that Bolton are in for Michael Brown at £3million. First, who or what is Tribalfootball? Second, how do they know this? Third, will it happen? Could do couldn’t it? Shades of McLaren and Beckham, new regime means shifting out the heavyweights of the old regime. But if Brown does go it won’t be now, surely? Sanchez needs to know that he can replace his main players before he sells them, so even if this is true, surely he’ll tell Sammy Lee to hold his horses for a few weeks. My take anyway, and that’s assuming it’s not just a made up rumour, which it very well could be.

Right, off I go. Enjoy the day.

My friend Martin always has the latest copy of Rothman’s Football Yearbook to hand.  It’s not called that now - you’re not allowed to sponsor something if you’re a cigarette company - but the book is still Rothman’s.   Anyway, you can lose yourself in this book for some time, not least because it has career statistics for all known (and some unknown) footballers.   Take Tomasz Radzinski (literally… ah, only joking):

Years Club App (Gls)*
1989-94-2001 Wisła 70 (49)
1994-1998 Germinal Ekeren 104 (40)
1998-2001 Anderlecht 078 (52)
2001-2004 Everton 091 (25)
2004-present Fulham 099 (10)

One of those stints is not like the others.  We’ve all seen Radz do his thing in a Fulham shirt and all been a little underwhelmed (some have been openly hostile) by it, but we should remember that this man is and always has been a forward.   He is quick so Chris Coleman, he of the square pegs/round holes obsession, used him on the wing, a role which he grew into but which he was hardly suited for. 

Anyway, look again at those numbers.  The man’s been a goalscoring machine for much of his adult life.   He terrorised Belgium for three years with 52 goals in 78 games.  Belgium is not Italy or Spain, but the league is respectable.   That’s a real goalscorer.  

So for all the frustration, we sort of missed the point of Radz.  All the clowns shouting ‘bottler’ at him and whatnot *really* missed the point.  The man’s a forward, and he can’t tackle.  Deal with it, that’s not what he’s for.    So goodbye, Tomasz, thanks for all the memories, and happy goalscoring wherever you land next. 

Rumours are flying now that Lawrie Sanchez is culling the squad with the gusto of a pirate invading a treasure ship (having first gobbled up a double dose of amphetamines and a glass of orangeade).  I’m not sure of the source for this (the culling, not the bad pirate bit), but the list on the Official Message Board (I know, I know, but it was posted by someone called Official Moderator (any how many brackets do I need in this paragraph anyway?)) is:

1)Vincenzo Montella
2)Jan Lastuvka
3)Wayne Routledge
4)Claus Jensen
5)Tomsz Radzinski
6)Mark Crossley
7)Heidar Helguson
8)Ian Pearce
9)Simon Elliot
10) Alexey Smertin

And you can probably add Phillippe Christanval to that after the Frenchman was twice hauled off by Sanchez in games late this season.   No great surprises on the list, which includes expired loans and fringe players, who, when you look at the list critically, probably aren’t what you’d call Premiership class.  There are some favourites there, of course, the likes of Pearce and Heidar will be missed, but there’s no room for sentiment now.

The interesting thing to me is how everyone suddenly seems to be warming to the new manager.  People are looking at this ruthless activity and thinking “Whew, this really did need sorting out” and perhaps accepting the new man is going about things the right way.  Just as the players were supposedly unaware of the mess they were in until late on in the season, perhaps we’d all been slightly duped into thinking things weren’t quite as bad as they seemed.

Sanchez’s biggest test will come when his team starts next season and has to start winning points.  He’s started the offseason with purpose, but however impressive he might be now, he badly needs to follow through by signing some quality players.  And as we’ve said already, been a hard man in the dugout’s fine, as long as you win, so that side of things will need to be taken care of too.  Promising, but let’s see what happens next.  

 UPDATE:  jumped too early there, perhaps.