Busy day

Thanks for all your support. It’s been a trying day, one way or another, but ultimately a good one. We shifted a good number of books, and I think learned a good deal about the interweb. Colin at Championship at Best has proved to be a hero, and we’re all set to make a success of this little project.

On with the news:

A poster on TiFF with contacts at Norwich City confirms that Dejan Stefanovic passed his medical there; this is good, as he clearly had no future at Fulham. He’s a player who had some quite interesting numbers in Colin’s stats section in the book, incidentally. Anyway, apparantly he’s been recommending players to Norwich, and an Omozusi loan may be in the offing. Rumours, but solid ones, I think.

Roy was interviewed on Sky Sports News after the Southend game and is looking for up to three more players. He also made a point of remembering Clint and Eddie Johnson too. He hasn’t had any offers he can’t refuse for our current players, so no more transfers. Here’s the Official story.

We did hear that Osasuna were in for Hameur Bouazza though.

Zamora fever is not quite gripping the message boards, but an interesting thing has happened: more people seem to be positive about the signing than negative, which is certainly not how it felt a few days ago. Which is great really. Partly this seems to be the recognition that he’s here now and should be made to feel welcome, but also I think the transfer has been really thoroughly discussed, and perhaps we’re realising that we might just have a player on our hands.

Tony Warner’s gone to Hull.

Hull also signed George Boateng. This is a bugger I think. He dominated us last season at the Cottage. A proper Premiership player who will be a good buy, I suspect.

Bradley Hudson-Odoi has signed for Hereford United.

Antti Niemi’s unusual predicament continues: recently linked with Liverpool, he’s now angling for a move to Juventus! I have no idea what to make of this, except that he’s at an age where he could probably accept a backup role for a big club, and that, when called upon, he’d probably do alright. Interesting.

Good stuff. Remember, the book’s available. www.godsfoot.com is the place to go; we shouldn’t have any more issues after today’s fun and games. Thanks again for all of you who have purchased already.  I can’t promise they’ll be in the post tomorrow, but they’ll be with you soon.

Buying the Fulham Review

Hi

I’ve set this whole thing up on a Geocities thingy, and it’s free, and at least 70 people have not been able to access the page because I’ve exceeded my hourly limit.

This is clearly quite worrying for me!

If you are having trouble, please either go to PayPal direct and order that way (email address richallen7 at yahoo dot com) or try the Godsfoot.com site a bit later. I’m working on a solution so fingers crossed.

Sales going very well though, so that’s good.

Thanks again for your interest
Rich

Jamie’s Southend report: Southend 0-2 Fulham

Hard to know whether it’s possible to learn anything from these early pre-season games: your average friendly-goer will turn up hoping to catch a glimpse of a new signing’s potential or find clues for the coming season’s tactics – but really all you end up doing is admiring the players’ tans and realising how dull football would be without tackling. This, the first game of the summer schedule, was never going to be anything but a leisurely ‘contest’, but was an entertaining enough fare all things considered. A relatively strong first-half Fulham side played some decent passing football without ever really looking like scoring, which is probably ‘default’ mode for us under Hodgson so far. For what it’s worth, it was the Scandinavians on the pitch – Nevland, Andreasen and Hangeland – who looked the most fit and the most interested. I’m not sure whether that’s a co-incidence or not, but there you go.

The second half became a touch more competitive as our opponents improved and the mighty whites (now with six different personnel) responded. After an hour, out of nowhere, Southend’s keeper seemed either to misjudge or mishandle a deep cross, and the ball found its way into the net via the deserving Nevland. Minutes later, a long ball fell to Healy, who fed Murphy, who slotted the ball through a defender’s legs and into the corner. ‘Contest’ over. In the away end, the bulk of the songs were reserved for hero-of-the-moment Danny Murphy who was good enough to acknowledge the crowd at least three times throughout proceedings. New keeper David Stockdale and Roy Hodsgon each also ‘gave us a wave’ when asked. And the funniest moment was when one wit came up with ‘If you’re all going Korea clap your hands…’ followed, of course, by stony but amusing silence (can anything else be ‘stony’?).

One notable feature of the evening was the appearance of some previously enigmatic figures. Steven Davis contributed 70 minutes of impressive ball control and neat passing (albeit his detractors would surely claim that a game without tackling is just his cup of tea). The previously unseen Tony Kallio played the second half and looked assured, and very tall, at left back. And, believe it or not, ‘Lee Cook’ was actually there! And he played football! A shame, then, that he made something of a prat of himself with what looked like a silly stamp on one of Southend’s players after a touchline tussle and then an unnecessarily ‘enthusiastic’ tackle on the same player minutes later. Luckily that the referee was nice enough to respond to both incidents using sharp words rather than any cards. Cook was then comically booed by the otherwise languid home crowd for the rest of the match.

Of the new faces, all looked ‘ok’. Stockdale played the whole match and was relatively untroubled, making a couple of decent saves when called upon but also a couple of nervy handling errors from crosses. Andranik, who played the second half, looked tidy, with some bite – perhaps he will evolve into a decent ‘scrapper’ for us. Gera, who came on at the same time, started off with a couple excellent balls but then faded away. Time will tell with all of them. As I stated, tempting as it is to draw half-conclusions from these early-season crumbs, it rarely ends up meaning anything. Indeed, I remember being mightily impressed by our pre-season campaign under Lawrie Sanchez. Ahem. Still, it was nice to get a fourth consecutive away win (oh yes!) and watch our beloved team again, in the sun. Onwards to Ulsan Hyundai!*

*possibly