BBC on Bullard

Roy continues to play his forward defensive shot with a straight bat and soft hands.  (thanks to Derek for this one too!)

An interesting ending:

Bullard missed Fulham’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea after suffering a dead leg and he will miss Saturday’s FA Cup third round tie at Sheffield Wednesday because of illness.

Unfortunate timing, no?

The article also mentions Everton, West Ham and Blackburn, which 2/3 concurs with something interesting someone told me in the summer (how mysterious…).

Happy Clint

“It’s obviously a high point to be able to score against one of the best teams in the world. It’s the first time I’ve scored twice in a Premiership game. It rates up there near the very top. I mean, nothing is better than scoring in the World Cup, but it has to be up there because you don’t play against the best in the world, or play against the best competition, all the time.”

“Defensive shape is something that the coaches have worked on with us a lot. We’re giving up less goals, and anytime you can do that and score a few, that’s what allows you to win games. It makes the training sessions more intense, because we know we’re on the right track. There’s still a lot that we can accomplish. I think it has to be attributed to both the players and the management.”

From Goal.com.

Thanks to Derek for the link (Derek, be interested to hear more about the other thing you wrote about).

Sheffield Wednesday in the cup tomorrow.  Here’s Roy talking about it.  Proper cup tie this, against an important but currently sleeping side.   Interesting to see how it pans out.  0-0 anyone?

Fabian Delph and TJ Moncur

Holy cow:

Manchester United boss Fergie made his move after Fulham steamed in with a £6m bid for the 19-year-old sensation, who is being tipped as the new Paul Scholes.

Fergie has matched the Fulham offer of £6m up front — but has added extra incentives related to appearances and trophies that would push the deal close to £10m.

From The Sun.   This is interesting isn’t it?   How long before Delph gets to play regular Premiership football for Manchester United?   I have no idea, but surely one answer is “not as quickly as he would if he went to Fulham instead.”

Playerform, which is my new first port of call at times like these, is very positive about him.

Meanwhile, TJ Moncur is our first window move, leaving the club to join Wycombe (where Nathan Ashton is also playing, albeit not regularly).   In recent times we seem to have churned out several players who have, upon coming of age, floated down a division or two, never to be seen again.  Whatever magic dust is required to turn promising youngsters into top-flight players, it hasn’t been seen at Motspur Park for some time.

All this may change though.  Huw Jennings joined the club a month ago as Academy Director, having previously held a similar post at Southampton.  Down there they have almost an entire team made up of Academy  graduates, partly because they have no money and partly because they have grown some half-decent players.   Whether Jennings uses this knowledge to poach the Lallanas and Surmans of this world remains to be seen (yes please), but the point remains that he oversaw the development of these players and appears to have an idea of what’s needed to turn young footballers into adult footballers.   The club will stand and fall by what its first team achieves, so a strong academy is very much a “nice to have”.   But it’s better to have a good academy than a bad one.

Exchange rate special: more book flogging

It occurs to me that with the exchange rate going wrong over here, American readers may wish to purchase The Fulham Review.   I picked up the last remaining half-box of them from Matt’s shop this morning, so if you do want a copy please go to godsfoot.com and run through the paypal thing there.

If you missed all my shameless promotion earlier in the year, these are the books I’ve put together over the last couple of seasons.  All the match reports, essays, everything really.  In years to come these might be nice to look back on.   A lot of work goes into them so if you’re half-interested then please do grab a copy.

It’s £5 + £2 p&p over here, and a bit more over there.   But the exchange rate should mean you pay $14 now instead of the $20 or so it was before.   So that’s good, eh?

cheers!
Rich