After a couple of dire seasons, our resident Fulham fan Konk says the start to 2016/17 is a relief, but a lack of goals after summer striker sales is hampering further progress.
Assess Fulham’s start to the season…
Konk: We’re currently twelfth with W3 D4 L2. A perfectly mid-table start to the season and probably a fair indication of the quality in our squad. Nothing to be too concerned or excited about at the moment, with things at least looking much better defensively. In my more optimistic moments, I think signing a quality forward in January might see us flirting with the play-offs.
With both senior strikers leaving over the summer, how has the club gone about replacing them? Are they being missed?
Konk: Of our 66 league goals last season, McCormack scored 21 and Dembele, 15, so they were always going to be missed. Both departures were well anticipated and the fact that we didn’t get around to signing another forward until deadline day — and then only Chris Martin on loan — was by far the most disappointing aspect of the transfer window.
There was a clear need for a couple of quality forwards who could contribute 25-30 goals between them if we were going to challenge for the play-offs. The hope is that with a tighter defence, we won’t need to score quite so many goals this season, and that more pace in midfield might lead to goals being spread throughout the team. Our options up front are limited: Matt Smith isn’t the most mobile or dynamic of players, whilst Cauley Woodrow scores some good goals, but again, lacks real pace or the sort of movement that drags defenders about and creates chances. Chris Martin actually has a very similar goal-scoring record to McCormack in the Championship, but in his first few games has looked overweight and off the pace. Hopefully he’ll come good, but we look very one-dimensional and pedestrian up front at the moment.
The appointment of Slavisa Jokanovic was a protracted affair, how has he done so far? Fans onside?
Konk: I think the general consensus is that he’s doing okay. We’d been a complete mess for the previous three years, with a poor squad containing a woefully inadequate group of defenders and an imbalance in midfield. There was a lot of chopping and changing of players and formations from Jokanovic last season, but I think that was understandable given the circumstances. This year, whilst things haven’t been universally great, we appear to have made genuine progress defensively and until the Bristol City game, we hadn’t looked like imploding as soon as we conceded a goal.
Last year of parachute payments for you guys, how’s the financial health of the club looking beyond that?
Konk: Al Fayed converted the club’s debt to equity before selling us onto Khan, and other than failing FFP by something farcical like £200,000, we appear to have been sticking fairly rigidly to Khan’s mantra of sustainability. I would therefore imagine that we’re in *relatively* decent financial shape at the moment.
Who are your best players? Who or what are the weak links in the team?
Konk: We’re playing with virtually an entire new first team, so I think it’s still a bit too early to tell. After some promising debuts in the win over Newcastle, individual performances have been a bit up and down. Cairney is probably again the most creative and dynamic of the midfielders and he has an eye for goal, but he’s been shunted out to the right, where he seems much less effective. McDonald has looked very good at times playing just in front of the back four, but a lack of movement in front of him has seen him quickly shut down and starved of options in recent home games. There’s a nagging feeling that he and Parker might be a touch too one paced to play together and that they both play a bit too deep and flat.
We look particularly weak and one dimensional up front at the moment and it’s noticeable that once teams sit tight and get bodies behind the ball, we tend to do lots of backwards and sideways passing, whilst lacking the guile to get behind the opposition or work through them. This may all change once the new signings have bedded in, but we really could do with some pace up front — seeing Tammy Abrahams twice last week really emphasised the virtues of power and pace. The defensive side of our game has been a big improvement, however, and Kalas in particular strikes me as a very decent player.
You’ve been critical of our old chum Mike Rigg when we’ve spoken previously, what role does he have at Fulham and what have been his main successes and failings?
Konk: Rigg is still at the club in his capacity as chief football officer, but after earlier maintaining a high profile whilst coming across as a bit of an alpha-male chancer and a bit of a shit chief football officer, he seems to have disappeared from view. Our continuing struggles with teams largely made up with his signings and the sixty-odd days it took to replace Symons may well have diminished his standing within the club, especially with the increasing emphasis on analytics. It’s difficult to gauge just how much influence Rigg retains.
Khan’s son owns a sports analytics company, and one of his old university friends, Craig Kline, is now our director of statistical recruitment. Stories emerged last season about rows between Kline and coaching staff, and during the close season, Jokanovic went public with his frustrations when we reportedly declined the opportunity to sign 20 year old, Andreas Pereira on loan from Man United because he hadn’t played enough first team minutes to satisfy Kline’s analytical requirements. This approach would have seen Bristol City turn down Tammy Abrahams, and it seems far too inflexible and completely ignores a coach/scout’s ability to spot a talent using their own experience and intuition. If Kline has that much say over recruitment then Rigg’s role is presumably significantly reduced; in which case, it’s difficult to know exactly what he’s doing these days.
Is the redevelopment of the Riverside stand still a goer?
Konk: The commencement of works has been delayed again. Shortly before we were due to crack out the hi-viz and hard hats, the club announced the development had been postponed to allow Thomas Heatherwick’s studio the chance to improve upon the existing plans. Khan might genuinely want to produce an "Iconic landmark on the banks of the River Thames”, but there’s a suspicion that this is simply a delaying tactic with Khan keen to minimise further expenditure.
Is promotion a realistic proposition for Fulham this season? What are the consequences of not making it?
No, I don’t think so. Financially, I think we’ll continue to tick over — other than the initial outlay, we haven’t overall seen any sort of serious investment from Khan, so I think we must be relatively stable, and it seems that Khan now has a fair bit of wriggle room in terms of FFP, whilst our wage bill is now dramatically lower than in the recent past. But obviously with the increased TV parachute payments to relegated clubs, the longer we stay down operating within the confines of FFP, the more difficult promotion becomes in terms of the inbuilt financial disadvantage. With every passing year spent outside the Premier League and with our domination of European football becoming a distant memory, I guess we become a less attractive proposition to prospective signings, managers and kids in West/South-West London who might otherwise be convinced to throw their lot in with Fulham.
We have invested a lot of time and resources in our academy, and I think we’d have been much better placed to retain Roberts, Dembele and Hyndman as a Premier League club, so it was more than unfortunate that our relegation came about when it did. With every major club in England currently interested in Ryan Sessegnon, it will presumably be more difficult to convince him and other youngsters to stay at the Cottage whilst we remain outside the Premier League. I know we’re never going to keep hold of talented young players for too long, but it would be nice to get to see a bit more of them before they departed, and being in the Premier League would help in that regard.
Short, medium and long term aims for the club?
Konk: I might be the most unambitious bloke in the world, but after the past three seasons, a mid-table finish this year with a goal difference of +1 would do me. I’ll be happy if we end this season looking like we might have a serious go at the play-offs the following year. I’d hope that we could be promoted within the next two to three years followed by a decent spell in the Premier League, but clubs like Forest, Wednesday, Leeds and Derby have been saying that for a while, so it won’t necessarily pan out like that.
Long term, if Fulham don’t win a cup at Wembley in the next thirty years, I’m going to get the right hump, so they better start taking things seriously on that front. As far as the league goes, being realistic I’d be satisfied bobbing-up and down between the top two divisions as long as we had decent periods without a relegation before the inevitable demotion(s). It would be great if we could continue producing some good young prospects and maintaining the investment in our infrastructure. Off the pitch, I’d love to see us playing in a 30,000 capacity Cottage with 20,000+ proper Fulham every week regardless of the division or opposition.
On a personal note, it would be nice to see Fulham permanently commemorating Roy’s boys practically winning the Europa League; ideally with a statue depicting Roy Hodgson and me having a beer together and talking football in the bar of the Hilton on the eve of our 1-1 draw at CSKA Sofia, Roy in his club tracksuit and box fresh trainers, me on the wonk and slightly boss-eyed after eight hours on the pop. The Taylor to his Clough as we set out on the road to Hamburg. COYW.
The Twitter @loftforwords
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