It’s less than a fortnight until the SW6 Derby at the Cottage and is anybody else starting to get the jitters?
Fulham right now are the pill rolling around the roulette wheel, bouncing between red and black. Will our Spanish revolution hit the jackpot? Or could our season get off to the worst possible start?
The fact that it’s a derby on opening weekend adds to the sense of boom or bust. A valiant 1-2 loss that we might begrudgingly accept if it was Arsenal or Manchester City won’t work in this game. Arbeloa either goes down as the hero who won a derby in his very first match, or he forever has an asterisk next to his name, even if things eventually go well.
After the flat calm that took place last summer, this time around has seen far choppier waters. Then Khans have ripped up the safe playbook and gone for broke with staff and players that have next-to-no top flight experience.
As a result, trying to predict this Fulham season is more difficult than ever. I have found the last few years under Marco Silva fairly easy to work-out; there were a lot of complaints about our business last summer, but I felt like it was pretty clear that we would finish in mid-table.
Our stability was a huge tower of strength that meant that relegation would never be a danger, but as we know that stability turned into staleness and that ultimately cost us a place in Europe that was more than achievable.
The debate online about whether Fulham’s plan is going to work is rife wherever you look online. Until a ball is kicked, predictions that we’ll either win the league or break Derby’s record low points total are both impossible to disprove. Fans like to box in other fans as either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ and as always, the reality is much more opaque.
I will admit that I was hugely sceptical about the Alvaro Arbeloa appointment when it first was mooted. The admission that they wanted to keep Marco Silva and then the public moves for Kieran McKenna and Arne Slot made it look like Arbeloa was a rushed and impulsive decision. If we’d been eyeing up AA for months and appointed him in the same way that Bournemouth appointed Marco Rose, I might have been a bit more receptive from the get-go.
However, football has a funny way of making you eventually re-evaluate your initial gut feeling. I can’t tell if it’s some form of Stockholm Syndrome, or just a case of digging deeper into the subject, but two months on from those initial rumours and I find myself sometimes believing that Arbeloa is the next Pep Guardiola and that Fulham will be his first masterpiece.
I’ve had the same feeling with Gonzalo Garcia, who in my mind has gone from somebody who will take us down with five goals in a season to wondering if comparison’s to the original Raul maybe don’t go far enough.
All this basically boils down to one single point… I haven’t got a bloody clue.
In theory, a front line of Kevin, Garcia and Oscar Bobb is a tantalising prospect. All 23 and under and all of them feel like they could be Champions League-level players. Josh King, Shea Charles and Sander Berge in the middle also feels like the kind of midfield that will dominate many football matches.
However, is our defence and goalkeeper really matching that attacking quality? At the back we have looked suspect all pre-season and as it stands, Luc De Fougerolles is the only right centre-back that we have available for the Chelsea game. I really like LDF, but that’s quite the game to make your professional debut in.
We look particularly poor from set-pieces and last season Bernd Leno had one of the worst goals prevented statistics in the Premier League.
I very much hope this isn’t the case, but I fear that our 1-2 friendly defeat against Crystal Palace may offer some insight into what this season brings. An electric start, some unbelievable football, but eventually a narrow loss after conceding some silly goals.
It’s that time of the year when pundits predict their league tables and I think it’s obvious that many pundits are going to choose Fulham as the ‘shock’ team to go down. The theory that “there’s always one that surprises you” is commonly believed and Fulham are an easy pick.
Inevitably, many Fulham fans will backlash when they see those predictions, but I can’t blame pundits for making that call. An inexperienced manager, some key outgoings and unproven replacements will make us a popular choice and the majority of these pundits do not live in the 24/7 Fulham bubble like we do.
My hunch is that we won’t be dragged into a relegation battle, but I do fear that a frustrating season where we don’t get out of the bottom half could be in store. Fortunately, the promoted three do not look great and I think that at least one of Palace, Brighton, Bournemouth and Sunderland will struggle with the demands of playing midweek European football.
Many might see that as ‘negative’, but I am not sure that I do.
We have forgotten that even five years ago, the idea of Fulham staying in the Premier League was fanciful, now it feels like it’s not even the bare minimum. If Arbeloa keeps our heads well above water and develops the young talent in our squad, I think we’ll be in a fantastic position to progress.
As ever with Fulham it feels like our progress is by accident rather than design, but football doesn’t give you any marks for showing your working out. If we have a season where the youth blossoms and we play some exciting football all while keeping the bottom three at an arm’s length that would constitute success for me at the dawn of this new era.
I'm worried.
All the people that wanted Marco out last season are Team Positive though
High risk but not since championship days I’ve been this excited about the squad. To my mind the defence isn’t so bad. Blaming only the 4 defenders at corners when 10 are back suggests a wider problem. Berge, Charles and García should add some strength there. Also set pieces have become a bigger deal. The midfield and attack could be sensational. This is by design. Consolidate with older players push on with best young players you can buy or grow.