The Arbeloa project marks the dawn of a new era at Fulham
The move to bring in the ex-Madrid boss shows the board is preparing for a bold new chapter.
I’m really starting to like this move.
It looks like Alvaro Arbeloa will be unveiled as our new boss this week - maybe as early as today.
And it’s increasingly looking like a shrewd move by the Khans.
Much of the fan discourse since the reports first emerged have centred on his lack of experience and turbulent five-month spell in charge of a dysfunctional Real Madrid first team squad. But a tweet from Spanish football expert Guillem Balague on Wednesday has shed more light on the appointment and is forcing a shift in perspective.
Balague says Arbeloa has clearly laid out his vision for Fulham. And within that there are some interesting points to dissect.
First, Arbeloa wants to continue our recent shift in transfer strategy, and “put greater emphasis on young talent with development and resale value”. Matt Littlejohn set out earlier this year why this is so vital in the era of SCR.
And what will be music to all our ears, the incoming manager wants to “create a clearer pathway from the academy to the first team”. It’s the biggest stick to beat Marco Silva with. He favoured more established players. Yes, there are a couple of academy grad success stories - Fabio Carvalho and Josh King - but with our category A academy and success in the PL2, there should be a conveyor belt of talent coming through. The reason there hasn’t been is that there’s no pathway.
The immediate beneficiary of this must be Luc de Fougerolles. Adam Farquharson spoke this week about how he’s becoming impossible to ignore in SW6, such are his performances for Canada. I don’t want to start re-writing history, but I’m not sure he comes back after the World Cup as a Fulham first-team member if Marco’s still here. Under Arbeloa it’s all up for grabs.
What’s really interesting for me is Balague urging us not to judge Arbeloa on his ill-fated stint at the Bernabeu - and that it “was a situation in which he had to be ‘the manager he had to be’". We all followed the in-fighting and the battle of the egos during Arbeloa’s tenure. But he came into a near-impossible situation. A square peg in a round hole - and he had to change his own shape to fit.
So, instead when mentioning his Madrid pedigree, focus on his time with the Castilla. And I don’t know about you, but this gets my juices going.
Possession, high pressing, intensity and the desire to dominate games. Flexibility when required, but with one non-negotiable principle: aggressive pressing without the ball.
And then finally there's all the managers who have influenced Arbeloa’s style and philosophy. You can’t argue with that list: Benitez, Mourinho, Pellegrini, Ancelotti, Del Bosque. That’s quite the forest of learning trees.
I’ve kept my powder dry until now when it comes to the Arbeloa reports. But I’m not afraid to say that I’m all in.
Let’s get this new era started and shift our perspectives. Let’s look up, puff out our chests and back our new manager - and hope the board will do the same.
It certainly looks like they’re buying in.