The MOTD2 introduction to our game with Birmingham on Sunday enraged a few fans. Adrian Chiles surmised that Fulham and the Blues were punching above their weight. Either he slept through last season (entirely possible given how poorly West Brom performed) or he’s forgotten that we’ve been in the top flight for eight years and have been steadily improving under Roy Hodgson.
This piece puts it a little more politely, but I personally am bridling at these assertions of overachieving. Hodgson certainly would want a top half finish this season I’m sure.
At the same time Fulham are looking set to duplicate last season’s top half finish and are in good positions in both the FA Cup and Europa League. There are even some suggestions out there that Fulham’s victory over Shakhtar Donetsk has elevated them to being one of the favorites to win the tournament. With great players at every position, including Bobby Zamora, who is being tipped for an international call up, Roy Hodgson has done a marvelous job guiding his team into 9th place.
In a league that tends to relate money with success Birmingham and Fulham have managed to play their way into the top half with only minimal investments. The main key for both of these teams has been their brilliant managers and untiring work ethic. These two teams further illustrate the class that permeates the Barclay’s Premier League. It may be big spending clubs that make the league famous around the world, but it’s teams like Fulham and Birmingham that make the Premier League competitive and keep the others honest.
It’s difficult to argue with the sentiment but if Hodgson stays for a while by the Cottage shouldn’t mid-table be our expected level?
An overachieving club only does it one season. We’ve been doing it for two.
That sort of sums it up into a sentence, Jason. Thanks.
Well ‘overachievement’ in football tends to be calculated by a) a club’s attendances and b) how much it has spent. Fulham’s attendances are way down and they didn’t really spend too much this summer, so there isn’t much expectation.
Team Pld Total Highest Average Capacity Pct
1 Manchester United (2) 13 972403 75169 74800 75769 98.7%
2 Arsenal (3) 14 838294 60103 59878 60432 99.0%
3 Manchester City (5) 13 588438 47348 45264 48000 94.3%
4 Liverpool (6) 13 563776 44392 43367 45362 95.6%
5 Chelsea (1) 13 538700 41836 41438 42055 98.5%
6 Sunderland (14) 12 478943 47327 39912 49000 81.4%
7 Aston Villa (7) 14 534544 42788 38182 42551 89.7%
8 Everton (8) 14 514831 39652 36774 40394 91.0%
9 Tottenham Hotspur (4) 13 465128 36031 35779 36310 98.5%
10 West Ham United (13) 13 434876 34980 33452 35647 93.8%
11 Wolverhampton Wndrs (16) 14 394678 29023 28191 28525 98.8%
12 Stoke City (11) 13 351465 27500 27036 28384 95.2%
13 Blackburn Rovers (12) 14 350653 29660 25047 31367 79.8%
14 Birmingham City (10) 13 322985 28958 24845 30009 82.7%
15 Hull City (17) 13 315769 24959 24290 25404 95.6%
16 Fulham (9) 14 335558 25700 23968 26600 90.1%
17 Bolton Wanderers (18) 13 284553 23986 21889 28723 76.2%
18 Burnley (19) 12 245580 21761 20465 22546 90.7%
19 Portsmouth (20) 13 241063 20821 18543 20688 89.6%
20 Wigan Athletic (15) 13 233329 20447 17948 25138 71.3%
It has only been two seasons since Fulham were one goal away from relegation. Curbishley’s Charlton had to outperform for a good few years before people appreciated that they could punch consistently above their weight. Their subsequent drop of two divisions demonstrate just how good a job Curbs did there.
As a fan of Fulham the first couple lines regarding Adrian Chiles infuriate me. The article however on premiershiptalk.com is complimentary. Money and attendance don’t measure how good a football team is. It is the results and the play on the pitch.
Carven Cottage according to Bad Andy is 91% full for the season. I am sorry I don’t think that is terrible.
The perception of this club is inaccurate. I predict right now if Roy Hogdson is at Fulham for at least an additional 5 years this team will fight for at least a Europa League spot every year.
I disagree with Bad Andy. If you can do it one year it could be considered a fluke. If you can do it twice it is serious progress. Anyone that watches Fulham week after week knows this is not a fluke.
Would agree wih the points on Curbishley and our average attendance, but Hodgson’s outlay on players has been pretty substantial since we avoided relegation:
2008/09
Mark Schwarzer (Middlesbrough, free, 01-07-2008)
Bobby Zamora (West Ham, £4.8m, 15-07-2008)
John Paintsil (West Ham, £1.5m, 15-07-2008)
Pascal Zuberbuhler (Neuc. Xamax, free, 06-08-2008)
Andrew Johnson (Everton, £8m, 07-08-2008)
Dickson Etuhu (Sunderland, £1.5m, 29-08-2008)
Julian Gray (Coventry, £500,000, 02-02-2009)
2009/2010
Stephen Kelly (Birmingham, free, 01-07-2009)
Bjorn-Helge Riise (Lillestrom, £1.5m, 22-07-2009)
Damien Duff (Newcastle, £4m, 18-08-2009)
Christopher Buchtmann (Liverpool, £100,000, 01-02-2010).
That’s nearly £23m in two seasons, which is quite some outlay compared to what Coleman had to spend.
I’ve edited Fulham Pats Fan’s post to make it read as he wishes.
According to the offal our capacity is 25700 not 26600 as stated by Bad Andy
“That’s nearly £23m in two seasons, which is quite some outlay compared to what Coleman had to spend.”
Aye but is it that much compared to the rest of the league, which are the comparators rather than seasons past?
Those figures – sorry for not attributing- were from here http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/PR/attend.html
Sorry just seen this:
“I disagree with Bad Andy. If you can do it one year it could be considered a fluke. If you can do it twice it is serious progress. Anyone that watches Fulham week after week knows this is not a fluke.”
But they’ve not done it twice… yet! A finish of 8th or 9th this season with perhaps an FA Cup semi appearance and commentators won’t be talking down about Fulham so much next season.
I think we’d need to see the wage bills of teams to know, as this correlates better with results than transfer fees (Kuper, etc, in Why England Lose).
I suspect, based on that, that we do over-achieve slightly.
Otherwise we, like a lot of clubs, are in a position where we’ll have good years and bad years. We’ve been fortunate to survive our bad years – not all teams get that luxury – and are reaping the benefits now. Realistically there’s not that much difference between us, Reading, Southampton, and probably 20 other teams we might mention. It’s all well and good saying we’ve done well for two seasons, but that can change in the blink of an eye. (we only have to look at Roy’s Blackburn spell to see that).
I’m not really sure it matters. People can see we’re doing well, but to complain about being labeled under-achievers when everyone’s praising us… well I don’t see that.
Whilst your investment is modest in terms of spending on transfer fees, your wages etc are not sustainable without being banked rolled by a rich Egyptian. Take him away and you will will be back in the third division where you should be…
Nice try, JB, but Al Fayed bought Fulham when they were a Second Division club.
Top 10 for the 2nd straight season
Europa League round of 32 (and win over defending UEFA Cup Champs)
FA Cup Quarters for the 2nd straight season
Not bad for a “3rd Tier Club’ JB…
moron