In what has been a fairly eventful couple of weeks for Fulham Football Club, one of the most welcome pieces of news was that exciting full back Moritz Volz had finally put pen to paper and signed a permanent contract.
With the rumours seeping out that negotiations weren’t proceeding smoothly and the closing of the transfer window looming, Fulham fans would have been justified in fearing the worst.
But sign his contract he did, and Volz revealed this week that he is as happy as the fans that things have finally been sorted out.
“I’m very pleased to have signed and to be here now,” he said. “Hopefully I can quickly get back into the team, establish myself again and keep my place for a long while.
“The two weeks I spent at Arsenal were very difficult for me mentally – the situation was always on my mind. I was very happy at Fulham and I just really wanted to play for the Club, but things took longer to sort out than I would have liked, but I’m glad things have worked out for the best.
“I trained the whole time; mostly with the first team, but they had a lot of games over the period, so there wasn’t too much training going on, but I made sure I kept in shape.”
Starting on the bench against Newcastle, Volz was brought on as early as the eighteenth minute to replace Sylvain Legwinski who came off to have stitches inserted in the ankle wound caused by a Jermaine Jenas tackle.
“I was very pleased to get on,” said Volz. “Especially that early in the game. Obviously you wouldn’t wish anyone to get injured, and Leggy took a bad hit – even now it still looks very sore.
“Having said that, I was not very pleased with the way the game went or the result. We managed to pass the ball well and got in a few good positions, but we didn’t defend sharply enough or as a strong unit, and that obviously affects the whole team.
“I think that you can say all season that our defending hasn’t been spot-on. We’ve conceded a lot of goals and haven’t kept that many clean sheets – we have to address that and work on it.
“The good thing is that we know we can improve. We’ve done well so far this season despite having some problems and giving easy goals away, so if we can address the problem quickly and get the defensive attitude and mental strength that the teams above us have, then things will look very good.
“We just have to work on it. We looked very vulnerable on Monday night and you just can’t keep giving away goals at set-pieces. Every coach I’ve ever worked with has always stressed the importance of not conceding at set-pieces. If you know what you’re doing and concentrate, then we shouldn’t be letting in the goals we are letting in.”
Volz look like he was enjoying himself in the second half against Newcastle, getting forward at every opportunity, linking up well with his forward men, and going agonisingly close to getting his first goal for Fulham.
“Newcastle didn’t really track that much in the second half and they gave us a lot of space, but I did enjoy getting forward,” he said. “I always do. But it would have been a different story if it had been a tight game.
“I’m getting closer to scoring in every game, so hopefully my first goal will come soon. But I’m not really focussing on that, I’m more concerned with getting the defending right first – be solid at the back, keep a few clean sheets, and then think about getting my first senior goal.
“But above all I’m just very happy to have signed, and I’ve got a lot of confidence that some very good things are going to happen here.”
