Fulham were heavily linked with the former Rangers winger Peter Lovenkrands during the summer but apparently Roy Hodgson wasn’t able to agree a deal with his current club Schalke. Now, though, Lovenkrands seems ready to move on as he’s unhappy at not featuring on a regular basis for the German club. Rangers might be rivals for his signature, mind you, especially as Lovenkrands is married to a Scottish lady.
Another player who seems to be touting us as a possible transfer destination is the Austrian international Martin Stranzl. There seems to be a lot of interest in the defender, who would be a potential partner for Brede Hangeland, with West Ham, Everton and Rangers all apparently considering a January move. This story seems to conclude that Ibrox is his most likely destination, though. He is valued at around £1m.
It’s a little late now to make a difference but referee Stuart Attwell has been dropped for two games. You won’t have forgotten that Attwell was the man who was absolutely shocking in our game against Stoke on Saturday, failing to award us two penalties – missing the most blatant handball I’ve seen in a while by Danny Higginbotham. Of course, dropping Attwell is rather like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. The FA and the Premier League might want to look at the management of their officials as Attwell has clearly been promoted too quickly. It is far from the first time he’s made the headlines this season (and he wasn’t popular in the East Midlands derby either).
You might remember a few years ago that Adam Green broke into the first team and looked pretty promising as a young left-back. He made his debut against Leeds in the 2003-04 and then played in two ties against Manchester United and was thought of as a good prospect by manager Chris Coleman. He dropped off the radar somewhat and is currently playing in the Conference with Woking having failed to impress on trial at Grimsby.
We’ll finish on an optimistic note, though, as Andrew Johnson reckons we can realistically aim for a top ten finish this season. The league is ridiculously tight this season – in tenth place we are only a win off the top six but only three points away from the bottom three. Still, AJ’s positivity is engaging:
On the back of those results, realistically, I think we can be looking at a top-10 finish, and possibly upwards of 10th spot.
But it’s such a tight league this year, and a few results can take you either way. We could go on a run of two defeats and, depending on other results, could well find ourselves in the relegation zone. Then again, two wins in succession could put us right up there.
I’ve never known a league like this, where anyone can beat anyone. Usually by this time of the season gaps start to develop where there are maybe six to nine points separating the top seven or eight teams, but it’s not like that this season and that’s very strange.
