Rich has a post up at Craven Cottage Newsround suggesting that we should expect a bit of a slump next season if recent history’s anything to go by. It’s a good read but I don’t really grant his premise.
Of the teams listed, there are only six that have had catastrophic follow-up seasons. The way Roy Hodgson approaches his management, with real attention to detail and astute planning, I think he’ll be considering how to approach next season in the back of his mind already. The higher we finish up the table, the more revenue we take in from league prize money. We’ve still got an outside shot of a European place, which would be a real carrot to dangle in front of potential signings come the summertime.
The squad – as it currently stands – is too light to even contemplate European football. It would need a serious mount of work done to it to get us ready for the UEFA Cup/Europa League in time for next August/September, but then Roy’s already shown he’s not afraid of an overhaul. Factor in the emergence of some of the youngsters (you would think that Wayne Brown, Robert Milsom and Chris Smalling would be a little further down the line to breaking into the first-team set-up) and there’s plenty to be excited about.
People cite our only previous venture into European competition as one of the reasons why we might have to look nervously over our shoulders come the end of next season. Personally, I think that boardroom unrest and the rapid breakdown of the relationship between chairman and manager was more of a cause of our alarming loss of form than our earlier UEFA Cup exploits.
I still don’t think we’ll make Europe – and I can’t quite put my finger on why. It’s just a hunch. Let’s hope I’m wrong. This season’s proved that we’re got nothing to fear except fear itself.
It’s not really a premise, just a peak at what’s happened in the past. If we finish 7th we’d almost certainly “slump”, but if that’s to 9th it’s not really a slump. Also, our goal-difference suggests that we’re not in a fluke position. However, there’s no way that Spurs and (presumably) Man City mess up again next year, so with Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Villa, Everton, Spurs and City almost nailed on for the top 8 (not guaranteed of course, but highly probable) we would struggle to repeat a 7th place finish.
Sure. But the usual argument about supposed second season syndrome is that teams work out how you play and you really struggle.
I’m not sure about Manchester City. They were really woeful on Sunday and Hughes has got a big job ahead of him to make them into more than a mid-table side. It’s more than a one-year job in my opinion.
The negativity around European football seems to be based around the fact that European football = a struggle in the league. That’s the myth I was trying to bust here. Strengthening the squad and bringing on the youngsters could keep us well above water and I fancy Roy will have a few tricks up his sleeve.
I told my wife the other day that I felt we would just miss out on Europe. Infact, I was going to put up a post on TryGol.com this weekend with my reasons…haha.
The question, though, Jason is what does your wife think? Have to say I don’t see the top eight in such concrete terms as Rich does above.
Micky – I don’t see it in concrete terms at all, just that this is the most probable thing, I reckon. Man City look dire now, but eventually being the richest club in the world has to start paying off. It might not be next year but it’ll happen.
I don’t think there’s much to this ‘working out how we play’ thing, it’s just regression to the mean. For a team like Reading or Ipswich (or even Hull) to finish high they need to have everything go their way, and then some. Following that, a decline is almost inevitable. In a way this is the beauty of Hodgson’s Fulham, we’re so plain that what you see really is what you get. I bet we’ve had fewer runs of form in either direction than most teams this year… we just keep plodding along, winning when things break our way, not winning when they don’t.
I don’t know that European football means a struggle in the league, but we saw what happened a few weeks ago when the players had 2 games a week and I don’t suppose it’s something they especially enjoyed. It wouldn’t mean we struggled, and it might evolve our play, I don’t think there are any rules either way. Good teams do well, bad ones don’t, and we’re somewhere in between with a thin squad and quite a range of possible outcomes!
I don’t know about City. Money isn’t going to buy them Premier League titles – Hughes has to build a team, not a collection of individuals. We’ve already seen the problems he’s had finding a way to fit Robinho into a congested midfield.
I wouldn’t be so quick to rule out the ‘way we play’ being worked out. Sides can shut us down very easily. In the Cup game against Manchester United, they seemed to be aware of what we were going to do. For long parts of the Liverpool game, we were hardly involved. Away from home, we’ve scraped a few fortunate points but, until recently, been reasonably contained by a lot of sides, not least the likes of Hull.
Two games a week will be a problem whether we’re in Europe or not. Our games against the European qualifiers will likely be on Sundays and they’ll be plenty of midweek league fixtures – let alone in the Cups.
My original post wasn’t meant as a pop, by the way.
I agree about City. The problem is of balance, and in the modern era you simply can’t cram all those forwards into one team and not have some bloody good defensive players and defensive minded midfielders. I would expect the situation to resolve itself one way or another though – in the end it is all about money, and money will matter in the longer term. Jose Mourinho would soon whip them into shape!
It’s funny Rich. Just as I read that response from you, City conceded what looks like being a fateful first goal against Hamburg. I’d actually argue that they’ve got some good defensive midfielders (see Hamann, De Jong and Kompany) but there’s no way you can fit more than one of them into the same side with the offensive talent.
I was listening to Radio 5 Live before the game and the reporter rather flippantly said that Manchester City struggled against Fulham at the weekend and that Hamburg were better than Fulham. They might be but, if we were lucky enough to reach Europe, then I’d fancy us to do pretty well with Roy at the helm.
I think we’d have the nous to keep ourselves clear of the drop. We’d obviously need to move smartly in the transfer market as new faces would be essential. That, plus the emergence of what looks like a promising set of youngsters at the club, could give the squad vital depth. There’s no reason we shouldn’t aim for Europe, anyhow.
I don’t know who would know the answer about this but a few people have mentioned the youngsters in this thread and on the site recently. Do people think that they’ve got a realistic chance of breaking into the first team in the next couple of chances? It’s one of the things that has really disappointed me about Fulham over the last few years: that we haven’t given the youngers players a real shot.
Roy said at the fans’ forum that his job is to keep the team up, and that blooding/developing youngsters would always be a bonus on top of that because, in all likelihood, he won’t be around to see the fruits of any energies put that way. He’s doing his best though because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, but I got the impression he really doesn’t think a great deal of what we have.
The exception is supposed to be Chris Smalling, a “when” not “if” player who a lot of clubs wanted. After him you’re back to talented question marks: Laribi and Moscatiello are supposedly very good but would be 2-3 years off, by which time we could be 18th and fighting for our life…
Dan – a question I’d love to ask Roy is how he’d use Robinho. You get the sense that he’d almost have to be in a withdrawn forward role with a very disciplined 4-4 behind him. There’d be room for Wright-Phillips in there as a hard working right winger (in the Simon Davies role), but even Ireland would be a luxury, forced to work hard on the left perhaps… as would Elano and all the other attackers I can’t remember.
I like De Jong and really, really like Kompany, but Hughes has really struggled to balance things and the poor defence has been thoroughly exposed. You watch Barcelona and they play with all these crazy forwards but they also play a proper team game (and have players like Marquez and Alves in defence!), which City just aren’t doing.
Thanks Rich. Whilst that disappoints me a little bit, it is entirely understandable – you certainly wouldn’t want to jeopardise the team’s PL status by throwing in a few youngsters willy nilly you might not be upto it.
I had heard different re. some of the younger players. A couple of my friends who watch the youth teams regularly really rate Laribi and Luca as well as Danny Hoesen. Smalling’s obviously got real potential and the likes of Brown and Milsom seem to be developing well. Would be a shame if Hodgson wasn’t around to bring that group all the way through.
Yeah, I’ve heard good things about the boys in the youth team set-up. Some of the lads who have been doing well for the U18s this year have started to play for the reserves (Laribi especially). I’d like to think Roy would think about putting them in once they are good enough – after all, he did give Wayne Brown his debut at Bristol Rovers in the Cup and brought him on at Old Trafford. He also seemed pretty disappointed that Rob Milsom had suffered that horrible injury a little earlier in the season. With the likes of Omozusi and Barnes (if we end up signing him), we could be seeing a few new faces in and around the first team soon.
Top post Glenn.
I’m buzzing about the prospect of watching some of the young kids slowly coming through into the first team.
I’ve heard a few people say they reckon Junior might be leaving us this summer. I have to say that I wasn’t as impressed with him in his little run in the first team the other year but he’s definitely got the talent to make it, either on the right or in the middle.
Smalling looks like he might have it but it’s probably a little bit too early for him. Milsom and Brown have been on the brink of the first team for a while now and might just break through next year.
And I wonder if the way we’ve been improving over the last year or so would make Roy stay with us for a while. Given all his experience in the game, this might well be his last big management job. Would be nice if he’s to bring through the next lot of talent.