Fulham have confirmed the signing of Swedish striker David Elm from Kalmar for a fee believed to be in the region of £500,000.
Elm, who has signed a one-year contract, played a key part in Kalmar’s surrpise success as they won the Allsvenskan title in 2008. The brother of another long-term Fulham target, midfielder Rasmus, Elm says he is delighted to have joined Fulham.
I am looking forward to training with the team straight away in preparation for some important Premier League and Europa League matches after this international break. I have enjoyed my time in Sweden and I am now looking forward to a new and exciting chapter in my career with Fulham.
who’s seen him play? what do you guys think?
I’ve seen him play once and he was pretty anonymous, but you obviously can’t tell much from a single game. Nick, Marcus and a few of the other Swedes who comment here regularly will probably be able to tell us more.
Personally, at around £500,000 it’s not a bad move. We get a striker who’s probably going to be 5th/6th choice when everyone’s fully fit – and someone who can certainly fill Zamora’s role as a target man (something we were badly lacking before). Elm gets a chance to prove himself in England under a manager who knows Scandinavian football inside out.
Not seen him but is just cover for a target player. Sadly we have missed out on a target player that Elm is cover for and just have Zamora.
Strange window.
pretty disappointing. i thought we definitely needed someone to compete with zamora.
mehh, the lad is really tall (6’3″) so thats the only immediately apparent upside.
overall how would you rate the window dan? i’d say 7/10. keep the squad completely intact. add some internationals. i would’ve loved palacios from boca (and we prob could’ve afforded him)…
but what else were people expecting?
I was expecting a few more to leave. A First rate target player in. Not a fan of Crouch but that type. A good cover for Brede and a central defensive midfielder, again a first teamer, not just a squad player. But when Zamora didn’t go to Hull that seemed to put a break on everything.
The squad has filled out but that is about it.
On Elm, I’ve just texted a couple of friends from Sweden and they’ve come back with very different opinions. One saying he could be useful as a back-up striker and the other one saying he’s been worse than Runstrom in Swedish domestic football.
Timmyg – Hello mate. I’m actually just mulling over our transfer activity for an ‘end of window’ post that I’ll hopefully have ready either later tonight or tomorrow morning. I think the massive positives are that we’ve tied Schwarzer, Murphy and Dempsey to contract extensions and that we have kept hold of Hangeland. You can’t overstate just how important that is.
We were obviously in for Crouch and didn’t get him (which is more of a reflection on the fact that he wanted to play for Redknapp, something that could harm his international ambitions, than a slight on us) but it’s not been a bad transfer window. As I was saying in other thread earlier, I’d have liked another centre back but which quality defender would be prepared to come and bide his time on the bench watching Hangeland and Hughes?
Duff is a good signing – he adds some natural width and creativity to what we had before and I think Simon Davies could make a difference when comes back. Greening will be a lot better than he was at Villa I’m sure and you’ve got Riise (a promising talent) and the mad South African to fit in as well.
We’ve kept the squad that took us all the way to seventh, so I just don’t get the general despair that seems to fill most of the messageboards at the moment.
I think that this is a strange signing in terms of his quality. I haven’t made a seret of my desire to see a good quality striker at Fulham but I fear that this may just be another Eddie Johnson. I hope that I am worng but i’m a little dissappointed.
On a brighter note, I agree with Dan when he said that we still have the players who got us to seventh last year. Roy has brought in some quality players as well so I don’t think we should be worried.
Lighthouse – I hear what you are saying about a first rate centre forward, but unless we’re challenging for the Champions’ League, I don’t think the top strikers will be wanting to come to Craven Cottage. If you accept that we’d have had to have sold Zamora – or, once he decided to stay – Hangeland to fund a quality forward, is that what you would have done? Plus, strikers are ridiculously overpriced anyway.
On the DM point, Dikgacoi is a defensive midfielder who can also play a more conventional CM role. He’ll obviously have to grow into English football but he’ll provide real competition for Etuhu, who deserves to keep the shirt at the moment. Is there someone out there you feel we’ve missed out on in this position?
I haven’t seen Elm and certainly won’t be slagging him off before he’s had a chance to prove himself. With a fee of £500,000 or so, there’s very little to lose really. He could just turn out to be a hidden gem.
according to vital football, we were close to signing Aliadiere, but it fell through
http://www.fulham.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=168683
So it is true. Not sure what to feel about this, like the lad as he seems humble and has a work rate second to none on the pitch. But I just can’t see him cut it in the English game although I obviously hope to be proven wrong.
It was I who replied to Dan about him being worst than Runström. Looking at both guys jobs as strikers Björn is/was way ahead of David, scoring more goals and working harder in general. Having said that, Elm tends to provide his strike partner(s) a lot more than Björn and Elm can play target which Björn didn’t master as well.
God I hope I am wrong, but in my opinion this is the least talanted Swede we have signed so far. At least we can hope David gets a fair chance unlike the other two, if not I can’t see us signing any real talent from Sweden anytime soon.
Nick – It’s obviously difficult to compare the two as they are different players. In your first paragraph, you say that Elm has a work rate second to none but than in the second you state that Bjorn ‘is/was way ahead of David, scoirng more goals and working harder in general’.
It was my impression that Elm was more of a target man/workhorse than Runstrom, which might suit Roy’s system better. If the injuries continue, he might get a chance sooner rather than later.
Dan:
Well spotted 🙂 What I mean is that Elm always work his hardest and Björ did a better job at working hard (or more sucessful might be a better word):
Oh well, David is here now so let’s all get behind him 😀