News from Fulham today that Etuhu’s signed a 3 year extension to stay on for another 4 years. One of many players who have their contracts expiring at the end of the season it’s good to see stuff getting done after Davies signed his new contract a few weeks back and Mark Bowen saying he’s hopeful Bobby will sign an extension soon (although his current one runs out in 2012, it’s still reassuring).

One of the biggest unsung heroes of the last couple of years his first half season with us was spend recovering from an injury he picked up while at Sunderland, so when Bullard moved on most fans were concerned that we would start to struggle but Etuhu came in and after a shakey start performed well in the centre of midfield, playing a midfield destroyer role which allowed Murphy to dictate and express himself after the more withdrawn role he’d been playing before. Now the roles are reversed with Etuhu being the one allowed to go forward and with one goal and some impressive performances already it promises much for the rest of the season.

He’s scored 4 goals for us so far; apart from the nice dinked finish against Blackpool he’s scored one memorable screamer against City, a header against FK Vetra in the first home Europa League game of last season which seems years away now and one of the most key goals in our European run which was actually the worst of the bunch, a tame deflected effort in the away leg at Juventus without which not even our 4-1 win would have gotten us through the tie. He has a great long shot on him actually so let’s hope that this new lease of life lets us see a few more of them.

Etuhu’s always had a fair bit of potential. He has always been physically impressive and I remember Steve Claridge whilst commentating on the West Brom game a couple of seasons ago mention that Etuhu was the only one who could keep Tim Cahill quiet in a game (when all three played in the championship), and infact a manager said Etuhu trained like Patrick Viera but couldn’t replicate it on the football pitch. Well, he may not quite be Patrick Viera but for one and a half million pounds he’s definately one of the better Premier League buys of the last few years.

You can watch an interview with him on the offal and he certainly looks like he’s enjoying himself. His website – www.dicksonetuhu.com – is worth checking out too, if only for the pre-final video he’s put up. Turns out he used Gospel to psyche himself up for the big game.