Every single year its the same, in just a few weeks of the season ending all that's wrong at our club is forgotten and the hope and anticipation of signing a new team, rebuilding and starting well fools us into believing things will be different this season. For me the transfer window is just a license for journos to fill column inches with mainly ill-informed or poorly judged speculation about the movements of pretty much any player with less than 24 months to run on his contract. What makes it even more frustrating is that we (optimistic fans) believe everything we read!! If I was to pick up a red top tomorrow to be greeted with the headline "Jol bids for E'to" I would be texting,calling facebooking everyone I know about our reported new arrival. The chances of if actually happening is zero but as fickle (and hopeful) fans we cling on to just the thought of it being true as reason alone for being excited.
Having read in early June that Jol would be given a £25m war-chest we have been linked with Osvaldo (£12m), El Hamadoui (£7m), Jeffren (£7m) but to date have signed someone called Gecov (£700,000), Kasami (£3m) and JA Riise (£2m). This is not a dig at the 3 players we have signed but just highlighting that the transfer window for Fulham fans is rarely exciting and not since AJ have we spent more that £7m on 1 player and the players that we get linked to I'm sure are stories planted by agents to force moves to other/"bigger" clubs. Bottom line is..... there is no war-chest, just a carefully put together budget that Jol must work to.
And then we have Deadline day when Skysports news (Jim White mainly) will count down by the second to the point when the "window SLAMS SHUT!", unless your name is Harry Redknapp who seems to have a habit of crow barring the window open for an extra day to finialse another dodgy deal! For Fulham fans the deadline cannot come quick enough. I'm pretty sure that we all break out into cold sweats when we think back to the "Shefki Kuqi" moment! Another example where the thought of signing Jermaine Defoe was replaced with a much more realistic target.
With a month still to go I would say that we still need 2 more players added to the squad which does ,on paper at least, lack a little depth. A striker (as I write we have been linked to Cameron Jerome..... not sure how I feel about that) and a winger, who will that be?? I'll let the papers guess and Jol bring me back to Earth.
JH
