Fulham now paying for poor summer recruitment
Fulham’s 2-1 south west derby defeat by Chelsea on Sunday afternoon at Craven Cottage means that the Cottagers are 19th in the Premier League table and ten points from safety.
The Cottagers saw a goal disallowed and Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa produce late saves to preserve the lead for Sarri’s men in the local derby. However, in truth, only a superb goalkeeping display from the home sides own ‘keeper Sergio Rico kept them in the game in the first half.
The match was Fulham’s first since the sacking of Italian boss Claudio Ranieri, who was always up against it to get the best out of a squad of players cobbled to together in the summer after the Cottagers unexpectedly won promotion.
Fulham’s promotion-winning squad was arguably barely good enough for the Championship, let alone the top-flight. However, then-boss Slavisa Jokanovic somehow managed to guide them to promotion via the play-offs.
A rather panicked scattergun approach to recruitment in the summer led to the Cottagers bringing in 13 new players. Fulham had no choice but to sign players because they were not only short on Premier League quality, they were short on numbers as well heading into the campaign.
Unfortunately, very few of their summer signings have proven a success. It would be foolish to expect the equivalent of a team of new players to gel suddenly and become a cohesive Premier League unit.
Fulham could not be accused of not spending. The money was just spent on the wrong players and they focused on quantity of signings rather than true quality.
It seems that the Cottagers are heading back to the Championship after a very short stint in the top-flight. If, or more likely when, they suffer relegation the majority of their summer signings will likely move on too.
It was always going to be difficult for Fulham to survive the drop this season. However, their poor summer recruitment looks set to cost them dearly.
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