Posts Tagged ‘Eidur Gudjohnsen’

Fulham Transfer Roundup 5/31: Fulham Rejected Like a Nerdy High School Boy

Posted: May 31, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Transfer
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Between a high asking price and a possible Spurs offer, don't expect to see Pablo Daniel Osvaldo in White next season

-Mark Hughes bid £10.5 million (€12 million) for Espanyol striker Pablo Daniel Osvaldo, but according to the Barcelona-based La Liga club, that bid was “unsatisfactory.” Reports are that Espanyol, depsite the club’s financial difficulties, are looking for around £20 million for Osvaldo. Also, Sky Sports is reporting Tottenham are about to submit a £17.5 million offer.

-Sparky was also rejected in a bid for Sheffield United’s 19 year old striker Jordan Slew. Hughes reportedly sent in an offer of £500,000 but the Blades are asking for £3 million for the English U-19 star. Also, according to the Sheffield Star, Mark Hughes has made it clear he won’t go over £1 million for the youngster. Celtic is also reportedly interested in Slew.

-Today the Mark Hughes to Aston Villa rumors started up again. Apparently Gerard Houllier, who last week was set to return, got back some disheartening medical tests and now his future is in serious doubt. Nothing is set in stone, but some betting locations already have Mark Hughes as the favorite to replace Houllier. Despite a very interesting and lively discussion on the topic on Twitter (if you don’t follow me, you should, because I said so), I still believe this move makes ZERO sense for Mark Hughes, and it’s ridiculous that it’s still being discussed. Would Villa offer a higher budget and a better roster? Probably. But by how much? It’s not like we’re talking a guaranteed Europa spot or a Champions League caliber roster here. This isn’t Roy Hodgeson being courted by Liverpool. It’s Aston Villa. And with Fulham finishing 8th this season, why would he leave a club he can take to Europe this coming season as well as fight for a spot in it next year for a club he can do just about the same with? There is only one thing that would make him move, and that’s if Villa throws the bank at him. If they do that, more power to him, and he’ll probably leave. Otherwise, I don’t see him leaving at all. Makes no sense. It’s a lateral move if I’ve ever seen one, and those never make any sense for coaches.

-Eidur Gudjohnsen has officially been let go by Stoke City. The striker has not signed a deal with Fulham yet, although now it seems more likely since his signing would be a free transfer. Hughes found a liking for the Iceland International, and I would be surprised if he wasn’t in Craven Cottage next season.

-Vital Football released an article reporting 4 clubs are interested in the services of Sebastian Larsson, and speculates that one of them could be Fulham. I also, like the author, would love to get a discounted Larsson coming off a tough season with Birmingham. Would you? I feel like he’s in the same boat as Elmander. Both are better than they played this past season and could use a change of scenery. It would be a steal to get him for free after being released.

Stay tuned to Twitter for updates of any other news coming out today

Fulham Transfer Roundup 5/24: Gera, Schwarzer, DJ Campbell

Posted: May 24, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Transfer
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Since there are going to be a lot of rumors, quotes, and he-said/she-said, I’m going to write up a roundup of each busy news day towards the end of the day so you can see what happened all in one place.  Here’s the first one:

-Zoltan Gera did not rule out leaving Craven Cottage this summer. He received an outpouring of support after his season-ending red card blunder at the Cottage vs. Arsenal possibly ended Fulham’s Europa chances. He said the following:

“I can’t rule out that I  stay but it’s not too likely.I want more than this. I talked to our manager after our last training session and he said he  wanted me to stay. I replied by stating my problems – I hardly play, many times I’m not even on  the bench and because of this reason I can’t concentrate well when I get the  chance.I said at the moment I don’t want to extend my contract but we agreed that  we’ll talk about it in the future again.”

-Rumors have West Brom manager Roy Hodgeson on the lookout for a swoop of goalie Mark Schwarzer, which would open the door for David Stockdale at Fulham.   Hodgeson is apparently set to offer £2 million for the Aussie keeper.  Schwarzer signed a new deal at the Cottage back in December that will keep him under contract until 2012, but if Hughes decides Stockdale is the future at the club (which a lot of fans are hoping for him to do), he could reunite Schwarzer with his old manager at Fulham.  However, when I asked Jacob Murtagh of the Trinity Mirror about it on Twitter, he said the following:

http://twitter.com/#!/jacobmurtagh/status/73023801805385728

We’ll see what happens.  I know Stockdale is popular and many people don’t want to lose him to another club just because Schwarzer is hanging around for another year or two.  I’m in that same group of people.  Love the guy but we need to move on.  That being said, not sure Mark Hughes feels the same way.

DJ Campbell could be available if he activates the clause in his contract allowing him to leave after Blackpool were relegated

-Apparently DJ Campbell is available due to a clause in his contract at Blackpool, and will cost a mere £1.5 million.  Sunderland are the frontrunners at this point, but Fulham are thought to be right in the mix.  Both clubs are looking to improve their attacks.

-Eidur Gudjohnsen hasn’t yet signed a contract at Fulham.  Recently promoted QPR is still in the mix. This is a valid storyline until he does sign somewhere, since he had previously said multiple times that he’s close to a contract.

-Along those same lines, Mark Hughes hasn’t signed a contract yet.  If you don’t understand why I’m writing this one, see: Gudjohnsen, Eidur.

-Add a new name to the mix.  According to talkSport, Fulham are interested in the free transfer of Jay Bothroyd.  Cardiff released the striker after they couldn’t agree to terms of a new deal.  talkSport has the stiffest competition to Fulham coming from Everton and Celtic.

Sunderland 0-3 Fulham: Wake Me Up When…Wait, We Won?

Posted: April 30, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Postgame
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This picture, of the scoreboard at the Stadium of Light, is thanks to Fulham fan in Sunderland @simco_ffc on Twitter! Thanks bud

Well that was one of the more overall boring matches of the year, but I don’t think Mark Hughes cares, and quite frankly neither do I. This match was a clear strategy, whether intentional or not, of defend and counter-attack, which doesn’t make for such exciting soccer but it worked out very well for Fulham. Fulham pull out the big win, and while I hate the phrase “3 important points” because let’s be serious, is there such thing as “unimportant points” (unless you are in 1st and mathematically have already won?) these were 3 big points because in such a tight table, this brings us within a point of Bolton at 8th, within 3 of Everton at 7th, and within 8 of Liverpool at 6th (who have yet to play this week). Also, this gets a big monkey off our back, as it’s Fulham’s first away win since Stoke City at the end of December, and those 2 are the only 2 away wins on the season.

Our bitter rival Carlo Ancelotti, after his controversial win over Spurs, had a gem of a quote that I believe sums up this match for Fulham extremely well. He said:

“A top club is more than 11 players.”

I think Mark Hughes absolutely buys into the same belief, and is one of the reasons he’s making a last ditch effort to keep Zoltan Gera at Craven Cottage. Well, guess who scored for us today? One by Gael Kakuta, and two (well, technically 1 but I’m calling it 2) by Simon Davies, 2 guys who have rode the bench for much of 2011.

The match was great from the start, with a brilliant lineup giving Davies, Kakuta, Gudjohnsen, and Senderos a chance to shine while giving Dempsey, Hangeland, and Duff much needed rests.  And it only got better.

The good:

-Simon Davies: Guy has been overshadowed the last 2 matches where he’s started both. First, he was overshadowed by the baffling benching of Zamora, and then he was overshadowed by a superb Clint Dempsey. Today was his day. His passing was perfectly on target, he had a few money crosses, and his defense wasn’t anything to scoff at either. He’s been stellar in the last 3 matches, and I think we can officially say Fulham has a logjam at midfield. Duff and Dempsey got the day off, but besides those 2, Murphy, and Sidwell who usually start, add Davies to the mix of guys who all deserve to start. Go back to Carlo’s quote!

-Mark Schwarzer: While he wasn’t really worked too many times, the few he was were great stops by him, with one beautiful stop to each side. He earned the clean sheet for sure.

-Gael Kakuta: Gotta give him some lovin here. He wasn’t mind-blowing by any means, but his goal deserves mention, it was a great job beating the defender.

The bad:

-Eidur Gudjohnsen: He was off-target all day, missing crosses and, in one horrible passing instance, completely blew a two-on-one chance when the match was still 0-0, sailing the ball over Zamora’s head. He has gotten 3 chances to show he’s worth something to the team, and he hasn’t done so in my opinion. Don’t forget, he has all of 1 goal in his last 50 appearances…

That’s all I really have in the bad section. The defense should get credit too, because they kept Sunderland from taking many chances at all, but part of that was also due to the fact that Sunderland had zero strikers, and it really showed. The midfielders up front for them seemed really out of place, and made a few moves that trained strikers would have probably done a lot better.

Man of the Match: Simon Davies. Like I said before, he’s been very good, but this was his official coming out party.

Moving forward, we have Liverpool at home next, and while we’ll have to play our best, we are certainly capable of taking a point from that match, if not 3. Then, we have an extremely winnable match at Birmingham City, and another winnable match at home vs. Arsenal in the finale. Arsenal won’t be really playing for much, and they’ve sucked at best recently anyways, so while I don’t think it will happen, it’s certainly not out of the realm of possiblities. Liverpool is next Monday so this gives a little more time for guys like Duff to get healthy.

Here’s some postgame from Mark Hughes:

“I wasn’t too happy with the first-half performance. We were 1-0 to the good but we understood we needed to play better in the second half to ensure we took the game away from Sunderland. Thankfully we did and we saw the game out very comfortably. Obviously the second goal was key from our point of view and I never felt under pressure that we were going to lose the game.”

“We haven’t had that many wins on the road and sometimes you can be a little bit apprehensive and try to protect what you’ve got and that can lead to a problem but we didn’t really demonstrate any tension in our second-half performance.”

“It was difficult for Sunderland, obviously they have got injuries and are struggling for strikers themselves. But even so, the way we played today, certainly in the second half, we would have gone away with the win.”

Wolves 1-1 Fulham: The Glass Is Half Empty

Posted: April 23, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Postgame
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Andy Johnson saves a point from Wolves, but Fulham can't grab the win

Fulham fans can come out of this match feeling 2 different ways.  You can either feel this is a point gained, or 2 points lost. I’m not even going to beat around the bush, I’m going to get right to the meat and potatoes of how this match left me feeling: Mark Hughes lost 2 points for Fulham.  Bottom line, end of story.  And the worst part is, he lost the match before it even began.  Mark Hughes came up with the brilliant idea of starting Eidur Gudjohnsen and Simon Davies instead of Bobby Zamora, Andy Johnson, or Gael Kakuta.  His thinking was clearly to save the starters for the upcoming bouts with Bolton and Sunderland Wednesday and Saturday.  We’ll see how the decision affects those matches, but right now, it cost Fulham 2 points.

Simon Davies actually played pretty well, but he ran out of steam and his crosses became more and more erratic as the match went on.  Gudjohnsen was a non-factor, and his chance to prove his worth to the club went by the wayside.

For the record, did I not say that nobody ever wants to go up against a team fighting for their lives? (I did, incase you didn’t realize that was rhetorical) Wolves played like they were fighting for their lives, and although some of their challenges were questionable, I don’t fault them, as they played valiantly and really had the energy and spirit Fulham was sometimes lacking.  I might as well just get into it.

The good:

Andy Johnson – He scored so quickly after coming into the match that my phone received the ESPN text alert of the goal before it got the text regarding the substitution.  It wasn’t a perfect strike but Hennessey wasn’t really ready for it since it didn’t exactly come into the box on a perfect cross or clear scoring opportunity, so he was flat-footed and couldn’t get over to make the save.  It was a shot in the arm for Fulham, one that I honestly didn’t expect to come.

Gael Kakuta – After coming on with Zamora and getting into a groove, he put in some seriously spirited shots.  I believe if given a start, he would have found the back of the net.  He really got comfortable with the match and started to create chances as well as attempt to finish them.

The defense – I will give Aaron Hughes a pass on the goal. Looking back on it, it wasn’t a horrible job, he just didn’t jump high enough to challenge Fletcher for the header and got beat.  It wasn’t like anyone really messed up their marking or anything.  I predicted we’d allow a goal anyways, and holding Wolves to 1 is just fine defensively in my opinion, it’s the offense that let the 2 points slip away.  The rest of the match was well played by the back 4.  In a very physical match, their challenges were good and accurate, unlike many of the midfielders’ challenges, and after the goal (especially in the 2nd half), they ended almost every Wolves buildup before it could gain any kind of headway.

Carlos Salcido – The defenseman had a few issues in defense, but his early strike left me incredibly surprised, and he had a few absolutely beautiful feeds of Dempsey and Dembele who were both off-target all day.  I was happy with his play.

Despite the large number of free kicks given, I would have put referee Michael Oliver in here if it weren’t for the yellow card on Brede Hangeland for a perfectly fine challenge that actually won the ball (it also sent Mark Hughes to the stands for kicking a water bottle.  It seems the former Manchester City star has lost a bit of his accuracy, taking three hacks before connecting his foot with the bottle.  Was kind of a funny display. Nice to see him getting emotionally invested though, I like when managers have a fire about them such as that).

The bad:

Mark Hughes – I put the blame on him.  With 5 matches to go, it’s not about resting your starters, no matter what the next week’s schedule looks like.  It’s about sucking it up, gritting it out, and grabbing as many points as you can.  Hughes didn’t realize this, and he paid the price.  Starting Eidur Gudjohnson and benching Zamora was an absolute atrocity of a mistake, even if Bobby apparently picked up a slight knock in training. I know I’m beating a dead horse, but I was pretty upset about this right from the getgo.

Eidur Gudjohnsen - Failed to have an impact on the game, and was generally useless on the pitch.  I realize he’s at this point no better than a backup, but I know he’s better than how he played.  The attack as a whole is to blame for the lack of goal scoring, but at least Dembele and Dempsey had chances they came close on. EidGud was practically invisible. I can’t even remember any memorable touches he had.

Clint Dempsey – I only put him here because he had a few blantly obvious chances he misfired on.  His accuracy was off, and it led to some pretty poor finishing from the normally dead-on-balls accurate midfielder (name the movie reference!).

Man of the Match:

This is a tough one, as many people played a part for both sides but no one really came out as a hero.  I would say if I had to pick (and I do), I would go with Wolves captain Karl Henry, who played pretty darn good, physical defense, and kept his team together and although they didn’t win, they grabbed a pretty big point.

Going forward, this club has to go for it all, or they’re not going to get anywhere.  Mark Hughes has to take smart risks, not stupid ones, and he has to play aggressively.  He did neither of those today, and it cost the club.  I realize I may be overly negative, but this is a bad draw.   Let’s hope it doesn’t hurt the club going forward.  If I had to pick, I still think Wolves will stay up, with West Ham, Blackpool, and Wigan going down.

Mark Hughes after the match:

“We’ve got to be pleased with taking something out of the game. From our point of view the worst-case scenario was to allow Wolves to  score first. That’s what happened and it made a for hard day for us. If  we’d have taken any one of the chances that we created early on I think we would  have comfortably won the game. That would have caused Wolves to come out and try  and get back on level terms and I think we would have very quickly picked them  off. But because they had something to fight for and protect it was more  difficult for us. But we kept going and thankfully we got something out of the  game. It’s a difficult fixture on paper and we had to be strong today and show  character to get back on level terms.”

Hughes is glass half full.  Me, not so much. What are you?

We have a nice quick turnaround and play Bolton on Wednesday.  Any thoughts from today? Are you feeling as negative as me after this match? Maybe Andy Johnson lifted your spirits and you’re happy with the result? Let’s hear em.  If I find any other bits of news from the match, or interesting quotes from Sparky I will pass them along to you either here or on my Twitter, @FulhamsFinest.

The Gudjohnsen Arrival: Why His Story Means A Lot More Than You May Think

Posted: February 25, 2011 by Kyle Bonn in Uncategorized
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(From Feb 19, 2011)

We all know it.  We just don’t like to think about it.  It’s ok.  I’m going to say it anyways, but only because I have to to make the point I want to in this post: Fulham is a middle of the pack club.  Sure, they qualified for the Europa league last year and only lost in the final in extra time.  Sure, they may have their moments, their Cinderella story seasons.  But think about that.  They’re only Cinderella stories because they are few and far between.  Chelsea or Arsenal or Manchester United don’t have Cinderella story seasons because those are the expectations every year.

That’s why, as much as I love Clint Dempsey, not only as a fellow American but because of what he’s done for this club, I fully expect him to leave if not this summer, then next.  Hell, if I were him, I’d want out too.  Of course it’d be a tough decision, but he’s given just about all he can to this club, and if a Liverpool were to come calling, it’s pretty much a no-brainer.  He wants to experience Champions League play before he retires, and who can blame him? He’s good enough to be a role player and maybe even start on a Champions League team.  And Fulham unfortunately isn’t that unless something crazy happens.

Relax, I know I put Gudjohnsen’s name in the title, I’m getting there.

Enter Eidur Gudjohnsen.  He is a borderline starting striker for a middle of the pack club who is definitely past his prime but still has a lot left in the tank.  He comes to Fulham, and starts off riding the bench.  But then something happens.  He loves it here.  The fans, the teammates, the front office, and he wants to stay.  Cool.  But why does Clint Dempsey care?

Because maybe, just maybe, this rings a bell in Clint Dempsey.  Maybe Dempsey sees this and thinks to himself, “You know Clint, maybe you’re still at Fulham for a reason.  Maybe you haven’t left Fulham yet because you flat out love it here.  And maybe Clint (and here’s the important part), maybe playing your career at a place you love and becoming an icon at that one club is more important than playing Champions League football.”  Sure, it’s a longshot.  But you never know.

Obviously this is complete speculation, and most likely it would take a lot more than just this to keep Dempsey in the long run.  But who knows, it could be a spark, that’s all I’m saying.  A spark that maybe, with a few more instances of the like with a few bigger name players could cause Clint Dempsey to stay.

I certainly wouldn’t complain.