Football Season Guide

Fulham have had a rather disappointing end to last season and will be looking to reach at least a top-half place this season with a new owner in place. Long-time chairman Mohamed Al Fayed has relinquished control of the club and sold it to America Football team owner Shahid Khan. He is not the type of owner that will just pour money into the club and he will expect more credible and consistent results from the team compered to Al Fayed who basically treated Fulham not as an investment but something more dear and which he was willing to accept a loss on. Martin Jol remains on as a manager and will be determined to make Fulham a more solid and dependable team. His early two summer signings of Fernando Amorebieta and Maarten Stekelenburg have been aimed towards that but the squad's biggest need, a proper ball-playing central midfielder, has not been satisfied yet. Moussa Dembele has certainly not been replaced since leaving and pairing Steve Sidwell and Georgious Karagounis again in the engine room will not bring too much success. Derek Boateng is the only signing in that area but he is hardly that sort of a player and is more of a destructor than creator. Adel Taarabt has joined on loan from neighbours QPR but he is not a player that will be used so deep in midfield and he will be more of an alternative to Bryan Ruiz. Fulham still contain some good quality in the squad but need at least three more solid, proven players who will go straight to the starting 11. For now, Fulham are most likely to repeat the displays of last season when they offered some genuinely exciting performances but also flattered deceive too often and consistency cannot be really expected from a team and a manager that are at times too cavalier and laissez-faire for their own good despite the pressure to bring better results this season.