Fulham: Sky Bet Championship season preview 2016/17
Thursday 4 August 2016 21:05, UK
All the transfer news, fan's views, predictions and odds ahead of Fulham's 2016/17 Sky Bet Championship campaign.
Last year's finish: 20th
Manager: Slavisa Jokanovic
Title odds: 40/1 with Sky Bet
First five games: Newcastle (H), Preston (A), Leeds (A), Cardiff (H), Blackburn (A)
Players In: Sone Aluko (Hull, free), David Button (Brentford, undisclosed), Scott Malone (Cardiff, exchange), Kevin MacDonald (Wolves, £1.2m), Tamas Kalas (Chelsea, loan), Denis Odoi (Lokeren, free)
Players Out: Dan Burn (released), Moussa Dembele (Celtic, free), Emerson Hyndman (Bournemouth, free), Andy Lonergan (Wolves, undisclosed), Jazz Richards (Cardiff, exchange), Maarten Stekelenburg (Everton, free), Konstantinos Mitroglou (Benfica, £5.95m), Fernando Amorebieta (Sporting Gijon, £255,000), Ross McCormack (Aston Villa, £14m)
Fan's view - Sam Wheeler (@wheelerdeeler), editor of soccerballandwrasslin.blogspot.com
Expectation: I'm naturally pessimistic, especially when it comes to Fulham. However, pre-season's looked quite promising - whatever that means for the competitive season.
I'd honestly take a mid-table finish without the stress of a relegation battle, but depending on how we replace Ross McCormack (assuming he's off), I may perhaps stretch my expectations to being in contention for the play-offs with us falling off at the end of the season due to a lack of depth in some areas.
Most important player: A month ago, it would have been McCormack - but with his future in doubt, it is harder to nail down one "key" player. Based on our pre-season game with Crystal Palace, and with our long-standing defensive problems, you can make an argument for either Tomas Kalas or Michael Madl.
However, for me, our most important player will be Tom Cairney or a yet-to-be-determined replacement striker.
Who will win the league? Newcastle
Dark horse? Bristol City (if they keep Jonathan Kodjia)
One Championship player you'd want to sign? Aleksandar Mitrovic. If he keeps his head straight, he'll be top scorer this season.
Ollie's prediction: 17th
Fulham's problem is that they've got a lot of overpaid experience and too many youth players. They could have another tough season, especially without the goals of Moussa Dembele and potentially McCormack.
Sky Bet odds
The Cottagers spent much of the season at the wrong end of the Championship table and are 40/1 with Sky Bet to turn their fortunes around and win the title. If you fancy them to struggle once more, they are 11/2 to be relegated and 4/6 to finish up in the bottom half of the standings once more.
If they can hang on to McCormack, they still have one of the best strikers in the competition and he is 10/1 at Sky Bet to be leading scorer after finding the target on 21 occasions in 2015/16.
