Premiership Betting Preview for 2007/08 Season - Fulham
17th Jul 2007, 18:39
The frenetic horse-trading of the summer months is the most important phase in the process of Premiership clubs reorganising and strengthening their squads, providing ante-post bettors with vital clues to next season’s competition. Keep checking the Premiership betting market at PinnacleSports.com to see where the smart money is going.
Sanchez Laying New Foundations at the Cottage
Lawrie Sanchez starts his first full season in charge of Fulham with a raft of new signings that should enable him to impress his own style on the team, and test his mettle in Premiership. The Cottagers sit at the bottom of the Premiership betting market, priced 401.00 with PinnacleSports.com, so Sanchez certainly has his work cut out.
The former Northern Ireland manager has capitalised on his previous post to bring in four players that he worked with during his very successful Euro 2008 qualification stint. Leed’s David Healy gets the chance to cut his teeth in the Premiership, having shown his striking abilities with a hat-trick against Spain in Belfast. Sanchez has also snapped up Southampton centre back and captain, Chris Baird, the versatile defender, Aaron Hughes, while Steven Davis switches from Aston Villa where he struggles for a place in midfield under Martin O’Neill.
Sanchez has made Senegalese international, Diomansy Kamara, his most expensive signing, spending £6million to bring the striker from West Brom. Kamara scored 29 goals last season in the Baggies bid to get back into the Premiership, but was unable to command a first-team place when with Portsmouth.
This will be the Cottagers seventh successive Premiership season, but the club have flirted with relegation in recent campaigns, and last term posted their worse finishing position of 16th, prompting Chris Coleman to leave at a crucial stage in their survival fight. Lawrie Sanchez should bring the club new impetus, and though he has achievied significant results with Northern Ireland, beating England, Spain and Sweden, he is totally untested in the English top flight. His previous club experience was with Wycombe Wanderers, who were playing in Division One.
One of the most pressing issues that Sanchez will need to address is the club’s woeful away form. In each of the previous two seasons Fulham have one just one game on the road; a repeat of that away tally will almost certainly guarantee that the Londoners are drawn into another relegation struggle. Following the departure of Coleman, there was criticism of the lack of player conditioning, so Sanchez will no doubt work on fitness as well as team bonding.
The lynch-pins of the Fulham side are central midfielders Michael Brown (captain), Jimmy Bullard and Papa Bouba Diop aka ‘the Wardrobe’. All spent an unhealthy amount of last term on the treatment table, with Bullard missing most of the season due to cruciate knee ligament damage. Fulham fans will be hoping the trio spend more time on the pitch, where their influence will be crucial in Lawrie Sanchez’s aim to get the club into Europe.