Football Season Guide

Fulham may have lost a quality manager in the summer in Mark Hughes, who decided that he is too good to hand around at Craven Cottage for more than one year, but have hardly let that unsettle them as the South London club reacted quickly and appointed Martin Jol as a replacement. The Dutchman still has a glowing reputation in England from his time at Tottenham and less than spectacular spells at Hamburger SV and Ajax have not really damaged that. Now he will be relishing the chance to have another crack in the Premiership and while Fulham may not be able to challenge for the top places, like Tottenham did, they are still a pretty good alternative. It looks like a happy marriage for both parties and the hope of the fans is that Fulham have another solid campaign in the league. They will be again competing in the Europa League too where they have to sift through a number of qualifying rounds before making it into the groups, and with the memories of reaching the final of the same competition 14 months ago still fresh, the team will embrace the challenge of competing on two fronts. Jol addressed the problem of lack of depth and brought in an experienced player like John Arne Riise while building up the midfield too with a couple of bodies. The squad remains overall the same though and something particularly bad needs to happen around the club for them to get embroiled in the lower regions of the table. The club is well placed to challenge for a top-ten finish but anything more than that seems too steep given the fierce competition in the top end of the table.