The Exiled Robin

At first glance, the signing of a striker who can't get into Fulham's matchday plans may seem a strange one by Lee Johnson. After all, not only must there be a question over how capable he is based on that scenario, but despite the departures of Lee Tomlin and the pair of Hams this summer (Tammy Abraham and Aaron Wilbraham), City have what appears a top-heavy eight strikers on their books still. However, that's not the full story. Famara Diedhiou and Bobby Reid have started the season together, with Freddie Hinds acting as cover. Milan Djuric, Matty Taylor and Arnold Garita (remember him?!) are currently injured. That's six, but half are injured. Then you have Gustav Engvall who has gone back to Sweden, probably for the last time, while under 23 goal machine Shaun McCoulsky is (rightly) learning his trade in League Two with Newport County. The other reason Johnson would have been after an extra body is that although he is 'only' six foot tall, he's ...

Upon first sight last August, Chelsea loanee Tammy Abraham looked exactly what he was. A tall, gangly youth who, like all young players these days, looked about 15 and far too youthful to be playing men’s football. Although he stood tall at six feet and four inches, he had a frail looking frame and the instant fear was he’d be swallowed up some of the meatier, cynical, battle-hardened defenders of the Championship. And in part that was true. Pontus Jansson of Leeds and Matt Connolly of Cardiff in particular seemed to be able to grasp hold of him and keep him contained early in the season, but in around that he was nothing short of sensational in his first full professional season. There were the goals, of course. 11 in his first 13 games which led him to win the Sky Bet Championship Player of the Month award for September. 26 in 42 starts overall, including braces at eventual play-off contenders Sheffield Wednesday and Reading. But the statistics only tell half the s...

How to solve a problem like Lee Tomlin: The signing of Lee Tomlin in the summer was supposed to be the big signal of intent. Lee Johnson and Mark Ashton have received plenty of plaudits for their work in adding young, talented players to the squad, and had contract extensions been handed out to the pair of them at the end of September, the news would have been widely acclaimed. However, a couple of months on, we can’t buy a win – or even a draw come to that – and many of those exciting signings haven’t had the impact everyone would have hoped for. To address that first, I think it’s clear the policy in the summer was to make a number of signings ‘for the future’. Certainly Calum O’Dowda, Taylor Moore and Gustav Engvall fall into that category to a greater or lesser extent, yet many are now questioning why we spent over £5m on that particular trio. Rightly or wrongly, they were bought for potential and I think any major impact this season from any of them would have been s...

It’s been a summer of huge excitement at Ashton Gate with the completion of the West Stand setting the perfect backdrop to the most extravagant outlay of our existence. Millions of pounds we know about, plus plenty we probably don’t in loan fees, signing-on fees and wages have led to a glut of exciting signings of mainly young players, a nice mixture of experienced mid 20-somethings and younger, high potential players. Having already snapped up players from Juventus and Bayern Munich, Lee Johnson and Mark Ashton have turned their attention closer to home with the latest loan signing and could have just landed the most exciting signing of them all, from Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea. Whilst there may be a touch of self-congratulation around it, both Johnson and Ashton have talked about the lengths they’ve gone to so as to snap up the teenage striker who was also being linked with a move to Spanish La Liga side Real Betis. As is often the case with these sorts of things, it was as ...