Prepare the seatbelts for a very bumpy ride

11 April 2012

Back in late July 2010 I sat down to write about Fulham's exciting new manager: Martin Jol. Well, it turns out it's the longest piece I've ever written.

Jol never came. But he's here now, and Fulham fans will probably agree it's been worth the wait. It has taken a while but Mohamed Fayed has finally brought the Dutchman back to the Premier League.

Jol is a highly agreeable manager to have around the place. Measured and aggro in equal measure, with a penchant for at-times suicidally- attacking football: it's a cocktail which suits the average Premier League fan down to the ground.

More importantly, Jol looks precisely like a cross between James Gandolfini and Mr Potato Head. This is amusing. And football, with all its sanctimonious self-important tendencies, needs all the physical comedy we can throw at it.

But all cranial cockmockery aside, Jol is fundamentally an exciting manager, who builds attacking teams and endears himself to fans.

During his last Premier League job at Tottenham, he left White Hart Lane with some scintillating memories. He took Spurs to within one poorly-prepared lasagne of the Champions League. He presided over some truly wild results. And he came very close to decking Arsene Wenger during the last north London derby at Highbury.

For all that has been achieved under Harry Redknapp at Spurs, it was Jol who really captivated the fans. 106 goals in all competitions during the 2006-07 season was a testament to the emphasis he placed on going forward, even if that usually meant that Spurs could be relied upon to leak like a poorly-fastened nappy at the back.

During his short tenure at Ajax he gave Dutch fans more of the same. In his last full season in the Eredivisie (2009-10), he finished second. behind Shteve McClaren'sh Eff-Shee Twente.

Granted, a team of Ajax's pedigree don't take kindly to finishing second in their domestic league. But they were value for their finish. Jol's Ajax scored a whopping 106 goals, for a positive goal difference of 86. That's 46 better than Twente managed, and boils down to an average of 3.12 goals per game, allied to an average of 2.5 points.

What does all that mean for Fulham, then? Well, they might like to consider installing seatbelts: it's going to be a bumpy old ride.

Since the tail end of 2007 Fulham fans have been used to watching measured, organised, effective but essentially unlovely football. Roy Hodgson was a very effective manager, taking Fulham to a seventh-place finish and within a whisker of a European pot.

But he did not produce exciting teams. Indeed, excitement was, generally speaking, anathema to a manager who prides himself on boring, boring discipline rather than gung-ho spirit.

The same has been true under the now-departed Mark Hughes. The Welshman is also an effective manager. But like Hodgson, he has never claimed to produce the most thrilling teams in the league.

Jol is in that sense a breath of fresh air at Craven Cottage. Backed with a decent transfer fund, his appointment shows real ambition from Fayed, whom you could forgive for eyeing up a comfortable retreat into wealthy retirement and senile sponsorship of popstar statues.

Whether it will actually work for Fulham is another matter. It could be the most exhilarating, or the most insane season in living memory.

But there's one thing that's certain. If Hughes is appointed this summer as Chelsea's first-team coach, then all eyes will be on the first west London derby of the 2011-12 season.

There will be some serious acrimony aimed at Hughes by Fulham fans who have a legitimate hump with the way he walked out of the club. Will that translate to the sort of ruckus that almost erupted between Jol and Wenger back in the day?

The devil on my shoulder rather hopes so. Even if it would make the silly old FA mad as hell.

Follow me on Twitter @dgjones

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