The January transfer window is typically crucial for English Football League clubs. This year is no exception for Fulham, who are chasing promotion.
Fulham has done a lot of business in the winter transfer window over the years. Fulham Football Club is a professional football club based in Fulham, London, England. They now play in the Championship, the English football league system’s second division. They are London’s oldest professional football team, having been founded in 1879.
Fulham has played in two major finals: the FA Cup Final in 1975. When they lost 2–0 to West Ham United as a Second Division team, and the UEFA Europa League Final in 2010, when they lost 2–1 after extra time to Atlético Madrid.
The club has spent 27 seasons in the first flight of English football. The majority of which occurred between the 1960s and the 2000s.
Fulham’s biggest rivals are Chelsea, Queens Park Rangers, and Brentford, all of which are based in West London. In 1903, the club adopted a white shirt and black shorts as its uniform, which it has worn ever since.
With the January transfer season rapidly approaching its end. We take a look at Fulham’s top five January signings of all time:
Ryan Babel
Babel, a former Liverpool player, joined Fulham for the 2018/19 season and was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise disastrous campaign.
Despite coming in the middle of the season, the winger played 16 times for Fulham, scoring five goals and finishing as the club’s third-highest scorer. He did not sign a contract extension after the club was relegated and now plays for Galatasaray in the Turkish division.
Babel joined Ajax in 1998 and worked his way up through the junior system to the senior team. He spent three seasons with the first team before being traded to Liverpool in mid-2007, where he failed to establish a regular first-team spot under three different managers.
Pavel Pogrebnyak
Pogrebnyak, who was born in Moscow, began his professional career with Spartak Moscow in 2002. Before joining Tom Tomsk in 2006, he spent the next three years on loan with Baltika Kaliningrad, Khimki, and Shinnik Yaroslavl. He transferred to the top Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg after a season with them.
Pogrebnyak joined the club in 2012 on a six-month loan deal from VfB Stuttgart. The Russian made his debut against Stoke City and subsequently scored the game-winning goal against London rivals QPR.
In his second game, a 5–0 win over Wolves, he scored a flawless hat-trick, making him the fastest player in Premier League history to reach five goals. Before going to Reading a year later, the striker played 12 times for Fulham and scored six goals.
Steve Sidwell
Sidwell joined Fulham from Aston Villa in January 2011 and went on to make 92 appearances for the club, scoring 14 goals. In his first season, the midfielder scored goals against Liverpool and Arsenal and was a member of the Fulham teams that finished 8th, 9th, and 12th in the Premier League. Following Fulham’s relegation from the Premier League in 2014, he joined Stoke City.
Matty Targett
Targett was brought in on loan during the 2018-19 season to allow Ryan Sessegnon to play farther forward instead of left-back. While Targett was a member of the team that went undefeated in the Championship for 23 games. And he played the entire 90 minutes in the play-off final victory over Aston Villa. He made 18 appearances for Fulham but was unable to get a permanent deal in the summer.
Aleksandar Mitrović
Mitrovic was an inspired signing from Slavia Jokanovic, who arrived on deadline day in January 2018 and completed Fulham’s puzzle. On loan from Newcastle United, the striker scored 12 goals in 17 games. He also won the Championship Player of the Month honours in March and April. As well as the play-off trophy in May.
Mitrovic signed a permanent contract with the club the next summer and has since scored 67 goals.
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