Aston Villa, Fulham, Premier League
Fulham’s brilliant business
Fulham have sold long-serving defender Zat Knight to Aston Villa, and in doing so made a tidy profit for a player plagued by inconsistency, hesitancy and poor decision making, though the 27-year-old patently has the attributes to become a solid centre-back. His former employers paid nothing to sign him in 1999 bar 30 pairs of tracksuits [...]
Fulham have sold long-serving defender Zat Knight to Aston Villa, and in doing so made a tidy profit for a player plagued by inconsistency, hesitancy and poor decision making, though the 27-year-old patently has the attributes to become a solid centre-back.
His former employers paid nothing to sign him in 1999 bar 30 pairs of tracksuits - a goodwill present from chairman Mohamed Al Fayed - and Knight earned two England caps in the much-maligned tour of the USA. Fulham sold up for £3.5m, rising to £4m, having teetered on the brink of agreeing a deal with Newcastle a year ago. The transfer marks a turnabout by manager Lawrie Sanchez who, bizarrely in many eyes, offered Knight a three-year deal over the summer despite only having been at club for the final five matches of the 2006/7 season.
Error-prone and undistinguished, Knight has been the weak link of Fulham’s utterly fragile back-line and has been the supporters’ scapegoat when errors were made or silly goals were conceded, particularly last season as the Cottagers fell dramatically close to the drop-zone and only narrowly survived. Fulham had the equal-worst defence in the Premiership, conceding 60 times - a record matched only by relegated Charlton - and suffered embarrassing beatings at the hands of Everton, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham. The latter was in an FA Cup fifth round tie at Craven Cottage, where Knight’s indecisiveness was apparent in a 4-0 hammering, and he was heckled off the pitch and had to be restrained from confronting one disenchanted fan.
It is Martin O’Neill’s job to stimulate his third major signing of the window and lift him out a self-imposed comfort zone
During the previous campaign, Fulham had suffered a similarly timid home defeat, on that occasion 4-0 to Arsenal and Knight and fellow defender Moritz Volz came to blows at half-time as they blamed one other for a miserable first-half performance. Most recent of all, in his last game for Fulham on Saturday, Knight was again targeted by the opposition – ironically Aston Villa – and he conceded a tame own goal before being hauled off just 11 minutes into the second half in spite of being made captain in Brian McBride’s absence.
Certainly, though, Fulham’s defensive problems do not vanish with Knight’s departure and the back-line remains a fallible area, one that could ultimately send the club into repeat relegation trouble. Now, however, it is Martin O’Neill’s job to stimulate his third major signing of the window and lift him out a self-imposed comfort zone.
Playing for his boyhood club should help, and sometimes a fresh challenge in a different environment can act as all the necessary inspiration for a player to raise his game. Undoubtedly O’Neill is taking a risk, but with expectations higher in Birmingham than West London, Knight realises his frequent errors must be cut out - otherwise a period warming the bench awaits. At Fulham, the lack of defensive depth ensured Knight was a regular, but with Olof Mellberg, Martin Laursen and Gary Cahill vying for starting positions at Villa Park, there are no guarantees at his new home.
For Fulham, a £3.5m profit has been pocketed after eight years of service, making it a brilliant piece of business by Sanchez and those further up the hierarchy. From tracksuits to sterling, Knight begins a new leg of his journey by returning to his place of birth, leaving his adopted home with many memories, and former club with a healthy reward for sticking by him.
Have Fulham done well to get £3.5m? Share your views by leaving a comment below.
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Yet more poor journalism, you should get a job with one of the national newspapers.
as a Fulham fan, what you have written is 100% true, too many errors and our worst player last season and somehow we have managed to get 4 million!! Most other Articles have claimed, he is a top defender and the best defender we have had even saying he’s doing this to get back into the England squad! Villa fans will realise by october what a bad defender he really is, and for 6ft 6″ player his heading is quite poor.
Well it looks like we’ve both been done. You paid £4m for a central midfielder witht the strength of a 12 year old. What goes around comes around I suppose!
I was impressed with him every time I watched him.He makes mistakes but in a poor side like Fulham.In fact Rio Ferdinand makes many mistakes too but he is still in England’s first eleven.Let’s give the boy a chance he is a quality defender and will prove you wrong.And it’ll be interesting who will play CB at Fulham now.I think they’ll find life in Premiership harder without Knight.
This is unbelieveable business, and the person who said he sucks because fulham is a poor side can shut right up. Zat Knight was pretty responsible for that poor side. Admittedly, he has the physical attributes to be a good defender (height, decent pace etc.) but loses concentration far too much. Think of the CB’s that Villa could have bought for 4m. If the money is reinvested wisely, fulham could have a much more solid defence.
I think this is an accurate judgement on Knight. He is too error prone, but maybe o’neill will get better out of him than keegan, tigana, coleman and sanchez could.
good luck to him, but at 3.5m, when we signed hughes for 1m.. bit of good business on our part.
The Davis comment is simply sour grapes from a Villa fan, many villa fans have commented they wanted Davis to stay. Knight on the other hand well, we bought him for 30 tracksuits and i thought we got mugged, but 4 million is unbelievable
FFC fans, do not forget the good games Zat has played for us too.Many a game he made goal saving blocks and timely tackles, M.O.N. could well get him to try and concentrate harder during 90 minutes and as the article correctly states “a change is as good as a rest”.
He was still a good servant for our club, though his mistakes were getting too costly and too regular. I`m glad his gone but, wish him well at Villa.
Now Knight has gone, who do Fulham fans want as captain? Alexei Smertin would be my choice…
Davis didn’t play last season because he wanted to play centrally. He doesn’t have the physical attributes to play there!! He was anonymous on Saturday and proved to us that we don’t need him The only reason Villa fans were fed up with losing him is because we havent bought in the replacements!! If Davis was any good he wouldn’t have ended up at Fulham! Simple as that, name another club that was interested? The last good season he had for Villa was two years ago in a very poor team. Nobby Solano was our player of the season for god sake!!
I have to admit I’m completely underwhelmed that we’ve signed players from a team that flirted with relegation for most of last season. Having said that he is the only player I would’ve had from you guys….and thats only because he’s a Villa fan.
Sorry should of read it back. The only player I wouldve signed from you guys was Zat Knight purely because he’s a Villa fan.
Good luck for the season.
All that matters is that we got 4 million for that waste of space. I really do hope you start Zat every game this season, then you’ll see why we finished 16th last season, Only reason you beat us on saturday is because off, oh yh Zat Knight’s own goal and the linesman not giving us a penalty.
Yeah. Thats why we had 26 attempts on goal!! You were lucky we had 19 off target.
Greetings happy Fulham fans, first things first we wont find out how crap he is for a while because even though he has been first choice for you he is only a squad player at the villa. Martin Laursen and Olof Mellberg provide us with the best defensive partnership outside the top 4 and as backup to either of them being injured we have the young and talented Garry Cahill. So whats the reason in Knight well simple, laursen has a dodgy knee and might not last the season so if/when he does get injured or needs resting Cahill plays and then we need a CB to have on the bench incase of injury to the other two, so i doubt we will see him till further into the season, by which time training with better players and being coached by better coaches will have made him a better defender less prone to mistakes. Also i think mayb he is a signing to say to west brom were not as desperate to sign a CB before transfer window closes now, getting them to drop there price of curtis davies.
Good bit of business all round although i dont know why your so happy? if he was so bad then why was he in your team every single match? who ever goes into replace him must be awful lol, but good luck.
I don’t wish to pick a fight with anyone but if you genuinely believe that good business is a couple of million and Aaron Hughes for Zat Knight you must be struggling mentally.
I know that Fulham fans have not seen a lot of him but Hughes is a truly awful defender. No pace, can’t tackle, poor distribution and no ability to head the ball.
I would take Knight over Hughes any day of the week.
Hughes was only 1 million. And you paid 4 million for Zat Knight. No wonder he got arrested that was Robbery
Phew……
Its a good job you got rid of Zat Knight. I mean, you could’ve struggled today defensively with him playing!!
;o)
Fulham had a defensive mare today, absolutely shocking. Looks like you’ll have too find another scapegoat boys.
Oh, and about Villas wins last week, we had more possession in the first half, and if the second half had been a boxing match, Fulham would’ve thrown in the towel with in 5 mins. I was sat in the Holte and Ashley Young ran you guys absolutely ragged… You talk about you deserving a penalty? What about the Moore goal we should’ve had, and Barry goals when he was perfectly onside.