Premier League Transfers: Fulham, Tottenham Set Records On Deadline Day

Fulham Football Club is certain to have a lot of attention on them during the 2018-19 season after they set the transfer market alight this summer. They returned to the English Premier League after a four-season hiatus in the Championship.

The west-London club secured a promotion to the English top-flight with a play-off win over Aston Villa and their director of football operations, Tony Khan, son of club owner Shahid Khan, already had a plan in place to secure their Premier League future beyond just their first season.

“We knew we had to make a serious investment with the squad to be the strong Premier League team we aspired to be,” Tony told Telegraph Sport. “Five minutes after we won the play-off final I grabbed Alistair and we started sketching out the summer. We had a lot of planning going into the final with two scenarios.”

Fulham signed a total of 12 players during the recently concluded summer transfer window, which includes five players on loan to become the first promoted club to spend over £100 million ($127.7 million) in the immediate summer after making the step-up to the Premier League.

The Cottagers signed five players on transfer deadline day, the most by any club, including a reported club-record signing of Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa from Marseille and Joe Ryan, who was having his medical at Villa before deciding to move to Fulham. They also brought in goalkeeper Sergio Rico, Argentine Luciano Vietto and Timothy Fosu Mensah on loan.

The Craven Cottage outfit began planning their summer recruitment process immediately after they gained promotion and were no slouches before transfer deadline day arrived. Their first recruitment was Jean Michel-Seri, a midfielder who was linked with a move to Barcelona and Arsenal last summer. They also brought in former Chelsea and current Borussia Dortmund player Andre Schurrle on loan, while also making Aleksandar Mitrovic’s loan deal permanent for £20 million ($25.5 million).

The club have shown massive faith in Slavisa Jokanovic and the league’s attention will be on them when they begin their campaign against London rivals Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum Tottenham Hotspur broke an unwanted record as they became the first team not to sign a single player for the first time since the summer transfer window was introduced in 2003.

The north-London side, who are moving into their new 60,000+ seater Tottenham Hotspur Stadium later this year, were unable to secure moves for any of their targets. Manager Mauricio Pochettino was keen to strengthen his squad to improve on their third place finish last season, but will now have to make do with the players that are available.

Spurs have a very strong squad and Pochettino labeled it a brave decision from the club not to make any additions. He also blamed Brexit and the elevated costs to build their new stadium as the reasons they did not make any signings this summer.

"Building a stadium that is nearly £1 billion [$1.27 billion]. That is true, don't believe in £400 million [$511 million], that is the truth. Then with Brexit it's worse because the cost is 30 per cent more. That is a drama, I feel sorry for the English people,” Pochettino said, as per Sky Sports. "For me [that] is to be brave. Of course maybe in the mind of everyone they will say, 'Oh Tottenham didn't sign', but to sign for the sake of signing?"

"You need to respect all the opinions but of course we are a club that our decision was not to sign, [even though] it is the fashion to sign or because we are the only club in Europe that has not signed players,” he added.

"That maybe looks bad because of the perception and because of the history of football, but that is our decision — to keep the best players and to keep the squad. It's a brave decision."