Bent Deal Official, Sascha Riether signs a new deal, Scott Parker and Enoh still options?

People all over twitter seemed to realize yesterday that Fulham were in some weird sort of transitory state. Before today, the club only had two players who would still be on contract in 2016. Andy Glockner wrote a great piece wondering about the clubs direction. Two players wouldn't be enough, but now the club could have three. Granted three isn't enough, but giving Sascha Riether a new deal with an extension proves the club may be willing to sign new players throughout the season. Personally I'd also like to see Dejagah, Frei, Kacaniklic, and Ruiz get locked up as well.

The Bent saga is finally over. After looking done, and then looking scuttled, and then Fulham coming back in at the end. And Jol publicly admonishing Ian Holloway, the deal is complete. The club posted this video of bent speaking about the move.

I myself am ok with the loan deal, even if there is no permanent option. I'm not interested in locking up too many older players in long term deals. The team still needs a massive injection of youth. I'm hopeful that with some key resignings (as mentioned above); some blooding for players like Mesca, Jack Grimmer, and Chris David this year; plus successful loans for Briggs and Kasami; Fulham could have a good base of talent to work with next year. If Khan is willing to spend to reshape the team around that youth, good things could happen. Of course, not everyone agrees with this strategy as Kristian Balkin points out in this well written piece. It does kind of feel like the club is having back to back transition years, but with a new owner a transition was to be expected.

The Scott Parker rumors are heating back up. Harry Redknapp have confirmed that Tottenham have accepted their bid. Of course, I've seen it reported that they've also accepted Fulham's. Jol is just so much more tight lipped than Harry you're unlikely to see it confirmed. I've said before I'm not super excited about Parker (as much as my wife loves him). However I don't think you can deny that a Parker/Boateng midfield paring is substantially stronger than the Baird/Sidwell one that the team played with most of last year.

The rumors about Eyong Enoh are also bubbling back to the surface. It's been clear for some time that he wants to be at Fulham and Jol wants him there. The problem has been Ajax playing hardball with the price. Now we have his agent talking about it publicly and claiming "other teams are interested." That probably means no other teams have come in with a concrete bid. At some point, Ajax is going to have to either accept the offer Fulham is making or hold onto him and not have him play this year. I can't imagine that's a good option for them as his value certainly won't go up when he's a year older, with only one year left on his contract, and he just spent a year on the bench. If someone was willing to pay more than what Fulham are offering, he'd already be gone. I'm starting to be optimistic that this deal gets done sometime before the window closes.