2018 Fulham Player Profiles: David Button

Basic Stats: 20 appearances | 20 starts | 0 substitutions | 1,800 minutes | 3 clean sheets

Economics: £2.07 million Transfer Fee | Signed: 2016 | Contract Ends in Summer 2019 plus a 1-year option

Stats by Seven-Game sequences

WhoScored Rating Chart

Transfermarket Value Chart

CC Thoughts: Welp, this is really looking like the end of the road for David Button for Fulham. One of the more definitive rumors this summer has been that Fulham and Brighton & Hove Albion are in discussions of swapping back-up goalkeepers. Fulham would get former Newcastle man and Dutch International Tim Krul while the Seagulls take Button.

Either way, the signs have been there from not just the Fulham staff, but the supporters as well that Button just isn’t cut for it to be a starting goalkeeper for not just a Premier League side, but also one that is in the Championship expecting to guide them towards promotion. This season got off on the worst of notes for the former Brentford number one when he was constantly getting berated with abuse by the home support in Fulham’s preseason friendly with Werder Bremen. And after what looked like a solid start to the season, things really began to fall apart for Button.

He no longer was making the timely or game-changing saves that were required of him and his always poor long ball distributions kept getting worse. Gradually, Button was going from possibly one of Fulham’s best players to being their most detrimental. The final exclamation point to his poor play was the 3-1 defeat to his former club at Griffin Park. In that particular game, Button hands weren’t strong enough to punch away a lazy shot on the first goal conceded while he was caught out of position and indecisive in the remaining two goals conceded.

In came Marcus Bettinelli to save Fulham from further calamities in goal and the rest has been history for Fulham. Unfortunately, it also meant history for Button’s career as a number one keeper. It’s crazy to think of how much of a club legend he was at Brentford to see him be so loathed at Craven Cottage but that was what ended up happening. And with one guaranteed season left on his contract, it might be best for both club and individual to part their separate ways.

Key Stat: 1.30 goals for per game while Button was in goal. As it has been discussed before, Button never really had the support he had from his teammates to be able to collect three points every matchday and that was most evident on the attacking side of things. You could make the case that if he were to just play with Aleksander Mitrovic, his performances would have been improved. But since we already saw what took place with Button playing with Chris Martin, you could have argued that we have already seen what we needed to know.

Your thoughts: So what say you about David Button? Was he always a poor goalkeeper in your eyes or were their redeeming qualities during his tenure with Fulham? Now at 29, do you still see him starting in goal somewhere in the top tiers of English football? If so, what is his ceiling now? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.