With Fulham having suffered relegation from the Premier League at the end of last season, the Cottagers have been going through some drastic changes this summer, one of which saw former club captain Brede Hangeland leave for Crystal Palace on a free transfer.
The Norwegian’s departure from West London was strained to say the least, with claims from the defender that Fulham dismissed him from the club via an email, rather than a face-to-face meeting, but when questioned about the claims yesterday, his former manager Felix Magath was quick to state that he and the Fulham board were keen for the giant defender to stay.
Speaking to the press on Friday, Magath said:
As I took the job; the club and the players they were on the bottom of the league.
“It’s not me who has done this before and all the players who are telling you everything; they are responsible from the beginning of the season and even players who were here longer.
“If there was anything wrong, they have to talk about it earlier, not after leaving the club.”
You see, it is not true if somebody said nobody spoke with Hangeland. I, myself, have spoken with Brede Hangeland in the week after relegation after the last game of the season.
“I asked him to come to my office and I told him: ‘Your contract has an option, you can leave if you want. We have an option too. I want you to stay, what about you?’
“He told me as he was a player for seven or eight years here, he was captain of the team that he didn’t know and had to think about it.
“I said: ‘Brede please think about it, make up your mind.’
“Then nothing happened. It was Hangeland’s choice to leave. He has the choice to stay. I wanted him to stay. He’d made up his mind.”
Whilst it would be easy to sympathise with Magath, if it felt as though his comments were completely honest, the reality of Fulham’s plight last season, gives the image of a highly dysfunctional organisation, with three permanent managers and an eventual relegation highlighting just how unpredictable things had become.
Having spent six years with the club, you would have to assume that things had already got reasonably bad for Hangeland to walk away in such blunt fashion, and although Magath may seem genuine in his words, a reputation for odd coaching methods has followed him to British shores, with the likelihood being that Hangeland was simply desperate for a slice of normality in his day to to day routines.
In direct contrast to his parting shots at Fulham, everything Brede has said about Palace so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Hopefully that is a trend that continues long into the future.
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