Calum Chambers today joined Fulham on loan for the duration of the 2018-19 season.
It’s a surprise move given he just signed a new contract with Arsenal a little over a month ago, but football is full of weird moves and this is certainly one of them.
Speaking to the official Fulham site, the centre-half said, “I’m really excited. I watched a lot of Fulham last season, I really like the way they play football, there’s a good manager, it’s a great club, so I’m really excited for the season ahead.
“Everyone can see that Fulham’s a club that likes to play football, play football from the back, through the lines.
“That’s the style of football I like as well, so I think it fits me and suits the way I play.”
He also sent out a message via his Twitter account which reads:
Delighted to have signed for @FulhamFC on a year long loan! I felt this was the right thing to do at this point in my career and I’m up for the challenge! Wish everyone at @Arsenal the very best for the season!
Delighted to have signed for @FulhamFC on a year long loan! I felt this was the right thing to do at this point in my career and I’m up for the challenge! Wish everyone at @Arsenal the very best for the season! pic.twitter.com/B6CbSwwE0I
— Calum Chambers (@CalumChambers95) August 7, 2018
Just a few weeks ago, he had this to say having put pen to paper on his new deal:
Delighted to have signed a new deal at @arsenal! I want to give my very best to this great club. Thanks to the new manger for showing faith in me and I’m looking forward to the big season ahead! I promise to repay the fans back for the support they’ve given me!
Delighted to have signed a new deal at @arsenal! I want to give my very best to this great club. Thanks to the new manger for showing faith in me and I’m looking forward to the big season ahead! I promise to repay the fans back for the support they’ve given me! #COYG ??? pic.twitter.com/WxRfjNNUGM
— Calum Chambers (@CalumChambers95) July 3, 2018
It’s an illustration of how quickly things can change for a player, and it remains to be seen if Arsenal will bring in a replacement.
It feels like we should, but reports suggest we have to sell before we can buy having splashed out on five new players this summer without having moved too many on, leaving the squad and the wage bill bloated just two days before the transfer window closes.
Sounds as confused as I am.
I don’t understand why everyone’s confused, I think this is a smart move. He’s clearly not going to get regular football at arsenal, and the scrutiny some youngsters get when they make mistakes could have a lasting impact on their confidence. Arsene Wenger always said that when you play youngsters, especially defenders, you know they’re going to cost you points, so he may as well do that at another club and come back a more experienced player ready to compete for a place in the starting line up next season. I can’t imagine a team that’s just got promoted won’t… Read more »
I don’t necessarily disagree but feel as our strongest centre back he’d benefit more from working with emery on the new arsenal playing style
I genuinely think we just loaned our best centre back to Fulham
Why we assume he is gonna play regularly at Fulham??? Our loans are known as benchwarmers
@Kostas Callum at Middlesbrough was anything but a bench warmer.
Good point, but it’s needless to count our failed loans during the recent years. Fulham has Tim Ream and Alfie Mawson who is currently injured for four weeks. When he returns ost probably he will replace Calum on the starting 11. It’s theirs player theirs investment and have much more benefit if he develops rather than Chambers. What I am trying to say is that there is higher probability to play at our team because we care more developing him. Plus we seem to make loan deals that give no motivation to the loaner to use our players more than… Read more »
He wouldn’t cost us any more points than that bloody mastify ,,why do we still have him by the way??? Frightens the life out of me every time he plays,, should loan him out
Does this mean we’re signing Vida The Carpathian?
Hopefully not.
Indeed. He doesn’t look any more than a Championship player to me, despite having a good World Cup. Just had to make a shit joke about his bad hair… sorry.
No Sessegnon
i had my doubts about vida aswell. but after reading this article even if we are not going to play him regularly i’d like to see hiim in arsenal. the point of this article is vida is kind of joker of the team . someone whom everyone loves , a big hearted person and most importantly someone who doesnt felel any kind of pressure when at the biggest stage .maybe we need more guys like that in our team
\\ https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2785318-domagoj-vida-the-controversial-joker-beloved-by-his-croatian-teammates
From his picture he seems just as excited as Aaron Lennon when he moved to Everton.
More or less cartwheeling the whole way to Craven Cottage, I imagine.
This makes no goddamn sense, we needed Calum for this season…
I disagree, we had 5 CBs, one of which is injured until February. Nacho can cover there too, so can Elneny. Chambers was 4th choice for me and that effectively means 5-15 PL starts, going to Fulham is likely a lot more. If theybring in Vida then yeh, I think we might as well have kept Chambers but we don’t know whats going on behind the scenes.
Not sure we should be looking at Nacho as potential CB cover. He’s getting to the age were me should be wary of overplaying him and our natural LB cover is limited, especially with Kolasinac currently injured. I can just about get my head round Calum going if we have too many CB’s but then why bring in Vida unless he is seen as a significant improvement and most people don’t think he is.
This loan move really doesn’t make sense if we will buy Vida instead (if the reports are true). He is nothing special + he is a pr*ck. You can see that on his face. And if we are willing to pay 40 millions for the defenders then we should buy one world class and not two average players without PL experiences. We already have (had) the numbers and I believe neither Chambers nor Holding are far from Sokratis and Vida. The second reason is. I am also not in favour of buying players just based on WC/EURO performances. How many… Read more »
He’s better than Holding or Mavropanos at this stage.
Not sure why you think he is a pr*ck.
I agree, why is the majority being negative about Vida, I thought he was class at the World Cup. And while I was watching Croatia I was thinking we need this guy. He has great awareness and good pace and is good in the air. And can pass a football and at 29 the next 3 years will be his best. So what we can’t sell him on… we are mediocre at selling players on…
If Vida does arrive a lot of fans will be eating their negative words….
I don’t really see what looking at a man’s face and seeing a prick has to do with his footballing skills.
Why is Vida a prick? I’m genuinely interested why this is coming up here.
He made unnecessary nacionalistic pro Ukraine video right after the match against Russia. That speaks a lot about his inteligance. He had discipline problems(drinking, clubbing) back at Dinamo Zagreb. Also I don’t think he has quality for premier league and my bet is he would come up similar and underperforming as Lovren.
Meh. Not clever but Russians support Serbia for nationalist/religious reasons and are currently occupying a big chunk of Ukraine. A Croat with ties to Ukraine saying something silly to his friends in Kiev is pretty mild and hardly crime of the century.
Nor is a young guy being less the professional and going out on the town and being a fool… we’ve had our share and a captain locked up for worse.
Not saying he’s a good signing but the venom against him is a bit odd.
Double agent chambers. He will make Fulham also rans from the inside whilst. Good luck chambo.
If Fulham are direct rivals for us then something’s gone really wrong
if he plays a whole season of first team football and comes back even stronger then he will replace whomever screwed up more. I know this season hasnt even started yet but next year we are going to have 5/6 cbs pushing for first team football. 3 aged, 3 young. we cant blood all 3 properly, and of the 3 chambers is the one more likely to get regular starts on loan and fulham means he doesnt have to move his life for 8 months of football. Mavropanos has links to sokratis, whom is linked with the dortmund guys, so… Read more »
Good assessment. Too many people are blinkered and too easily proclaim Mustafi useless when he leads the team in intercepts and comes up consistently with huge match saving blocks for us. Sure he has made mistakes but so has Holding and Chambers and Mavropanos for that matter Koscielny and Monreal last season. Holding made a number of mistake pre-season yet some would rather him start than Mustafi.. What we need is to find a player with mobility and height to pair with Mustafi IMO. As pre-season will indicate, we are still vulnerable to aerial set pieces or crosses and we… Read more »
Completely agree with the line of thinking above. Might seem a surprising decision at first but if you think about it, at least 1 of Chambers, Holding, or Mavropanos was always going to fail to make the grade this season. Chambers going on loan gives him that opportunity to cut his teeth in another promising EPL outfit (which is likely going to help him develop ‘bare bones defending abilities’ to prove himself, come back and establish himself as a first team regular) At the same time, it provides more first team opportunities to Holding (surely his make or break season)… Read more »
If what u say is really what’s happening then good. I hope they didn’t get them to sign the contract just for the advantage of selling them at a good price. Our three young CBs can really become a very good unit collectively. I hope all three get the chance to play regularly for arsenal next season. Ability wise I think they are equally good as Sokratis or Mustafi….only that they make some mistakes due to inexperience but that can go away if we play them regularly.
This is just too odd. Here’s hoping the now sole owner of the club splashes out for a true superstar defender and not this Croatian joker.
If we get Boateng or Mina or a Koulabaly.
Yeah Vida looks like a patch job for us for the same price we could have sunk in to a better solution.
The summer started off so well, we got our new players in, nice and early, then it stalled, we couldn’t move on the players we wanted to move on so it seems we’re moving on players who a week ago were a key part of squad. Now it’s reminiscent of the worst of the last 10 years, sweating on a deal or two on deadline day, ffs, this is so boring.
Because the summer did not start well.
It was evident at the start of window that we were not doing the right thing with our Cback purchase.
People tend to believe red herrings that buying early is good.
Not necessarily so, particularly if you did not do the right thing, tried to sneak things in ahead of the incoming gaffer and then have to scramble to find solution at end of window again.
BUT lets not make a big stink of it since it isn’t the popular narrative people want to hear.;)
That’s one perplexed looking man, can’t say I blame him.
Meanwhile Mustafi remains. I know which one I would have kept.
People need to understand the difference between left sided centre backs and right sides centre backs. Our only fit LCB right now is holding, while we have 3 senior options for the right hand side. I’m assuming Sokratis was bought assuming Mustafi could be moved on, but now that hasn’t happened another RCB has to go and unfortunately it’s Chambers. Vida isn’t Bobby Moore, but he’s a solid option for the left hand side where we are lacking.
I have no issues with 29yr old Cbacks. At 3 year contract it takes them to 33yrs max which is still OK for say Italian league (See Bonnucci) BUT the profile of Sokratis is all wrong and we are now 16m thrown away which could have been invested into a more optimum solution. Instead we chose the Squillaci route. Boateng for example is 29yrs. BUT he has height 6’4 and speed over Sokratis. It is pennywise pound foolish at best to buy Sokratis then have to buy another player (Say Vida) at say 26m. That’s practically the asking price of… Read more »
Or invested in Soyuncu or Pavard like we were rumored to be. Then we could have at least sold them for some money if they turned out to be no good.
Mos brilliant and sensible post on this issue so far. I buy into your thinking.
It’s not uncommon to sign contract extensions before loan moves. It’s a way to protect the assets and something arsenal should have begun with a long time ago. Good move.
We really don’t need more than four cd (we have five with Kosh) if we play a back four but we need better quality. None of what we have are good enough at the moment.
Vida is worse than Mustafi so I really hope that’s just a rumour. We need much better.
And Holding, Mavropanos are worse than Mustafi too. FYI.
Even for arsenal transfer windows this is weird as fuck !!
Because nothing has fundamentally improved.
Too many fans like to follow media narrative like sheep.
We are not buying to our best ability (or for that matter selling)
But people kick up less of a fuss bc it isn’t Dick Law who bought us Alexis, Ozil, Santi Carzola BTW. They only want to go on about the whole Campbell Costa Rica “saga’…which cost us a paltry sum.
As Blogs mentioned in podcast, I would have thought either of Mavropanos or Holding would be the ones on loan. In pre-season, BUT for height, Chambers has been the better of the 3 junior hopefuls. Holding if anything has made quite a number of mistakes but some fans for some inexplicable reason like to big him up. Judgement it would seem is based on sentiment and NOT facts on the ground for some. Considering Sokratis looks to lack mobility, would be I would have thought wise to have kept Chambers. Having said that, perhaps Emery’s willingness to sanction Chambers going… Read more »
“Judgement it would seem is based on sentiment and NOT facts on the ground for some A bit like you imagining the majority of posters on here weren’t underwhelmed by the signing of Papastathopoulos and aren’t enthused by the potential signing of Vida. Don’t let the fact that there are so many negative posts about the 2 on here get in the way of your crusade to prove how everyone else is a football Luddite apart from you, though, eh? Oh, and by the way “ex-Dortmund used products”; the other ex-Dortmund players we’ve signed are Mikhitaryan and Aubameyang. I think… Read more »
He is saying what he has to say. No way is he excited by this move.
So Emery has some work to do with our defence. Thats the area he can make a name for himself with the Arsenal fans.
The other issue here with the late scramble is it will potentially affect any opportunity to load up a wide player (Ian Wright made a good case for a wide left player we all know we need to play Aubameyang at optimum position up top) There’s of course plenty of options for wide left players beyond all the bleatings about Dembele. Consider how much Barca paid for him, we are not likely to get him. OTOH Lozano at PSV had a great world cup, David Neres at Ajax is an interesting young player who won’t break the bank. Thauvin at… Read more »
If we make half the value you’re suggesting I’d be pleased. No idea where you’re getting your numbers from
It’s from his extensive knowledge of the transfer market.
As he’s said before, blah, blah, blah…
All those players to get rid & only 24 hours to do it, methinks not. So at present we have 2 dodgy experienced Cb’s, No fit left back plus Ramsey? is that going to be another Alexis saga. What started off as a optimistic summer is ending up with more problems than solutions.
Goodbye Chambers. Hope you can seal a permanent transfer this time, by keeping Fulham up.
He’s always delighted isn’t he? 😀
If we want to have traditional pairing of one stopper and one cover type CB, Chambers obviously is the only cover type CB we have.
yeah… looks happy lol
does emery know what he is doing
I don’t entirely have a problem if we sign Vida (beyond the stupidity of not getting it right in the first place with Sokratis) At this point anyone is better than no one. You have to ask yourself if Vida is an upgrade to Chambers or Holding or Mavropanos. The younger Cbacks are still undercooked. Chambers is an IF, he has the potential to be better and looks the strongest of the 3 if lacking height. Vida isn’t any taller but experience may count and he certainly seems to look more mobile than the Greek we have. The way we… Read more »