As much as I like Hangeland, he is not pacy at all, and is often covered by his underrated partner (Hughes, was it?); moreover, Fulham defend very well as an organized team, so it's not just their back line that contributed to their much improved defense last season. Massive in the air, but I keep thinking of him as a better version of Dawson. We don't need a better version of Daws as urgently as a replacement for King (not sure if Bassong is the one, but who knows, hopefully his positioning will improve with a solid partner beside him and an actual coach), who would be a more suitable partner for Woodgate, Daws, and Corluka.
Moreover, Hangeland isn't nearly as easy to get as Bassong - he would be much more expensive and probably wouldn't jump ship from a club with Europa football to one where he wouldn't be first-choice, esp with Ars*nal strongly linked and Fulham in no dire need of money. Bassong very much wanted to leave Newcastle (who wouldn't?) and they knew they had to sell him anyways, and given our injury crisis we needed a secure option to start the season with (a Hangeland transfer would last forever and we probably still wouldn't get him).
Let's just give Bassong a chance before leaping to conclusions about him - if he doesn't play well in his first few games, there's no need to panic (who knows, maybe Harry has a touch with moody French-Cameroon defenders? :wink.
Lol. I just said the same thing. I said hangeland reminded me of Daws on top of his game a few responses up.
I admit I only saw him around 5 times. Maybe it was just the schoolboy error ones that people talk about.
