Fulham forward Terry Ablade became summer signing number eleven this week, and manager Paul Simpson spoke more at his weekly press conference about his latest recruit.
“He was straight into his first training session and he looked lively,” he said. “He’s a really bright lad, he’s got a big smile on his face and he wants to be here.
“It’s still early doors, and I think this is the first time he’s had to live outside of London since he’s been over here, but you look at people in that situation and it takes a little bit of character to accept that kind of challenge.
“He’s of Ghanaian descent, he’s then come over from Finland and he’s been in London for five or six years now. I think he got a bit of a shock with the length of the journey up here but it’s a really good train service between here and down there, so I know he’ll settle.
“Once he gets playing football I know he’ll enjoy being here and we’ve just got to hope that transfers itself onto the pitch with his performances.
“He’s a really exciting sort of player, he’s got pace about him, he’s got an enthusiasm, he wants to come in and do well. It’s going to be a challenge for him, but he’s determined to show everybody what he can do.
“He’s got good technical ability, a decent goalscoring record – not in first-team football – and what he has to do is make this step up now.
“He’s a different type of player and as I say all the time with all loans, they’re all gambles. We never really know with loans and permanents how it will go, we’ve no real idea what’s going to happen.
“He’s enthusiastic about this, he wants to prove himself, he wants to do well, and he brings a different type of tool to what we’ve already got with our forward players because he’s got sheer pace about him.
“Technically he’s good and I’m really looking forward to seeing him with a shirt on and doing the business for us.”
And he confirmed that he’s a player who the club have been aware of for quite a while.
“We’ve known about him,” he told us. “We didn’t enquire about him last season, we didn’t look at it, but he’s a player we have been aware of.
“We made all the enquiries to different people to find out what he’s about, because we’ve all got different contacts, and we decided he’s the right one for us to come in and give us something different.
“We’ve got a mix of players at the moment, and it gives us options that he can play anywhere across that front line, play as a striker, as a wide right, wide left, whatever. He gives us a good option.
“Since losing Omari in the summer, he made the decision he wanted to leave, we’ve been lacking a little bit in that sheer pace. Hopefully Terry will show us what he’s all about.”
And it’s that explosive type of pace that could be a welcome added ingredient.
“We’ve been waiting for Dan Butterworth, and for Sean Maguire to get fully fit,” he explained. “I think both of them have shown us they’ve got that explosive power.
“I think it’s the best trick you can have in football if you’ve got pace, because it’s unplayable at times. Hopefully by having him in the group, and if he gets on, he will make teams back off a little bit and not give us space in behind.
“It’s been quite congested because we’ve been playing a lot in front of teams, hopefully he’ll give us a little bit of a new dimension. We’ve played with all different types of systems this season.
“Sometimes we’ve gone with two strikers, other times we’ve gone with two wide players and a striker, I want options in the group and he certainly gives us a different option to add to what we’ve already got.”
The transition from U21 football, coupled with the loan spell at Wimbledon, is one it’s hoped will be a relatively smooth step to take.
“There’s no way I can actually predict that he’s going to,” the gaffer admitted. “That said, there’s no way I can say any senior permanent signings are going to do it for us. Every signing you make, be it permanent or a loan, there’s a risk to it.
“We can only go off what we’ve seen and heard, and that gives us enough confidence to want to go and do it. If people knew how many enquiries we make about players, we’re talking hundreds of enquiries we make.
“There’s a lot of them who we go, you know what, that’s probably too much of a gamble and we’re not going to do it. But this one we feel it’s the right sort of risk to take, same with Luke Plange – I think Luke will really come good.
“The last couple of games when he’s come on as a sub, he’s shown a real desire to want to do well, and hopefully with Terry coming in he’ll have that same desire and show what he’s all about.
“We know people at Fulham who are working in first-team and in academy, and we also know other people who’ve watched him down there, and we’ve got our own scout in the south as well. We’ve looked into all different things.
“We do a lot of background checks on these players just to find out what sort of personality they are, how they’ll cope coming away from home. These are decisions we take with every player we bring into the club.
“None of them are guaranteed, we hope they’re going to come in and show us the ability they’ve got and what they’re capable of, and hopefully that will be the case with Tel.”
