Terence Kongolo completed his move to Fulham last night following months of speculation linking them and the player. The deal represents a significant loss from the £18m Huddersfield Town spent on the defender a couple of seasons ago but at least gets him off the wage bill.
The deal was only confirmed hours after the five pm deadline after many had thought the deal could have fallen through at the last minute. Thankfully it all went through OK in the end and Huddersfield Town have offloaded another one of their expensive signings that didn’t work out.
Here are my thoughts on Terence Kongolo and whether this transfer is a good move or not. It’s easiest to break Kongolo’s time down into three periods to properly sum up his time at Town.
Kongolo’s early day at Huddersfield
When Kongolo came in on loan from Monaco he looked like one of the best defenders I’ve ever seen play for Town. Athletic, strong, quick good going forward and able to time a tackle. In a team that severely lacked quality, he looked a cut above the players around him on the pitch.
He looked best as a left-sided central defender and had a knack for making goal-saving last ditch tackles. He also took pressure off the team by being able to venture forward with the ball at his feet.
It seemed like a reasonably decent acquisition when we broke our transfer record to make his loan permanent in the following summer. While it was a major outlay, it seemed more likely he would grow in value while at Town rather than decline. Sadly that didn’t come to pass.
The second Premier League season
Kongolo was far from our worst player in the season when we went down but he didn’t seem to shine like he had done during his loan spell. Maybe those loan performances were partly motivated by a desire to get a permanent move and he didn’t need to try so hard once he’d got his deal.
Huddersfield Town were a pretty miserable team that season and the funk that settled in around the club seemed to drag down the whole squad’s levels compared to the season before. Kongolo was just one of many that went from over performing to under performing and it didn’t help when David Wagner left and Jan Siewert came in.
Kongolo’s last season at Huddersfield Town
I was genuinely surprised by Kongolo last season. His performances for Huddersfield Town were absolutely awful and his body language suggested a player that didn’t care he wasn’t putting in enough effort.
I don’t know what went on behind the scenes during the summer 2019 trader window but Kongolo was heavily linked with a move to Aston Villa and it was reported at the time that we were pushing hard to get the best fee for Kongolo (no change there then). Villa turned their attention elsewhere and Kongolo was told he would have to remain in Huddersfield.
My suspicion is that the big Dutchman took his bat home after he didn’t get the move he wanted and couldn’t be bothered to play for Town. This is the only reason I can think of to explain why such a good player played so poorly last season when up against far less challenging opposition than in the Premier League.
The peak moment of Kongolo’s dire 2019 / 20 season came in the Bristol away game. I travelled to Bristol to watch the game and was genuinely disgusted by how Kongolo seemed to not care about how he was consistently beaten by Bristol city’s attackers. I would say it’s one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen by a Huddersfield Town defender in my time of watching them (and I remember Efe Sodje’s memorable moments!).
If I was a Fulham fan I’d be slightly worried about whether Kongolo will be willing to stick around if they go down this season. He’s likely to do a good job when he feels lived and is playing in the Premier League but I’m not sure how he’ll cope if things don’t go his way.
Is Kongolo an injury risk?
The foot injury that Kongolo suffered during his loan at Fulham last season needed two lots of surgery and a load of metalwork to fix, so there’s a question mark over how he will recover. However, my suspicion is that he’s closer to match fitness than Huddersfield Town have admitted to because they didn’t want to risk injuring a player that was on his way out of the door.
More generally, Kongolo did pick up a lot of niggling muscle injuries while at Town. Even when he was playing week-in week-out he would usually hobble off the pitch holding his thigh or calf. I think his style of play leads to picking up knocks and over stretching muscles and he’s regularly battling to stay fit.
All players are at risk of picking up an injury and the broken foot he suffered last season was just bad luck. I believe he’s most of the way to being fit and if he can pass a medical then I think he’ll not be too far from featuring for Fulham.
TerrierSpirit.com opinion on Kongolo’s move to Fulham
I’m a bit disappointed that we’ve not been able to get a higher transfer fee for a player of such obvious quality. His shoddy attitude in the closing stages of his Huddersfield Town career and the doubt surrounding his recovery from a nasty foot injury have negatively affected his value, so it’s probably the best deal we could have expected.
I have a feeling that Kongolo will be able to recapture the form he showed for Huddersfield Town during our Premier League days once he’s at a club where he feels loved. However, I’m not sure he’ll hang around if Fulham fail to retain their Premier League status this season.
I think it all went wrong for Kongolo in the Spurs game, he bust a gut getting back but went down in a heap just prior to them scoring.
I don’t think from that point he’s ever truly been the same player.
I do feel sorry for him though and I think we may have soured him because he has been played out of position so long.
Left side central defender absolutely.
He can defend in the centre of the pitch, and he was athletic getting back for a last ditch tackle.
However to constantly play him at left back was a joke, he wasn’t good enough there isolated against quality attackers and his play as a wing back going forward was so poor.
Can anyone ever remember an overlapping run that came to anything or even a quality cross into the box ?
I think management failed him and they fell into that trap I hate, someone who is athletic and pacy can be on the wing.
They do it all the time with attackers, and now they’re trying to do it for wing backs.
Just because you have pace doesn’t mean you can take a man on and cross a ball.
Whatever happened to Kongolo is a shame, he had all the tools, but I’m sceptical he will ever be the player he promised to be, and if he’s not used as a centre back he won’t last long .
For me though something went missing that day against Spurs.
Fair points John. I’ve always thought his ability has been there but his mentality has been wrong for a long time. A fresh start at a new club could be the change he needs to start playing well again. He’ll want to get into the Dutch national team for the Euros next summer (if they happen).
I didn’t particularly mind him as a left back but that’s possibly because I was comparing him to Scott Malone’s exploits. He always looked more comfortable in central defence.