Fulham Football Club are breathing a sigh of relief after Maarten Stekelenburg moved to St Mary's on loan as its saved them a fortune.

As the West London club prepare for a second season in the Championship after their relegation from the Premier League a little over a year ago, they are relived that they are able to move Maarten Stekelenburg down to Southampton on a season long loan.

On the face of it the Dutch keeperwould have been the most experienced on the Fulham books, but with five other keepers on the roster and Stekelenburg the highest paid on an alleged £1.2 million a year, the Cottagers need to put financial pruning before building a side to gain promotion.

Put bluntly they can't afford to keep Stekelenburg and they are praying that he will be a hit on the South Coast as he still has a further year left to run on his contract after 2015/16 season ends.

There is also the small issue of whether he would have been chosen ahead of Marcus Bentinelli who played most of the games last season and if Fulham could ill have afforded a first team keeper at over £23k a week then they certainly couldn't have afforded to pay that much for Stekelenburg to sit on the bench.

Saints swift move for the keeper has saved a few harsh moments down at Craven Cottage as Fulham would have almost certainly "encouraged " the Dutchman to find another club, whether Saints are picking up all of Stekelenburg's wages or have got him at a lower rate with Fulham taking up the slack is unclear.

Hopefully Stekelenburg will have the opportunity to kick start his career and he follows a number of his predecessors in the Saints goal who have arrived at the club with a cloud over their ability who have gone on to play a vital part both short term and long term, Dave Beasant in the 90's arrived with his reputation in tatters and did OK for Saints, likewise Kelvin Davis who was shell shocked from Sunderland and took two years to find any sort of form. Richard Wright was another who did a great job albeit in a short period but probably did more than most to keep Saints up in 2008.

So hopefully Maarten Stekelenburg will follow in their footsteps and play a big part in the coming season.

Photo: Action Images

dirk_doone added 17:55 - Jun 23 To be honest, their fans seem very pleased to get rid of him. His time with them has been a disaster, during which he's conceded a lot of soft goals. They are only unhappy that's it's not a permanent deal. I hope that we are not going to rely on him as our first choice goalkeeper for a large part of next season. As John Terry said about Arsenal possibly signing Cech, a good goalkeeper is worth 15 points to a team. I'd add that a a bad one can cost a team even more points than that.

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corkcitysaint added 18:39 - Jun 23 I imagine he was signed / came in the belief that he would be 1st choice for sure until FF is back and fit. Our signings haven't been too bad under RK so far so I will keep the faith and trust in the scouting!
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amsterdamsaint added 19:21 - Jun 23 Great keeper in 2010 for Netherlands. Good signing in my opinion. I am pleased.
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GeordieSaint added 20:23 - Jun 23 You have to remember the season Fulham went down they had at least 3 managers. Magath who finished the season obviously didn't rate him but that doesn't mean he is no good. If we had signed a lad who had 50 caps for holland 3 years ago everybody would have been doing cartwheels. 20 g a week fits easily within the wage structure, let's hope we can get his carrel back on track. We need one of those give us some money if he is any good clauses that they had with Toby.

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cheltenhamsaint added 11:22 - Jun 24 Fulham were a very poor side in the year they were relegated, descending into chaos and eventually farce under Magath. What I saw of Stekelenburg, including our win at The Cottage, is that he looked dispirited by the whole situation, including the (lack of) defence in front of him, and was not able to rise above it reflecting in his poor performances. Undoubtedly a good keeper if he gets himself focussed and motivated for the new challenge that lies ahead of him.

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