Michael Hector - March 2025: signed for Dagenham and Redbridge til end of season (p31)

The kind of player who would be a worthwhile addition and should be gettable for an ambitious owner who is investing a few quid into the team. Ilm sure there'd be competition, and potential championship interest but I suspect he could be swayed with the right deal and could be sold on the "project". As with so much though, it will come down to who owns us and how serious they are about taking us forwards.

Scoham said:

Cafc43v3r said:

se9addick said:

Cafc43v3r said:

se9addick said:

Oggy Red said:

Sure, money is important to most players; and in this day and age a player needs to earn well while he still can - but sometimes there are other factors that motivate.

At home he needs his wife and kids to be settled - without a move causing disharmony and disruption.
Nothing worse than an unhappy wife at home, is there? Or kids badly affected because they are missing Daddy or all their friends at school.

Also, Hector at 30, having missed most of this season and been a bench warmer all the season before that, may simply want to play at a decent level while he can. No guarantees of course, but he's playing every game now and that may appeal to him more than sitting on a Championship bench next season.

He'll need to see ambition in the club, the building blocks being put in place for a convincing drive for promotion.
If that happens, he may want to be part of that.

To be honest, he’s coming towards the last few years of his career, and given his injury history who knows precisely how long he’ll have as a professional.

selling him the dream sounds great, but really he should take the best contract he’s offered, wherever that is. Playing for a club that has nice ambitions is great, but that won’t pay the bills. 

What injury history?

Have injuries not played a role in him not playing much football in the past couple of years? My bad if not. 

Nope not at all.

It was the lack of injuries to Fulham’s first choice CB pairing that limited his appearances. Something I don’t think we’ve seen since 11/12 when we won L1 - east to forget Doherty and Mambo were 4th and 5th choice CBs, though we did have the option of short term loans back then which gave clubs more flexibility with their budget.

Is that the reason why he didn’t have a Club from May 2021 until we signed him nearly 18 months later?

Edit : posted before reading Swisdom’s post above which if true is very laudable.

LargeAddick said:

Scoham said:

Cafc43v3r said:

se9addick said:

Cafc43v3r said:

se9addick said:

Oggy Red said:

Sure, money is important to most players; and in this day and age a player needs to earn well while he still can - but sometimes there are other factors that motivate.

At home he needs his wife and kids to be settled - without a move causing disharmony and disruption.
Nothing worse than an unhappy wife at home, is there? Or kids badly affected because they are missing Daddy or all their friends at school.

Also, Hector at 30, having missed most of this season and been a bench warmer all the season before that, may simply want to play at a decent level while he can. No guarantees of course, but he's playing every game now and that may appeal to him more than sitting on a Championship bench next season.

He'll need to see ambition in the club, the building blocks being put in place for a convincing drive for promotion.
If that happens, he may want to be part of that.

To be honest, he’s coming towards the last few years of his career, and given his injury history who knows precisely how long he’ll have as a professional.

selling him the dream sounds great, but really he should take the best contract he’s offered, wherever that is. Playing for a club that has nice ambitions is great, but that won’t pay the bills. 

What injury history?

Have injuries not played a role in him not playing much football in the past couple of years? My bad if not. 

Nope not at all.

It was the lack of injuries to Fulham’s first choice CB pairing that limited his appearances. Something I don’t think we’ve seen since 11/12 when we won L1 - east to forget Doherty and Mambo were 4th and 5th choice CBs, though we did have the option of short term loans back then which gave clubs more flexibility with their budget.

Is that the reason why he didn’t have a Club from May 2021 until we signed him nearly 18 months later?

Edit : posted before reading Swisdom’s post above which if true is very laudable.

He left Fulham last summer, not 18 months ago.

There was a passage of play in the first half where it was like Hector was playing an old FIFA where the stand tackle was really strong and you could just mash X and easily rob the ball off a players feet.

Scoham said:

LargeAddick said:

Scoham said:

Cafc43v3r said:

se9addick said:

Cafc43v3r said:

se9addick said:

Oggy Red said:

Sure, money is important to most players; and in this day and age a player needs to earn well while he still can - but sometimes there are other factors that motivate.

At home he needs his wife and kids to be settled - without a move causing disharmony and disruption.
Nothing worse than an unhappy wife at home, is there? Or kids badly affected because they are missing Daddy or all their friends at school.

Also, Hector at 30, having missed most of this season and been a bench warmer all the season before that, may simply want to play at a decent level while he can. No guarantees of course, but he's playing every game now and that may appeal to him more than sitting on a Championship bench next season.

He'll need to see ambition in the club, the building blocks being put in place for a convincing drive for promotion.
If that happens, he may want to be part of that.

To be honest, he’s coming towards the last few years of his career, and given his injury history who knows precisely how long he’ll have as a professional.

selling him the dream sounds great, but really he should take the best contract he’s offered, wherever that is. Playing for a club that has nice ambitions is great, but that won’t pay the bills. 

What injury history?

Have injuries not played a role in him not playing much football in the past couple of years? My bad if not. 

Nope not at all.

It was the lack of injuries to Fulham’s first choice CB pairing that limited his appearances. Something I don’t think we’ve seen since 11/12 when we won L1 - east to forget Doherty and Mambo were 4th and 5th choice CBs, though we did have the option of short term loans back then which gave clubs more flexibility with their budget.

Is that the reason why he didn’t have a Club from May 2021 until we signed him nearly 18 months later?

Edit : posted before reading Swisdom’s post above which if true is very laudable.

He left Fulham last summer, not 18 months ago.

That and he is " always injured"  

If we want to get out of league one next season, this is exactly the sort of late 20s player we need x three or four, combined with our youngsters and a few of our better senior performers (e.g., Dobbo, Fraser, CBT…). 

Chunes said:

Why is everyone so sure he's going to a Championship club? He was available on a free and none of them took him. Not even Sheff Weds took him after having him on trial, or any of the 12 teams above us in League One at the time. He came to us on a 6-month contract, he's not exactly hot property. I think we've got a good chance. 

Plus he's a London lad that's heading into his twilight career years at 31 in July. Supposing he wants to be London based what are the realistic options above us?

Millwall, Luton, QPR and Watford at championship level, you can maybe remove one of Millwall or Luton for promotion. 

Playing regularly for us (after not for so long) puts us in with a realistic chance I'd say.

Hector has had an interesting career and clearly a few years ago was seen as a hot prospect when Chelsea came calling. Although he never played for the Blues first team his market rate doubled from £4 to £8 Million and he had productive loan spells at Frankfurt, Hull and the Massives where he won player of the year.

At Fulham it seems that he played a key role in the promotion three years ago,but they upgraded in his position and he never got back in the side over two seasons. Interestingly that wasn't through injury.

He did trial at both his former club Reading and Luton. Neither offered a deal. According to the Sheffield Star the Massives were interested after him training there but felt he needed to be match fit before they would commit to a contract.

After reading the programme article about him it appears that he is very family focussed and settled in London. Having been at Chelsea and Fulham I suspect he has done well financially. I wonder whether playing regularly would be important to him given the years he has missed. If so we tick a lot of his boxes.

I mean, he has both a higher pedigree and far more experience than Inniss. I agree he'd work well with Ness, but Inniss IS a pacier, younger centre-back! Really enjoying their partnership. We must look to sign Hector, he's exceptional 

Cafc43v3r said:

Scoham said:

LargeAddick said:

Scoham said:

Cafc43v3r said:

se9addick said:

Cafc43v3r said:

se9addick said:

Oggy Red said:

Sure, money is important to most players; and in this day and age a player needs to earn well while he still can - but sometimes there are other factors that motivate.

At home he needs his wife and kids to be settled - without a move causing disharmony and disruption.
Nothing worse than an unhappy wife at home, is there? Or kids badly affected because they are missing Daddy or all their friends at school.

Also, Hector at 30, having missed most of this season and been a bench warmer all the season before that, may simply want to play at a decent level while he can. No guarantees of course, but he's playing every game now and that may appeal to him more than sitting on a Championship bench next season.

He'll need to see ambition in the club, the building blocks being put in place for a convincing drive for promotion.
If that happens, he may want to be part of that.

To be honest, he’s coming towards the last few years of his career, and given his injury history who knows precisely how long he’ll have as a professional.

selling him the dream sounds great, but really he should take the best contract he’s offered, wherever that is. Playing for a club that has nice ambitions is great, but that won’t pay the bills. 

What injury history?

Have injuries not played a role in him not playing much football in the past couple of years? My bad if not. 

Nope not at all.

It was the lack of injuries to Fulham’s first choice CB pairing that limited his appearances. Something I don’t think we’ve seen since 11/12 when we won L1 - east to forget Doherty and Mambo were 4th and 5th choice CBs, though we did have the option of short term loans back then which gave clubs more flexibility with their budget.

Is that the reason why he didn’t have a Club from May 2021 until we signed him nearly 18 months later?

Edit : posted before reading Swisdom’s post above which if true is very laudable.

He left Fulham last summer, not 18 months ago.

That and he is " always injured"  

If we keep spreading that line, perhaps other clubs will be put off from signing him!

Richard J said:

Hector has had an interesting career and clearly a few years ago was seen as a hot prospect when Chelsea came calling. Although he never played for the Blues first team his market rate doubled from £4 to £8 Million and he had productive loan spells at Frankfurt, Hull and the Massives where he won player of the year.

At Fulham it seems that he played a key role in the promotion three years ago,but they upgraded in his position and he never got back in the side over two seasons. Interestingly that wasn't through injury.

He did trial at both his former club Reading and Luton. Neither offered a deal. According to the Sheffield Star the Massives were interested after him training there but felt he needed to be match fit before they would commit to a contract.

After reading the programme article about him it appears that he is very family focussed and settled in London. Having been at Chelsea and Fulham I suspect he has done well financially. I wonder whether playing regularly would be important to him given the years he has missed. If so we tick a lot of his boxes.

This.

Whilst I'm sure he's looking for one last good contract, don't under-estimate the value of being settled and not having to up-root your family again for a few years.

I think make a good offer and there's more than a chance he will sign.

Leuth said:

Just have to hope QPR or Millwall don't come calling. Who knows, he may even still choose us 

or Wrexham!

Callumcafc said:

Get a two year deal in front of him ASAP.

I’d be very surprised if his agent isn’t advising him to hang fire as long as possible.