Jol faces fight to keep Dempsey

Clint Dempsey has enjoyed the kind of season that footballers dream of, and if this was his goodbye to Craven Cottage then it was a fitting way to sign off.

The American has been simply sensational this season. A tally of 23 goals from midfield is superb, yet the worry for Fulham is that in his current surroundings he is too big a fish in too small a pond.

With a year left on his contract the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal are rumoured to be ready to test Fulham’s resolve to keep the 29-year-old. After his display here, in which he scored an outstanding free-kick to spark a series of fine goals that enlightened a game that had little riding on it, his manager, Martin Jol, admitted that keeping hold of his club’s talisman and others, such as Danny Murphy, Pavel Pogrebnyak and Mahamadou Diarra will be the major task of the summer.