Premier League Preview No7: Fulham

guardian.co.uk writers' prediction: 15th Odds: 1,000-1

One of the most amusing quirks of the early stages of a new season is that often, for a few precious weeks, someone totally preposterous can boast of being the Premier League's top scorer. Who amongst us can keep a straight face when thinking back to August 2005, for example, when the country's deadliest predator was ... Geoff Horsfield?

At the same point the following season the nation's most prolific marksman was Bobby Zamora, who in the first four games struck five goals, mostly miscued efforts that bobbled in off his arse. He failed to find the net for the next 18 matches but rediscovered his killer touch sufficiently to bring his overall tally to a top-flight career best of 11. Respectable, but hardly enough to convince you the West Ham cast-off is the man to score the goals that will save Fulham from another harrowing relegation fight. Which, of course, is why Roy Hodgson has just signed Andrew Johnson.

Two of the teams that went down last season did so despite scoring more goals than Fulham. Though the Premier League records of Zamora and Johnson are patchy, Roy Hodgson can be confident that prosecuting pundits won't use their signings as evidence against him in the way they did Kevin Davies' a decade ago at Blackburn (signed for £7.5m, Davies didn't score a single goal during Hodgson's tenure).

Johnson still has the speed to terrorize defenses (and a much greater work-rate than the disappointing Diomansy Kamara, who's only marginally less dynamic now that he's injured) and if Hodgson can restore the confidence that appears to have been dented at Everton, he could recapture his Crystal Palace form. Unlike Johnson, Zamora was not bought to hit the target so much as to be a target; his physicality, endeavor and ability to hold the ball up could make him an adequate replacement for Brian McBride, who was a highly useful forward despite never getting into double figures in a Premier League season.

Behind that strike force will be a midfield full of invention and industry, though it's still short of a reliable threat on the left. The ''Jimmy Bullard back to Wigan'' story was one of the strangest of the summer and it's hard to believe Hodgson ever had any intention of letting go of a player whose return from injury last season was central to the club's last-gasp survival (stat alert: at 83%, Bullard had a better pass completion rate than luminaries such as Cesc Fabregas and Steven Gerrard).

Danny Murphy will always create chances, particularly as he's become so enamored of Hodgson's style, both in terms of the type of football he strives to play and his anti-Benítez willingness to encourage players to share their tactical thoughts. Zoltan Gera should prove to be another smart acquisition and Simon Davies can again be expected to penetrate down the right. In addition to creating chances, that's a midfield that should weigh in with a decent share of goals.

At the back, Fulham should be more solid than under Lawrie Sanchez. They'll be taller at least, which is a good start considering that no team conceded more goals from headers than them last season; giant Norwegian Brede Hangeland gradually shored things up when he arrived in January, with the relatively quick Aaron Hughes compensating for his lack of pace. Cover for that pair remains short, however. In goal summer signing Mark Schwarzer is a slight upgrade on Kasey Keller, and both John Pantsil and Fredrik Stoor have been brought in to beef up the right-back berth.

It's never easy to pre-judge a team who've been revamped so quickly and that's perhaps the main reason why Fulham were the side that provoked the widest range of opinion among guardian.co.uk writers - the prediction you see at the top of this piece masks the fact that the seven scribes surveyed forecast very varied finishes, from ninth to 18th. This one reckons Hodgson is an excellent team-builder and therefore thinks Danny Murphy will achieve his goal, which he recently described thus: "We're probably not going to go straight from fighting relegation to challenging for a European place so realistically - though it sounds naff - mid-table obscurity wouldn't be a bad achievement."

In: Mark Schwarzer (Middlesbrough - free), Bobby Zamora & John Pantsil (West Ham - £6.3m combined), Zoltan Gera (West Brom - free), Andranik Teymourian (Bolton - free), Toni Kallio (BSC Young Boys - free) David Stockdale (Darlington - undisclosed), Fredrik Stoor (Rosenborg - £4m), Pascal Zuberbühler (free), Andy Johnson (Everton - undisclosed).

Out: Carlos Bocanegra (released), Jari Litmanen (released), Philippe Christanval (released), Simon Elliott (released), Ian Pearce (released), Michael Timlin (released), Ismael Ehui (released), Bjorn Runstrom (released), Brian McBride (Chicago Fire - free), Tony Warner (Hull - free), Dejan Stefanovic (Norwich - undisclosed), Elliot Omozusi (Norwich - loan), Batista (Sporting Lisbon - £100,000).