‘That would have been too much of a fairytale’: Fulham’s €12m Austrian centre-back on Anfield, LaLiga and the London he hasn’t seen
David Affengruber admits even he did not see this coming. Two and a half months after a deadline-week move from Elche, the Austrian centre-back is a fixture in the Fulham defence and has an international goal to his name.
Speaking in Vienna on Thursday, where he is with Austria for the Nations League, the 25-year-old looked back on a whirlwind autumn. “Nobody could have expected everything to work out like this,” he said.
According to the Kronen Zeitung, Affengruber also spoke about his Anfield debut, the step up from LaLiga and why he has barely seen London since arriving.
How did David Affengruber end up at Fulham?
The defender from Lower Austria made the switch at the end of August, just before the window shut, in a reported €12m deal from Elche. He had joined the Spanish side from Sturm Graz in 2024 and quickly became a fan favourite there.
It is not the first time his name has come up in England. Elche’s defender was on Manchester United’s radar a year ago, as we covered when United were monitoring Affengruber, but it was Alvaro Arbeloa’s side who got the deal done.
An Anfield debut that nearly became a fairytale
His first game for the club came away at Liverpool in early September, and Fulham left with a 0-0 draw. They came close to winning it, but as Affengruber put it: “That would have been too much of a fairytale,” he said.
That display helped make him a regular straight away, which is rare so soon after joining a Premier League club. He insists it was always the idea. “The plan was that it should work if I made a move,” he explained.
Later that month he scored his first goal for Austria, in a 3-1 win over Kosovo in Vienna.
Are Fulham finally turning a corner?
The results have followed the minutes. Fulham opened the league season with two defeats and two draws, but have taken eight points from their last four matches and sit 15th going into the break, a run that ended with the 1-1 draw with Newcastle at Craven Cottage.
“We have performed well recently and we are in a reasonably good position now,” Affengruber said. We looked at how that improvement was taking shape before Aston Villa vs Fulham at the end of October.
Premier League vs LaLiga: what is the difference?
Asked to compare the two leagues, Affengruber said the Premier League is quicker and rougher. “It’s more physical and faster. There is more back and forth. In Spain it is more about control with the ball; in the Premier League mistakes are punished harder,” he explained.
Life away from the pitch has changed too. “In Spain I was very spoiled by the weather, it was a different lifestyle, a different culture. That is the nice thing about our job, that we get to live in lots of places and experience lots of cultures.”
Sightseeing has had to wait, though. More than two months in, he admitted: “I haven’t seen much of London yet.”
Bench role likely for Austria
For now the focus is on Austria’s Nations League game against the Republic of Ireland in Linz on Saturday. “It is a big advantage for us to play at home. In Ireland we turned 0-2 into 2-2, now we have everything in our own hands,” the former Sturm Graz man said.
Despite his weekly Premier League football, he is expected to start that one on the bench, such is the competition at centre-back. “Basically that is good for the national team. Everyone has what it takes to play, you have to earn it in training,” he said.
Fulham’s best bit of summer business?
A reported €12m for a centre-back who walked into the side at Anfield and has stayed there looks like a bargain already. The upturn in Fulham’s form has come with Affengruber at the back, and his own words suggest a player who is settled, hungry and not getting carried away.
The bigger test comes in the winter, when the games pile up and the pace he talks about never lets up. If he handles that the way he handled Anfield, Arbeloa may have found the defender he builds around.