Fulham may not fancy him - but Kostas Stafylidis was welcomed back with open arms by Bayer Leverkusen last night.

The left-back’s parent club broke ranks with the notion everybody in white will have to wait until the end of the month to know their fate when Bayer tweeted a return for the Greek born player, who made 46 appearances for Fulham last season.

Stafylidis re-tweeted it, maybe as a reminder to his loan club he is valued in other parts.

The tweet said: “After a year at FC Fulham defender Konstantinos Stafylidis returns for the new season to Bayer 04. Welcome back!”

The last part was in English to emphasise the point.

The 21-year-old blew hot and cold despite a prolonged run in the team, and manager Kit Symons reckoned in February he was still working on getting the player to mark wingers more tightly.

However, Stafylidis’s goose was cooked during the 3-0 home defeat by Leeds in March (see gallery and video) when he was yellow carded twice in 30 seconds - once for dissent and the second when he clattered into Leeds’ Sam Byram on the touchline.

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The resulting melee of players saw Fulham fined £20,000 by the FA for failing to control its players.

Symons raged at the red mist that reduced the side to 10 for most of the second half.

"The sending-off didn't help. It was rash, a silly, petulant thing to do,” he said at the time.