Also some of the same people who are now sticking up for the club were the same ones saying they'd be very disappointed if we didn't forward plan and get a striker sorted early in this window.
Rinse & repeat. It's the same every window.
I'm not sticking up for the club though - I'm just saying what I think their viewpoint is.
Loans becoming permanent too?
I don't think anyone is "having a meltdown". That's the type of comment levelled at people who dare to be critical of the club, when they are clearly failing or coming up short in a certain area i.e. recruitment. It was the same in the last window when those same posters were being critical of the situation then, and were constantly told to "be patient and wait until the end of the window". Why wait? We're having a discussion.
That would depend on the player. Always prefer to have the option to buy in place, rather than potentially improving a player for someone else to benefit from. But sometimes, needs must!
And anyone who looks at it from the club point of view is accused of 'defending the club' (rinse and repeat) when I did nothing of the sort.
This is basically it.
I didn't specifically accuse you of it though, if I was I'd have quoted one of your posts.
I'd agree with this too. I think aside from mood and prize money if we're looking for someone who can just make us stronger even in the short term then that benefits the young lads too, better than developing in an imbalanced or dysfunctional side, surely?
If that is the case then criticism is justified if that plan does not bring the required result. I also question the accuracy of the line "once Raul returns". That is a huge unknown at the moment. What if he doesn't return? What if that injury doesn't heal as quickly? One additional striker would not cause a huge imbalance but it could provide good competition if the club invested in a decent level of proven quality.
I would say so. The club clearly feel the current squad is good enough not to be performing this badly though (and you'd say that is true, Nuno could undoubtedly be getting more out of them), so they are happy to roll the dice. It's just going to make people less patient come the summer, which is understandable, to address the key areas that clearly need addressing.
It's not popular and certainly wouldn't have been the strategy at the start of the season, but if the view is the season is dead, go again next year then they are probably correct. Despite all the talk on here of relegation battles 3 wins and 3 draws from 19 games will keep us up and that's giving Fulham a point a game when they are currently averaging 0.7. Is anyone seriously suggesting we won't get that? It would still involve losing 2/3 of our remaining matches. We were complacent as a club the last time we were relegated from the Prem, so yes that needs to be guarded against, but it's highly, highly unlikely we'll go down, so i can see why we'd keep our money unless it's a signing for the medium as well as the shorter term.
Clearly the club know more about Raul's potential return date and I am somewhat speculating but that's all we can do at the moment.
He's bloody awful. Just no.
I agree with this.
I see it from both sides, tbf. But we're asking a lot of a recruitment team that have struggled in the last few windows to suddenly make the perfect signings in defence, midfield and up top come the summer window. And no one really knows if the situation will be any different to now in terms of the pandemic at that point too. That's where my main issue lies, really. I understand the difficulty of finding a good option to come in and improve us up top in this window (although I still feel the recruitment team really should be able to find a striker for the right cost, be it loan or permanently, that is an improvement on Fabio & Pat).
Presuming that Cutrone doesn't develop into some kind of solution over the rest of the season I still feel some kind of forward is as much of a priority as a CM and CB. If we don't do it now I think we'd be daft not to do it in the summer.
