I've tried defending Fulham, but selling Muniz makes no sense

The far safer option is to stick rather than twist.

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This has been the longest summer I ever remember as a Fulham fan. That final game against Manchester City feels like a lifetime ago. Here we are on the eve of the new season and a lovely little trip down to Brighton, yet it feels like Fulham fans are verging on all-out war. According to The Athletic, we are the fourth most pessimistic supporters right now.

I have always been glass half-full when it comes to Fulham'; I don’t know why, but I’m just a little bit of a football manifester. I even thought Felix Magath might work when we first brought him in. It’s an approach that has mixed results, as you’d imagine.

Therefore, I’ve spent most of this summer generally being pretty positive about our (lack of) transfer business. Sure, I know I’m always moaning about off-pitch issues, but in all honesty, I think this window has been mostly fine up until now because we’ve kept the core group together.

We do need extra bodies, but we have two players for every position, and I understood the logic of waiting until later in the window to pick up reinforcements and/or upgrades for a cut-down price. Unless it’s an essential player you need, I don’t really see a massive difference between signing a player in mid-August rather than at the end of August, especially if it means saving a significant transfer fee.

My feelings were somewhat similar of Archie Rhind-Tutt’s, who posted this thread on X yesterday.

Over the last few weeks, the Rodrigo Muniz rumours have been bubbling away and again, in my head, I’ve not been treating them too seriously. There’s no way we would let him go to Leeds United and Atalanta? Sure, they’re in the Champions League, but is going to play for Ivan Juric that much of an upgrade? As Jack mentioned on the podcast, if it was to play for the formidable Gian Piero Gasperini, then you’d maybe understand.

In the last couple of days however, these rumours have got way more serious and it looks like this deal actually could go through. I still have a lingering bit of faith/hope that we will look to save this at the last second with a new contract, as I mentioned in this tweet earlier on Wednesday.

Of course, I’m very much hoping for a Palhinha 2.0 scenario - where Fulham pull back Rodrigo from the brink of leaving with a bumper new contract that makes him one of the highest paid at the club. In Palhinha’s case, it only meant that he stayed one more season, but at least we got a better fee for him when he did leave.

Rodrigo is in a particularly unique situation where he’s proven(ish) at Premier League level, but is still on the salary of a back-up Championship striker. If you were his agent, you’d be pulling every trick in the book to make sure your client received the salary that he/they deemed fair. Getting a potential suitor such as Atalanta, who have money to spend after selling Mateo Retegui to Saudi for best part of £60m, is exactly what you want.

However, this tweet on Wednesday from Jackman Scoop (Kelly) - suggests that there’s a bit more to this than just posturing and brinkmanship.

If this is true and we are letting Rodrigo go, then I’ve lost track of the logic here and I can’t defend this summer’s business any longer.

We are three days out from the start of the season, and our only striker available is Raul Jimenez. We found out badly at the end of last season, that having Raul as your only option is not a strategy that works particularly well. Raul is a perfect striker to have in the squad, but he has rarely shown signs that he can deliver across a full 90 minutes.

Of course, we will look to use the Atalanta money to bring somebody else in, although lest we forget that we have to give a chunk of that money to Rodrigo’s old club Flamengo.

However, I just do not have faith that we are going to replace Muniz with somebody of adequate quality. The striker market feels tougher than ever and even if we do find somebody, it’s a complete gamble as to whether they are going to fit in with Marco’s system so late in the window.

We have done all the hard yards with Rodrigo. We were there at Stoke when he showed us that flash of potential but failed to recreate it regularly; we watched from afar as he struggled to even make the team at Middlesbrough; we were there during that incredible scoring run in early 2024 and of course, we were there at Stamford Bridge when he wrote himself into folklore.

The only thing we haven’t seen, is Rodrigo trusted as the number nine for a full season. This year was that year. The year where Rodrigo gets his proper chance to be that guy for us. He’s fully settled, loved by his teammates and loved by the Fulham fanbase.

I know the risk is that we give Muniz a big new contract, he fails to deliver and then the big money offer dies away - I can’t sit here and write that there’s 0% chance of that happening. Even if it did though - a 25 year old striker with PL goalscoring experience is still going to attract decent value next summer.

Maybe it’s a case that Rodrigo is desperate for the move, but I really can’t see it. I recognise that Atalanta is an upgrade, but surely it’s not that much of an upgrade on starting up front for a mid-table Premier League team that you’re already settled at. With Mitrovic, ultimately it came down to money and therefore Fulham’s hands were tied - but I find it hard to believe that this is a dream move that Muniz can’t turn down.

Whatever the club decides, there is risk attached, but I really think the far safer option is to stick rather than twist.