Relax - Fulham have had another successful transfer window

It's time for a bit of perspective as we prepare for the rest of the season with our finalised squad.

So the dust has settled on another summer transfer window - and a pretty chaotic one at that. On a podcast, The Athletic's David Ornstein reflected on the window by saying that "every day felt like deadline day" given the amount of business taking place. I don't think he included Fulham in that description - there is only one true deadline day at Motspur Park.

While I'm negative about many things Fulham, I'm generally a bit less bothered about the way Fulham do their transfer business. I personally think that some football fans place too much importance on transfers, and don't look at the squad as a whole.

I find the talk of who 'won' and 'lost' the window a bit tedious, and don't get me started on the growing type of football fan who only seems to enjoy the transfer window and not the actual game on the pitch.

Quite often I see supporters talk about the stress of leaving all our deals to the last minute. Who exactly is stressed? You as a fan? I don't think we are in a position to moan (rightly) about ticket prices etc being too high, but then expect Fulham to just throw away millions of pounds just to save us from some stress.

I said a few weeks ago that I would judge Fulham's transfer activity on 2 September, not beforehand. By that metric Fulham have had a good window. I understand the complaints about the process, but have we got a good squad? Yes. Have we got depth in every position? Yes.

I know that there are complaints about central midfield, but it's clear that Alex Iwobi is being primed as the progressive alternative to Berge and Lukic. We also have Harrison Reed, Tom Cairney, Josh King and Harry Wilson who could all drop deeper if required.

The other rebuttal I can foresee in the comments will be along the lines of keeping Marco Silva happy. I love Marco, and I do believe his complaints are genuine, but also, it is in HIS best interests to complain.

Football management is an insecure business. Silva has credit in the bank, but if he lost five matches in a row, he'd be under severe pressure. Complaining has two clear benefits:

1) it puts pressure on the board to get him better players that help avoid the above scenario.

2) if he does lose his job, he can prove to his next employers that he wasn't backed in the market.

Ultimately, Marco doesn't care about the money because it's not his money. He probably won't even be here in two years’ time when the PSR points deduction comes through.

Of course Marco wants players ready for pre-season, but is it a massive deal that two wingers and a third-choice striker weren't in place?

Nearly every club did some sort of business on deadline day - we aren't unique in that sense. What was unique was that we only sold Andreas, and even that was done late. We had no urgent positions to fill, except back-up goalkeeper. If Kenny Tete had left and we didn't get a right-back until deadline day, then I'd understand the complaints in this regard more.

Look, don't get me wrong, I find the fact that our Director of Football runs a wrestling franchise mind-boggling. I wrote many years ago about how he should pick a lane. I hate the way that Alistair Mackintosh treats the fans, and Shahid Khan's recent interview with The Observer shows how monstrously out of touch he is with the everyday supporter.

However, many of those issues are separate from transfer activity in my opinion. In my opinion, we haven't had a bad summer transfer window since 2019, the famous 'let's buy aging Championship wingers on massive contracts' summer.

Since 2020, our squad has improved each year and in 2025 we even reduced the age profile, which was getting concerning. Sure, we never do business in January, but nor do many clubs in the top flight.

I must admit that it feels a bit like our success is more luck than judgement, but then again can five decent summers in a row be considered lucky? Maybe there is some method to our madness.