The transfer window: progress made but no lessons learned

As the door slams shut, Dan Cooke reviews our transfer activity.

As is tradition, deadline day was chaos at Motspur Park. One would have thought that a 7pm deadline would have saved us from desperately refreshing our social media feeds at midnight - wrong. At time of writing we’re still awaiting confirmation of a signing, which is incredibly impressive.

So, how do I feel about our transfer window? I have no idea.

Let’s start with the positives. New contracts for a host of key players, either due to their first team status or their future potential. Kenny Tete has already demonstrated his importance so far this season and to an extent, so has Tom Cairney with his silky smooth performance in the Carabao Cup. Josh King has been man of the match in two of our first three games and I’m rapidly running out of words to describe how good he is; renewing his contract and trusting him in the starting XI has been just as good as a new signing. Then there’s Seth Ridgeon, a potential generational talent who we very nearly lost for pittance. Time will tell how important that new contract was, but early signs suggest he could be the best we’ve ever produced at Motspur Park.

Keeping Rodrigo Muniz was essential and I’m relieved that we managed to win that battle. I’m not averse to cashing in on players when a good offer comes in but the timing of the departure and the need for reinforcements elsewhere would have made this a catastrophic deal. Having seen other clubs like us lose these battles this summer, Fulham have done well to stand firm against Atalanta’s approaches.

Benjamin Lecomte was a very sensible deal. An experienced and competent backup goalkeeper who gives us a bit more assurance than Steven Benda did last season. It’s also produced a great opportunity for Benda to get some first team minutes in the Championship and a man of the match display early on this season for Millwall is a promising sign of it being a good move for him and us.

Then there’s our deadline day wingers; Samuel Chukwueze and Kevin. Exactly the sort of players we were desperate for last season. They’re direct, creative, exciting wide men, who I’m really expecting to give a vibrancy to our front line. I think there is big risk in the Kevin deal but as profile of player goes, the recruitment department and Marco have got this spot on. We now have a lovely balance of control and diligence from players like Alex Iwobi, Snith Rowe and Harry Wilson complemented with some unpredictability from our two new boys. Spot on.

Whilst writing this Kusi-Asare has officially been announced as a Fulham player. An unknown quantity, but on the face of it, a smart deal. A loan with an option to buy for a young striker, who will be earmarked to take over from Raul in what I presume is his last season at the club. At best it could be fantastic progression planning. At worst he’s not very good and we send him back to Germany. A deal that came out of nowhere and feels quite strange, but I’m definitely not mad at it.

However, then there’s the negatives. I cannot ignore, and certainly can’t condone, the way we have operated in this window. Marco Silva put out an edict for ambition ahead of this summer. In my opinion, that’s not happened. Yes, we did break our transfer record for the second season in a row, that’s significant. Despite this, we are too chaotic and too inconsistent in the way that we handle transfer windows. We operate like a club that has a part-time Director of Football. I frankly don’t care what you think, that is insane for a Premier League club that is trying to reach new heights.

There are two things that irk me most. Firstly, it’s the insistence on late deals providing value for money and therefore being the best way to do business. That’s bollocks. I’m not saying it’s totally untrue that you can make savings by leaving it late but it is also ignoring all of the other important, qualitative benefits that you get from getting your house in order early. According to the reports we saw at the start of August, Shakhtar wanted €50m for Kevin.

Based on this, we’ve saved something like €5m. Was that worth the stress? Was that worth denying Marco an additional month of preparation to get Kevin embedded into this side? Was that worth the extra attention it ended up getting meaning we couldn’t focus on other deals? Personally, it’s a resounding no to all of those questions. I actually think the time it took to secure the Chukwueze deal was an even more damning example of how much of a shambles we can be behind the scenes. We tried to sign him in January, how did it take us until September to actually make it happen?

We’ve seen it repeatedly and I’m fed up of defending our players with the phrase “I think we’ll see the best of them next year, once they’ve had a full pre-season”. This total refusal to learn our lessons is guaranteed to cost us dearly at some point.

The second issue I have is not giving one of our best managers ever the tools that he specifically wants to achieve our incredibly ambitious goals. Where’s our central midfield depth? Before Andreas left we needed either a deputy or a different profile of player for our double pivot of Lukic and Berge if we wanted to improve on last season. Now that Andreas has left, I’m baffled as to why we didn’t even appear close to signing someone for that role. It stings even more to see players like Dewsbury-Hall, who was unfortunately available before Fulham’s personal transfer window started, hit the ground running at Everton.

I understand that Alex Iwobi could be utilised in a more central role, it’s actually something that I called for, but it’s a hell of a risk. What happens if Lukic or Berge go down for an extended period of time? Iwobi might not be the solution and as much as I love Tom Cairney and Harrison Reed, we won’t achieve our lofty targets if they’re starting a substantial number of games this season.

The biggest problem that this leads to is that Marco Silva will walk at the end of this season. Now you can argue that it’s a bit of a catch 22 - we don’t want to sign players for a manager who might not be here next year, but he won’t be here unless we sign players. Expertly, we’ve picked the third option of signing players in a way that has pissed him off so much that he will leave anyway.

Barring that lack of midfield depth, I think this squad looks fantastic. We’ve got a superb balance of experience and exciting youngsters, as well as great combination of reliability and mercurial talents. It has got to be right up there with the best Fulham squad, on paper, that I’ve seen in my lifetime. I have to be happy with that. Without any of the dirty context, this has been a transfer window that I would probably give upwards of an eight out of ten.

However, I really thought this summer was a golden opportunity. Learn your lessons, back your manager, bask in the glory of being the best Fulham side ever. Instead, we’ve witnessed the same old circus that we inexplicably allow to happen. Tony Khan insisting on being the main character, receiving the plaudits despite his haphazard and negligent approach to being our Director of Football.

I passionately support Marco Silva and this squad but I cannot support how we do our business. We deserve far better.