Winter Silly Season Transfer Thread 2025/2026

[Super Mick]

https://x.com/FulhamTransfer/status/2018331828243902869

What a joke.

Clowns in recruitment

[junior white]

Mateta to AC Milan is off, go for him on loan or lo ball wolves for Strand Larsen lol

[jayffc]

Joe Samsom, from Fulhamish podcast, very well
 I agree with everything
https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334004001308912

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334007222497507

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018335208148275436

Failed move for George? No
Didn't fail, we opted not to take the move because Wilson stayed.

Failed for Nuameh? - behave, he cried the deal off and we immediately moved for Nelson
Failed for Coufal (lol) Hammers blocked the deal. (thank f***)
Celik? was vague rumours - who cares, rather Castagne and Tete.
Chukwueze evidently not able to get over the line then...now plays for us.
No mention of us getting chuk for a good deal late? Bobb late in window after plenty negotiation? Sometimes it works, sometimes not. We've offered very good fees for pepi since December by all accounts

"You can never convince me this is the way to do business" says people who've never negotiated a football transfer nor anything remotely in the same ballpark in their life. The authority people talk with with barely any inside info on clubs finances or internal dealings.

Look, it's definately a risky strategy, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. Loads of deals are being reported on around the league today saying it's too late etc. not only fulham.

It's reasonable, nay logical, to assume the club have found historically that it has generally worked out favourably for them personally more often than not. Usually that's why people end up doing things how they do them. As they've seen it work. It definately comes with risk, and fine to be frustrated when it doesn't land as we'd hoped. Reasonable to point out that Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. But the definitive hyperbole is much. Every club could do an endless list of transfers that "failed" for gods sake.

Either way, Fulham are 8th currently and remaining as competitive as a club our size has ever been. We're all just mouthy back street drivers.

UTF

[rusty shackleford]

A wrestling agent leaked tony khans phone number last night if anyone wants to give him a wee ring and ask him whats happening

[JoeS]

Joe Samsom, from Fulhamish podcast, very well
 I agree with everything
https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334004001308912

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334007222497507

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018335208148275436

Failed move for George? No
Didn't fail, we opted not to take the move because Wilson stayed.

Failed for Nuameh? - behave, he cried the deal off and we immediately moved for Nelson
Failed for Coufal (lol) Hammers blocked the deal. (thank f***)
Celik? Vague rumours - who cares, rather Castagne and Tete.
Chukwueze evidently not able to get over the line then...now plays for us.
No mention of us getting chuk for a good deal late? Bobb late in window after plenty negotiation? Sometimes it works, sometimes not. We've offered very good fees for pepi since December

"You can never convince me this is the way to do business" says people who'd never negotiated a footbal transfer nor anything remotely in the same ballpark in their life. Spare me.

Look, it's definately a risky strategy, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. Loads of deals are being reported on around the league today saying it's too late etc. not only fulham.

It's reasonable, nay logical, to assume the club have found historically that it has generally worked out favourably for them personally more often than not. Usually that's why people end up doing things how they do them. As they've seen it work. It comes with risk, Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't

Either way, Fulham are 8th currently and remaining as competitive as a club our size has ever been. We're all just mouthy back street drivers.

These are my twitter posts so just to confirm...

Nuamah - why did we not check if the player wanted to come before spending all-day on it? Yes we got Nelson without an option to buy, whereas Nuamah was a permanent deal aiming for a longer-term strategy.

Celik/Coufal - we needed a right back as Tete was injured and Castagne was underperforming, not saying either of these would pull up trees but we had zero depth at the time. Both were very last-minute, short-term options and we still failed to get it done.

Chukwueze - we tried for him deadline day last January. Yes he now plays for us, but we waited the ENTIRE summer window to get that done, meaning he wasn't involved in matchday squads til mid-September, whereas he could have been the previous February if we moved sooner. Imagine how useful he'd have been in last year's European push.

As for Pepi, if rumours are to be believed we haggled over circa £800k for around a week, then bid OVER his original asking price the day prior to the deadline. Is that sensible? We could have bid less than that on 1st January and likely got close to a deal, especially as it would have given PSV time to sort a replacement.

I take your point that some negotiations have been good (e.g. Bobb), but in my opinion they are few and far between, and we often leave deals late (Kevin, Chukwueze) for no real benefit. We met the original asking price for both in the Summer...

[Mullers OG]

We can't have everything we want. Clubs won't sell, players don't want to come, overpriced, injury prone etc. Yes a CM would be good but it's got to be the right one at the right price and willing to come. Not easy.

Bobb in, Traore out. Excellent business and a huge upgrade.

[jayffc]

Joe Samsom, from Fulhamish podcast, very well
 I agree with everything
https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334004001308912

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334007222497507

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018335208148275436

Failed move for George? No
Didn't fail, we opted not to take the move because Wilson stayed.

Failed for Nuameh? - behave, he cried the deal off and we immediately moved for Nelson
Failed for Coufal (lol) Hammers blocked the deal. (thank f***)
Celik? Vague rumours - who cares, rather Castagne and Tete.
Chukwueze evidently not able to get over the line then...now plays for us.
No mention of us getting chuk for a good deal late? Bobb late in window after plenty negotiation? Sometimes it works, sometimes not. We've offered very good fees for pepi since December

"You can never convince me this is the way to do business" says people who'd never negotiated a footbal transfer nor anything remotely in the same ballpark in their life. Spare me.

Look, it's definately a risky strategy, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. Loads of deals are being reported on around the league today saying it's too late etc. not only fulham.

It's reasonable, nay logical, to assume the club have found historically that it has generally worked out favourably for them personally more often than not. Usually that's why people end up doing things how they do them. As they've seen it work. It comes with risk, Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't

Either way, Fulham are 8th currently and remaining as competitive as a club our size has ever been. We're all just mouthy back street drivers.

These are my twitter posts so just to confirm...

Nuamah - why did we not check if the player wanted to come before spending all-day on it? Yes we got Nelson without an option to buy, whereas Nuamah was a permanent deal aiming for a longer-term strategy.

Celik/Coufal - we needed a right back as Tete was injured and Castagne was underperforming, not saying either of these would pull up trees but we had zero depth at the time. Both were very last-minute, short-term options and we still failed to get it done.

Chukwueze - we tried for him deadline day last January. Yes he now plays for us, but we waited the ENTIRE summer window to get that done, meaning he wasn't involved in matchday squads til mid-September, whereas he could have been the previous February if we moved sooner. Imagine how useful he'd have been in last year's European push.

As for Pepi, if rumours are to be believed we haggled over circa £800k for around a week, then bid OVER his original asking price the day prior to the deadline. Is that sensible? We could have bid less than that on 1st January and likely got close to a deal, especially as it would have given PSV time to sort a replacement.

I take your point that some negotiations have been good (e.g. Bobb), but in my opinion they are few and far between, and we often leave deals late (Kevin, Chukwueze) for no real benefit. We met the original asking price for both in the Summer...

Nuameh - do you know we didn't? How? His agent evidently got him as far as our treatment room.
Regardless in this instance we'd already negotiated a backup. Having not got Nuameh we quickly pivoted to another we had interest in..... Now we now have Chukwueze, Kevin, Bobb and Wilson as our wide options, s*** happens. Fortunately we managed our highest ever points total in history and are 8th now, so it didn't work out so badly

Celik or Coufal. No one is losing sleep over this. It wasn't an important deal,Castagne has done well enough for a backup RB. Certainly no evidence from the former mentioned careers since that it was worth these guys being on payroll. And again West Ham randomly blocked Coufal last second according to his own words. Celik was only ever loosely linked.

Chuk - again how do you know what conversations went on behind the scenes? We've been linked with him for a while, and we have zero idea what enquiries about availability were had - nor what answers we had back. So talking definitively about it seems pointless to me. Utlimately he wasn't available in the end at that point. We now have him and at a good price. You may recall the reports that Milan were short for attackers and werent willing to let him go till they had a replacement for a specific match this summer... immediately after that match he was on a plane to London. So seems that was likely the case.

We've just heard that Man city have been bery much aware of our interest in Bobb for a long time - none of us knew those talks had taken place behind the scenes over the years. Same goes for Chuk or other targets that aren't always possible when we first want them.

IF rumours are to be beleived about Pepi regarding 800k, sure it's frustrating to a point - but if they were actually interested in selling, equally why the f wouldntthey be negotiating optons themesleves in case. we've been negotiating since before Jan allegedly- supposedly offering deals, from the same sources, since December. And they weren't exactly low ball offers. This isn't a Bayern situation (not even the biggest clubs fail last minute sometimes)...PSV had ample time to explore the market to line up options, they weren't that bothered enough to do it, even when we were fractions under. It was clearly obvious our interest was serious, they didn't look for a replacement or couldn't find one. That's their perogative but they've known about this interest since last window and have been rejected several increased bids.

In this case of striker - it seems we didn't need to necessarily line up another deal with Muniz returning. IF this is the player they ultimately are wanting theres no point buying another for the sake of it imo. I wanted pepi to come off too, I'm disappointed it hasn't worked out, but I also think it's been abundently clear our interest was serious all window, and PSV IF they were willing to actually sell, didn't need an extra alleged "800k" to bother start looking around at options themselves we were already offering alot of money. Incidentally I think we should have been playing Chuk from day one. That's a Silva issue I'll never really get, plenty other teams play players early to good effect. In every early Cameo Chuk has had he's looked as good as he has been since

My main back seat whine is I do wish we'd got a CM. But I also think between Iwobi and TC and Lukic when he returns we're also not in a desperate enough spot to buy if the right deal isn't there for the right player.

[FFC1987]

Look, some posters just won't accept this the last window, or even this one has its flaws, and some might, but will downplay them into oblivion so its a pointless circle jerk that will no doubt accumulate another 50 pages.

My standpoint in short is, its a failure in the process when profiles are selected and positions allocated time and resource to fill, aren't being filled across multiple windows. Relying on January windows to cover shortcomings in summer windows will always be risky, and time adverse. You either pay the premiums, or you lose out on say, the best damn manager we've had in a long time (or ever in some views).

Time will tell. Silva may have come across as happy when he was being told we had irons in the fire and Bobb over the line, but he's never been quiet on the desire for more and 'being aligned' on what we needed.

[hopper]

We know for a fact that if you leave things to a final day that it leaves little to no recourse for correction. Whilst it admittedly does work at times, I think the risk is greater than the reward in leaning on it so heavily.

We shouldn't leave things to final day for signings we regard as fundamental, it makes more sense to take that course of action for squad depth type signings.

[JoeS]

The facts are Silva publicly came out and asked for a Central midfielder in the Summer and we didn't get one. I accept things can happen outside of our control as part of the reason why we failed to get one

That being said, we're now in January (well...February) and we have lost Lukic to a reasonably long-term injury so have even less depth in midfield, and yet it looks as if we won't be getting anyone in? I find this hard to accept when we clearly have money to spend and a lot to play for

[hopper]

Look, some posters just won't accept this the last window, or even this one has its flaws, and some might, but will downplay them into oblivion so its a pointless circle jerk that will no doubt accumulate another 50 pages.

My standpoint in short is, its a failure in the process when profiles are selected and positions allocated time and resource to fill, aren't being filled across multiple windows. Relying on January windows to cover shortcomings in summer windows will always be risky, and time adverse. You either pay the premiums, or you lose out on say, the best damn manager we've had in a long time (or ever in some views).

Time will tell. Silva may have come across as happy when he was being told we had irons in the fire and Bobb over the line, but he's never been quiet on the desire for more and 'being aligned' on what we needed.

Yeah agreed. Often the discussion leads nowhere, it's very rare unfortunately that people respect other opinions or adjust on a point made I feel.

I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation too. I feel we're good at identifying targets and the players we bring in have a very good success rate - so give credit for that, but I have definite question marks over the operations which would appear to be fairly unprofessional.

[Chi_FFC]

Joe Samsom, from Fulhamish podcast, very well
 I agree with everything
https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334004001308912

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334007222497507

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018335208148275436

Failed move for George? No
Didn't fail, we opted not to take the move because Wilson stayed.

Failed for Nuameh? - behave, he cried the deal off and we immediately moved for Nelson
Failed for Coufal (lol) Hammers blocked the deal. (thank f***)
Celik? Vague rumours - who cares, rather Castagne and Tete.
Chukwueze evidently not able to get over the line then...now plays for us.
No mention of us getting chuk for a good deal late? Bobb late in window after plenty negotiation? Sometimes it works, sometimes not. We've offered very good fees for pepi since December

"You can never convince me this is the way to do business" says people who'd never negotiated a footbal transfer nor anything remotely in the same ballpark in their life. Spare me.

Look, it's definately a risky strategy, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. Loads of deals are being reported on around the league today saying it's too late etc. not only fulham.

It's reasonable, nay logical, to assume the club have found historically that it has generally worked out favourably for them personally more often than not. Usually that's why people end up doing things how they do them. As they've seen it work. It comes with risk, Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't

Either way, Fulham are 8th currently and remaining as competitive as a club our size has ever been. We're all just mouthy back street drivers.

These are my twitter posts so just to confirm...

Nuamah - why did we not check if the player wanted to come before spending all-day on it? Yes we got Nelson without an option to buy, whereas Nuamah was a permanent deal aiming for a longer-term strategy.

Celik/Coufal - we needed a right back as Tete was injured and Castagne was underperforming, not saying either of these would pull up trees but we had zero depth at the time. Both were very last-minute, short-term options and we still failed to get it done.

Chukwueze - we tried for him deadline day last January. Yes he now plays for us, but we waited the ENTIRE summer window to get that done, meaning he wasn't involved in matchday squads til mid-September, whereas he could have been the previous February if we moved sooner. Imagine how useful he'd have been in last year's European push.

As for Pepi, if rumours are to be believed we haggled over circa £800k for around a week, then bid OVER his original asking price the day prior to the deadline. Is that sensible? We could have bid less than that on 1st January and likely got close to a deal, especially as it would have given PSV time to sort a replacement.

I take your point that some negotiations have been good (e.g. Bobb), but in my opinion they are few and far between, and we often leave deals late (Kevin, Chukwueze) for no real benefit. We met the original asking price for both in the Summer...

Celik or Coufal. No one is losing sleep over this? It wasn't an important deal,Castagne has done well enough for a backup RB. Certainly no evidence from the former mentioned careers since that it was worth these guys being on payroll. And again West Ham randomly blocked Coufal last second according to his own words

Yeah, this is a particularly odd complaint (for a number of reasons), but I also have to take issue with the assertion that Castagne was "underperforming". He was a very solid performer for us last season (as he has been this season). Hell, Fulham averaged more ppg last season in matches started by Timmy than in matches started by Kenny.

[FFC1987]

We know for a fact that if you leave things to a final day that it leaves little to no recourse for correction. Whilst it admittedly does work at times, I think the risk is greater than the reward in leaning on it so heavily.

We shouldn't leave things to final day for signings we regard as fundamental, it makes more sense to take that course of action for squad depth type signings.

Whilst I do think there's a small element of this, this window has demonstrated that we were in for players earlier, certainly with Bobb, and to some extent with Pepi though so this is worse for me because its not that we waited too late, its that we just haven't got it done.

[Super Mick]

We know for a fact that if you leave things to a final day that it leaves little to no recourse for correction. Whilst it admittedly does work at times, I think the risk is greater than the reward in leaning on it so heavily.

We shouldn't leave things to final day for signings we regard as fundamental, it makes more sense to take that course of action for squad depth type signings.

Whilst I do think there's a small element of this, this window has demonstrated that we were in for players earlier, certainly with Bobb, and to some extent with Pepi though so this is worse for me because its not that we waited too late, its that we just haven't got it done.

Pennypinching FC leave it too late again. Bid 37 million for Pepe on the opening day of the window hes our player. No excuses!!

[FFC007]

If it's a quiet deadline day then Silva will be off with all this dilly dallying.

[hopper]

We know for a fact that if you leave things to a final day that it leaves little to no recourse for correction. Whilst it admittedly does work at times, I think the risk is greater than the reward in leaning on it so heavily.

We shouldn't leave things to final day for signings we regard as fundamental, it makes more sense to take that course of action for squad depth type signings.

Whilst I do think there's a small element of this, this window has demonstrated that we were in for players earlier, certainly with Bobb, and to some extent with Pepi though so this is worse for me because its not that we waited too late, its that we just haven't got it done.

It does seem more than most we start of low and have a brinkmanship with the selling club - and we very slowly go up incrementally in the hope of getting a good deal. Sometimes it pays off, but my impression is many other clubs are able to get to agreements sooner and aren't so reliant on this final day. Bournemouth seem to be a club that get signings done quite smoothly, you often hear of deal agreed as first piece of news related to signings.

[JoeS]

Joe Samsom, from Fulhamish podcast, very well
 I agree with everything
https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334004001308912

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018334007222497507

https://x.com/FFCJoe/status/2018335208148275436

Failed move for George? No
Didn't fail, we opted not to take the move because Wilson stayed.

Failed for Nuameh? - behave, he cried the deal off and we immediately moved for Nelson
Failed for Coufal (lol) Hammers blocked the deal. (thank f***)
Celik? Vague rumours - who cares, rather Castagne and Tete.
Chukwueze evidently not able to get over the line then...now plays for us.
No mention of us getting chuk for a good deal late? Bobb late in window after plenty negotiation? Sometimes it works, sometimes not. We've offered very good fees for pepi since December

"You can never convince me this is the way to do business" says people who'd never negotiated a footbal transfer nor anything remotely in the same ballpark in their life. Spare me.

Look, it's definately a risky strategy, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. Loads of deals are being reported on around the league today saying it's too late etc. not only fulham.

It's reasonable, nay logical, to assume the club have found historically that it has generally worked out favourably for them personally more often than not. Usually that's why people end up doing things how they do them. As they've seen it work. It comes with risk, Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't

Either way, Fulham are 8th currently and remaining as competitive as a club our size has ever been. We're all just mouthy back street drivers.

These are my twitter posts so just to confirm...

Nuamah - why did we not check if the player wanted to come before spending all-day on it? Yes we got Nelson without an option to buy, whereas Nuamah was a permanent deal aiming for a longer-term strategy.

Celik/Coufal - we needed a right back as Tete was injured and Castagne was underperforming, not saying either of these would pull up trees but we had zero depth at the time. Both were very last-minute, short-term options and we still failed to get it done.

Chukwueze - we tried for him deadline day last January. Yes he now plays for us, but we waited the ENTIRE summer window to get that done, meaning he wasn't involved in matchday squads til mid-September, whereas he could have been the previous February if we moved sooner. Imagine how useful he'd have been in last year's European push.

As for Pepi, if rumours are to be believed we haggled over circa £800k for around a week, then bid OVER his original asking price the day prior to the deadline. Is that sensible? We could have bid less than that on 1st January and likely got close to a deal, especially as it would have given PSV time to sort a replacement.

I take your point that some negotiations have been good (e.g. Bobb), but in my opinion they are few and far between, and we often leave deals late (Kevin, Chukwueze) for no real benefit. We met the original asking price for both in the Summer...

Celik or Coufal. No one is losing sleep over this? It wasn't an important deal,Castagne has done well enough for a backup RB. Certainly no evidence from the former mentioned careers since that it was worth these guys being on payroll. And again West Ham randomly blocked Coufal last second according to his own words

Yeah, this is a particularly odd complaint (for a number of reasons), but I also have to take issue with the assertion that Castagne was "underperforming". He was a very solid performer for us last season (as he has been this season). Hell, Fulham averaged more ppg last season in matches started by Timmy than in matches started by Kenny.

It's more a point of leaving business late rather than the specific players (in this case Celik or Coufal). Silva said we needed a RB last January and we failed to get him one. Castagne was torn inside out at Newcastle by Gordon days before the window closed and was not performing well at that time.

[Nero]

Do people really think AJax would have waited until today to start looking for a replacement when the deal has been so close for a few weeks

[Coastwalker]

Late bid going in for Forest striker Chris Woods apparently.

[FFC1987]

Late bid going in for Forest striker Chris Woods apparently.

About sums it up.