Football is a game of opinions. The spread of social media and the internet means that fans are now content producers and they can all try their hand at instant analysis. Such a phenomenon has been great for sites like ours, who can see our articles, interviews, match reports and podcasts picked up by people in all corners of the globe. But, as I wrote in one of my first pieces for the website, there are down sides. However successful your team might be, there appears to be a need for a scapegoat. I wrote previously in defence of Dan James and, following Friday night’s draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers, I’ve had to put pen to paper in support of Carlos Vinicius rather than complete my usual player ratings.

The same website – although with different authors – has cast doubt on both of these Fulham players. Even if it reads like he’s swallowed a thesaurus, I do enjoy Cam Ramsay’s writing. He probably bleeds black and white and does a very good job in putting together succinct summaries of matches shortly after they concluded, which as I know, is by no means easy. There was plenty to agree with in his latest effort following the point we picked up against Wolves, until you got to the section on our Brazilian forward, who led the line in the continued absence of Aleksandar Mitrovic with a hamstring injury.

In a section entitled ‘Vini ain’t that guy,’ he suggests that ‘Carlos Vinicius is quite easily one of the most infuriating strikers we’ve ever had on our books’. The sentence is so plainly preposterous that I pondered whether it was a wind-up. The forward who incensed me the most was Kostas Mitroglou, who couldn’t be bothered to either get himself fit or play for Fulham after the club had spent £12m expecting him to score the goals to save us from relegation. Rui Fonte was a lovely man, but proved unable to find the target regularly in the second tier never mind the top flight and he cost £9m from Braga. Those are just two suggestions.

Vinicius has already headed a famous winner against the only sanctioned side in the country to secure Fulham’s first SW6 derby victory in seventeen years – an achievement that should have earned him an automatic place in the club’s folklore rather criticism in my view. Cam then castigates Vinicius’ lack of hold-up play, whilst simultaneously suggesting he should receive the freedom of Hammersmith and Fulham for his part in Manor Solomon’s winner last weekend. How can he not be that guy if he is already in credit for two genuine moments of magic? Make it make sense.

Nobody would be foolish enough to suggest that Vinicius is the ideal replacement for Mitrovic – because you would struggle to find someone able to fill the Serbian’s shoes even if you parted with the sort of money that persuaded Mike Ashley to allow our beloved number nine to leave Newcastle permanently in 2018. Recruitment is much tougher when you are shopping for a stand-in in the dog days of the summer transfer window, constrained by financial fair play, and the potential signings all know that they might not see much game time given that Mitrovic is very much the main man.

Cam, is of course, far from the only offender in hurling virtual brickbats at the Brazilian and maybe it is unfair of me to single him out for opprobrium. The socials have been full of criticism of him as a centre forward during our last two games – and fair play to the people who didn’t delete their hot takes after he left Joel Veltman looking lost at the AMEX with a terrific turn after terrifically trapping Tim Ream’s ball out from the back. The ball to release Manor Solomon was perfectly weighted as well – making a mockery of the idea that Vinicius wasn’t suited to the rough and tumble of Premier League football.

He deserved to start on Friday night. It was always going to a be tough assignment against a resurgent Wolves outfit well coached by Julen Lopetegui, especially when he had to line up against Craig Dawson and Max Kilman. Dawson is exactly the sort of gnarly, streetwise centre half every top flight side needs and looks like one of the bargains of the winter window. Watching from the Hammersmith End, you couldn’t fail to notice that the former West Ham defender was holding, pulling and impending Vinicius at every opportunity as Fulham held the ascendancy in the second period – all of it ignored by Michael Oliver and his assistants. Kilman, who learnt his craft at Motspur Park, is also tough to beat in the air and an excellent reader of the game.

Vinicius’ biggest problem on Friday was a chronic lack of service. Wolves largely negated Fulham’s threat in the first half by pressing and passing better than the Whites leaving the Brazilian dreadfully isolated up front. He did fashion one of the home side’s only chances in the first period, bringing the first save of the evening out of Jose Sa from a brilliant Bobby Decordova-Reid run and cross, and might have won it at the death were it not for a fine reaction stop from the Wolves goalkeeper. On both occasions, his movement took him away from the two centre halves – and that ability to find space in a crowded area was crucial in connecting with Andreas Pereira’s ball in last month against the other team in Fulham.

Playing centre forward in Marco Silva’s system requires you to be physically strong, fit, link the play and be able to do the bread and butter things we expect of every striker. Doing it without a regular run of games in a foreign league is a tall order. Vinicius has already made a telling contribution to Fulham’s finest campaign in the top flight since 2013. I don’t expect everybody to agree with this post, but I felt disappointed in reading the condemnation of a player who is clearly giving his all for the cause.

I’ll finish with a little bit from Fulham’s past. There was once a centre forward, who in the eyes of the Craven Cottage regulars, was not pulling his weight and living off his former glories. Thanks got so bad during a season when he scored only nine times in 38 games that the home crowd urged the referee to send him off for dissent. This raised the heckles of his manager, who demanded that supporters back whomever wears the shirt for the duration of the ninety minutes, and insisted that the striker would prove more potent in front of goal in the following season. Rather than recruiting an alternative, Fulham kept faith with their misfiring number nine and ‘Super Micky Conroy’, for it was he, scored 21 league goals in 40 appearances as Micky Adams guided the Whites to promotion out of the Football League’s basement. Think of the sulky Scot as the pre-Al Fayed equivalent to Bobby Zamora, who became one of Europe’s most potent performers after a season of working with Roy Hodgson.

I’m not suggesting that Vinicius will ever reach the heights of Conroy, who famously found the net from the halfway line at Wycombe, or Zamora – whose exploits on that remarkable Europa League run still seem surreal – but he deserves better than a battering at the hands of the keyboard warriors.