Fulham are in pole position to sign Portuguese left back Ruben Vinagre on a season-long loan from Sporting, according to reports from his homeland.
O Jogo claimed this morning that Vinagre was poised to move back to the Premier League after being deemed surplus to requirements this term by Lions manager Ruben Amorim. Vinagre, who spent five years with Wolves and won promotion from the Championship in his first season at Molineux, is keen on returning to England and is believed to be interested in working with Marco Silva, who added to Fulham’s Portuguese contingent by signing his Sporting team-mate Joao Palhinha earlier this month.
Silva is eager to add a new left back ahead of the Whites’ return to the top flight, with doubts over the defensive capabilities of both Antonee Robinson and Joe Bryan. Vinagre, a former Portuguese under-21 international, made 69 appearances for Wolves but was largely second choice following the signing of Johnny Otto and spent the last three seasons on loan with Olympiakos, Famalicão and Sporting.
The 23 year-old wing back, who signed for Sporting on a £9m deal last month as part of his loan from Wolves, made 18 appearances for the Lions last season and is looking for regular first-team football. O Jogo also names Nottingham Forest as interested in his services, but Steve Cooper’s side are already well-stocked in both wing back positions.
He doesn’t seem to have the calibre of some of the other names mentioned. We’ve got to get our defensive additions right, let’s not forget last time we had Anderson and Areola who were both excellent I thought and still went down.
If we don’t get at least one quality goalkeeper, two proven pl backs and a centre back we are seriously in trouble before we have even kicked a ball,19 days for this to happen and even still then they have to adapt and gel .
Time is running out!!!
We had one of the best defensive records until the last 5 or 6 games but the balance wasn’t right as parker was too cautious and we had one of the worst offensive records. Robinson tosuin and tete was part of the back five and they are still there. If we could get leno and diop added we would have a better chance and with the better quality we have in front of them aswell
Indeed , seems like a down grade from what was discussed before . Really an improvement on JB and AR?
I thought he was excellent for Wolves and, looking at clips of his play since then, he is a whole other level above the two left backs we have so I hope there is some truth to this one.
There was talk about our interest in him earlier in the window so, hopefully, there’s something brewing.
I feel sorry for Joe Bryan but, in all fairness, he has been given so many opportunities by Silva and just hasn’t risen to the occasion when he had a real chance of claiming that left back spot from Robinson. Jedi? More like Chewbaca. Less said the better.
I have no doubt that a lot of work is going on in the background to bring in some decent players but, as with Vinagre, the appeal seems to be more that he might be available on a season long loan rather than as a permanent buy.
Press talk of Diop for 20m and Leno for 10m -these deals just don’t seem to figure in Fulham’s thinking -which is why they have not come to fruition.
I understand that FFP dictates and I get that we probably had to cough up 12m for Wilson as well as Pereira and Palhinha fees but, with the revenue from Anguissa and Carvalho sales covering a large chunk of that outlay, surely we must have more cash to spend considering the financial rewards for gaining promotion.
I just don’t understand how Nottingham Forest can splash the cash and, even today, are talking of making even more signings, yet we can’t.
Apart from Leicester City, I believe only Bournemouth have spent less than us so far in this window. Other clubs may have only signed one or two players to date but the cost of their signings is several times more than we have spent.
Assuming that everything possible is being done behind the scenes, we have only two games in which to integrate any incoming players and, being realistic, nothing is likely to happen before Sunday’s game -which means that there is only one game in which to bed any new signings. It is far from ideal but, looking on the bright side, which I am trying very hard to do, I guess that’s an improvement on what happened the season before last so who am I to moan?
I’m all in for this loan signing. I’m somewhat down on Robinson, but feel like he deserves a chance to compete for the starting left back role. He’s still relatively young so I hope he can improve his consistency on defense and crossing/final pass. With that said, they shouldn’t rely on him, and I don’t think Joe Bryan is the answer either.
Smart to bring in a loanee with upside and save resources for 2 proven centrebacks and a starting goalkeeper. I feel comfortable with Mbabu and Tete on the right and Robinson and Vinegra on the left.
I still can’t believe we haven’t signed a couple of centre backs I would have thought they would be our first priority, without them we are going to be in big trouble.
Get Gary Cahill and another experienced defender whos played in the Prem. Otherwise we’ll be back into the Championship. Jesus get Fabian Delph to play at the back with Cahill.
Leno and Diop are imperatives, but we cannot/will not meet the asking prices … false economy?
Time to get the chequebook out, or relegation looms yet again!
Everybody knows we need centre-backs but still haven’t bought anybody .we haven’t even brought any wing backs in very disappointing. Sometimes you have to gamble to get your deals over the line.Think we are going to struggle
I see today that we are not wanting to pay the amount of money Mbabu wants, we are a bloody embarrassment not only did we let these transfers drag on for months with not wanting to pay the asking prices and then moving on to another one which will also drag on until we run out of options, why are we so slow signing anyone? Ffs I can’t believe how stupid the Khan’s are.
Totally agree with all the comments here. Would be nice to get a pair of full backs. I guess although not perfect we could live with Rodak. But we need a minimum of 1 decent centre back to go with Tosin using Ream as back up. Everything is still far too slow either the Khan’s management or ffp is leaving us no time to bond together.