Winter Transfer Window

I would. Even if there's no loan fee (which I bet there is), just covering Ruiz's wages is significant. From what I've heard he's on around 45,000 a week. That's nearly a million pounds over the next 5 months.

 

Fair enough. But if you go down that road, how much does each place in the table pay out? How is attendance affected if we struggle again in his absence & what is that valuation? I'm just not a fan of cost cutting when dealing with someone as impactful as Ruiz has been this year (however sporadically).

Now if Kit has a plan to replace him, great. But we didn't see it during Bryan's last absence & given our style of play to date under Kit, I think a creative player is required. Plus I'm not sold we're completely out of the relegation woods.

 

Also fair enough.

I think our only difference in opinion here is that you seem to rate Ruiz a bit higher than I do. I think having having Ruiz on the field is a net-negative for us most of the time. Yes he shows flashes of creativity and scores goals here and there (although he's far from prolific), but he gives the ball away faaarrrrrr too often and gives us nothing defensively. That's not to say that he isn't a good player, but he just doesn't get enough time and space in the English game to be effective. I think players like McCormack, LVC, even Kaca are capable of giving us more in that CAM role.

 

With regard to Ruiz, in the Prem, I completely agreed with that. However this season it seems like we've scored a lot more goals with him than w/o him. That said, since I started following Fulham back in 06, this season has been my lowest level of involvement following the side by a wide margin. So that could just be my impression & not statistically accurate.

Hopefully you are right about those other players.

 

The problem for me with losing Ruiz is when you look at the team's performance in the Championship matches that he played in versus those he did not play in.

Points in matches he played in = 32 in 18 matches or 1.78 per match
Points in matches he did not play in = 2 in 10 matches or .20 per match

Goals in matches he played in = 33 in 18 or 1.83 per match
Goals in matches he did not play in = 9 in 10 or .90 per match

You can certainly assign some blame/credit to Felix/Kit but even if you remove the Felix factor Fulham has only managed 1 point in the 3 matches Ruiz did not play in and a full one third of the times Fulham has been shut out under Kit he did not have Ruiz at his disposal.

So according to what I think I know about the transfer window period Fulham lost Ruiz, Chris David, potentially Eisfeld and Hyndman to injury for six weeks and haven't brought in a like-kind replacement. I just don't see the value in giving up Ruiz's wage package and not finding some creative midfield help. I truly hope losing Ruiz's skill set isn't as damaging as it appears on paper. I am not overly mourning the loss of David and Eisfeld but losing four players from one position seems like a big blow unless Kit thinks Kacaniklic or LVC can step into that role or Pat Roberts has suddenly blossomed in the past couple of months.

In all fairness I know the above stats are a bit simplified but all I can say is COYW's because I will be hoping the team finds it's scoring boots with no Ruiz in the lineup to create space and make things happen.

 

I think most Fulham fans would agree that Ruiz is a class player, but not suited for English football. To his credit, he was professional, and played effectively while looking unhappy on the pitch. My only complaint is how was it possible after his amazing WC that the club wasn't able to sell him in the summer? Even at a bargain sale of 2-3 million would of been better than this loan.

To re-sign some of the promising youngsters makes this a winning window, and that the right plan is in place going forward.

 

Ruiz was great...when he had Dembele or Dempsey, etc. around him. He could definitely create plays when other class players were on the pitch with him. I'll miss him and he just seemed, at least to me, to be that tease that you could never, umm, touch, but you so wanted to...

Best of luck to him and his performance at the past world cup was pretty damn good, so in the words of johnny Utah, vaya con dios, sr. ruiz.