Fulham’s Rodrigo Muniz, does he stay or does he go?

You felt that today may be D-Day when it comes to finding out what is truly happening with our Money Muniz saga.

Marco Silva did his pre-Brighton press conference at 3 pm, and journalists had primed their various questions regarding what exactly is happening with Rodrigo, Atalanta, and his contract situation.

What have we learnt from what MS had to say? What have the sea of journalist reports over the last few days been saying? What was that bombshell post from his best mate on the team all about? Let’s deep dive…

The Muniz contract offer

One thing I have noticed a lot of fans saying on social media is that this is the club’s fault for not offering our young Brazilian bagsman a new contract and better terms. By all reliable reports, this just isn’t true.

Numerous reliable sources have said that we have been trying to tie Rodrigo down to a new contract all summer. Peter Rutzler, who is about as reliable as they come, confirmed this on the Fulhamish podcast this week.

If Muniz does end up leaving, it will be because a big club in Italy, which can offer him Champions League football, has turned his head. A new contract now, or even last year, wouldn’t change that situation if he decides that is what he is looking for, rather than developing further with our great club.

The chaos of yesterday

Have you recovered from yesterday yet!? It was exhausting with different reports and social media posts flying about! We, of course, had the very exciting updates regarding Kevin agreeing on personal terms and Fulham pushing for the deal with Shakhtar.

Less enjoyable was the torment of the Muniz situation. Most of the big-hitter journalists were saying that Atalanta were confident of getting a deal done and that Rodrigo had agreed terms with them. Jack Kelly even came out and said he had heard that he had said his goodbyes to he rest of the team!

This follows reports that last weekend, he refused to play in the behind-closed-doors friendly as he was pushing for the move. Although pure speculation, many who saw him at the ground later on suggested he did not look happy.

Most fans seemed to be accepting the fact that we would never get to see if our young striker really could finally become the big hitter this season for us that we had all been hoping for.

The AP post!

Almost as soon as Jack Kelly had said that Muniz had said his goodbyes, Andreas posted a selfie with Muniz, big grins on their face, with a caption ‘Se queda’ and a black and white heart:

The Spanish and Portuguese language experts quickly got to work on what ‘se queda’ means. The debate rose as some advised it means “he stays” and others said it could mean “if you fail”. The general consensus, however, seems to be that “he stays” is correct, and this, of course, makes far more sense. Everyone got very excited until….

The Pique-Neymar post!

It appears this is not the first time that such a post has been made just before a player left. Piqué did the same just before Neymar left Barcelona, and fair to say it looks like he got into some trouble for doing so as he had to make a public apology!

“The day that I posted the ‘se queda’ tweet, I already knew that he was 100 per cent leaving, but it was my final shot.

“He was annoyed at me. I’m sure he had his reasons.”

So, what does this mean?!

So the question here is, did AP mean this as a joke mimicking the famous meme, and Muniz is off after all, or is it confirmation that Muniz is actually staying? Chat GPT suggests that since the famous Piqué meme, players have used it when a player IS staying:

This would contradict what most of the big journalists have been saying and claims that Muniz had said goodbye to all of his teammates. It is certainly not unheard of for journalists to get things wrong, however, and could it be that the Atlanta side, or Muniz’s agent, in the attempt to obtain a better contract, were feeding them false information?

AP quickly took the post down, and you can only imagine that the club have once again stepped in, annoyed at a player giving inside information away. We have already been denied ‘agent Iwobi’ dropping transfer bombs from the changing room. Fulham banned players from posting internal shots after the TC ‘big announcement’ was undermined by a shot of him eating lunch with the rest of the team.

You could take the AP post being brought down in two ways, of course. Either Muniz is staying and signing a new contract, or AP has ruined the marketing team’s big reveal again. Alternatively, Muniz is going, and they know what poor taste such a post would be.

One thing that is sure is that if this was a joke from AP, and Muniz is actually leaving, I really don’t think that the fan base is going to find that very funny. He is a player who, it is fair to say, is not the most popular with many fans already. This is partly self-inflicted, with previous interviews suggesting that he would prefer to be elsewhere, and partly a result of how many feel he has performed on the field. For AP’s sake (and ours), I really hope this post was a genuine confirmation that “he stays”!!

Holiday kicks in Mitcham

We then later in the day get a new post from Fulham FC, showing TC and Muniz doing some community work on Tuesday this week.

Make of this what you will, but he certainly doesn’t look like a player who has kicked his toys out of the pram, refusing to play in friendlies.

Marco Silva’s Press Conference

Here is what Silva had to say in his press conference on the Muniz situation, as posted by Jack Kelly on his X account:

Rodrigo is in contention for Saturday. Offers and bids we’ve received – I will not comment.

I speak with him like any other player. He knows what I think about him, how important he is for our club. We will decide what is best for the club and Rodrigo.

It’s our 4th year in PL. We haven’t had one summer where we haven’t received offers for our best players. Rodrigo is our player, and the club have worked hard to develop and help him.

So what have we learnt from this? Well, reports that he has said goodbye to his teammates certainly seem to be premature. You could also argue that if he was pulling an Isaak, he wouldn’t be in contention for Saturday. There isn’t, however, a commitment from Marco that he is definitely staying, so we are still in the dark a bit, in my opinion.

Is our Brazilian beast going?

The summation, we still haven’t really got a clue! Everything can be interpreted in different ways. The AP post is a bit of a bomb one way or another. Either Muniz is staying and AP is our new hero, or he is going and AP is in a fair bit of trouble.

There have been some reports that we are holding firm and have to this point rejected Atlanta’s approaches, which could tie in with Marco’s comments. One bit of good news is it doesn’t look like Rodrigo is desperately unhappy. The beaming smiles we have all come to love in the posts above and Marco saying that Rodrigo is in contention for Saturday would suggest relations are still good.

The Atalanta proposal is still very worrying, however, with us being so close to the start of the season. They are a big club in the Champions League, and I’ve heard the fishing is brilliant there, so we may yet be in trouble! Marco hasn’t confirmed that our boy is definitely staying, and we still don’t have that elusive new contract confirmation.

This one could be a painful one for the next few weeks, I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, so going to have to strap in for more twists and turns, I am sure. Let’s hope and pray that the AP post was a positive rather than a joke, and we have some good news soon.