The Fulham faithful were left aggrieved when promising young talent Jay Stansfield departed to Birmingham City on Deadline Day for a record-breaking League One fee of £15 million.
Stansfield was viewed by many as the solution to the Cottagers problems up front, with both Rodrigo Muniz and Raul Jimenez initially struggling for form at the start of the campaign.
After a slow start to the season, largely down to being limited to brief cameos off the bench, manager Marco Silva finally named Jiménez in the starting lineup for the second-round Carabao Cup tie against Birmingham City.
The Mexico international rewarded Silva’s faith with a goal, albeit from a spot kick after a handball from Blues left-back Alex Cochrane.
However, unfortunately for the 33-year-old, it was his fellow attacker Stansfield who received the plaudits.
The 21-year-old took down a Joachim Andersen diagonal pass on the edge of the penalty area and calmly curled the ball into the far corner to confirm their passage through to the next round.
Naturally, Whites supporters got very excited about their bright prospect, and understandably so.
The Exeter-born centre forward had netted 13 times on loan in the Midlands during the 2023/24 season and for a lot of the travelling support it would have been their first time watching him live. It is fair to say that he justified the hype.
That being said, just three days later Fulham would cash in on Stansfield, much to the dissatisfaction of the wider fanbase.
Even though Muniz had enjoyed a wonderful debut Premier League campaign last year, registering nine goals in 26 appearances, fear set in.
The Brazilian was undergoing a goal draught and did not look like scoring any time soon.
Unsurprisingly, Silva turned to Jiménez for the West Ham game. The forward played 73 minutes in the 1-1 draw with the Hammers managing to get himself on the scoresheet.
Emile Smith Rowe took the ball down on the byline and an alert Jiménez cleverly darted front post to calmly stroke home the squared pass with the side of his foot from close range.
The Mexican had manufactured the goalscoring opportunity thanks to some smart movement and composed finishing, best surmised by the chance having a low expected goals (xG) of 0.21 according to SofaScore.
Despite netting, fans were still less than convinced and to a degree so was the Cottagers boss.
There was a widely held belief that Silva’s desire to press high as a collective versus Newcastle was to hide the loss of individual quality in areas such as striker.
For the first goal against the Magpies, Fulham flooded seven or eight players forward to overload the opposition box. The intent behind the bold move was that the visitors could then only leave one man high, sandwiched by the two-and-one rest defence.
In a twist of fate, Jiménez turned the tables and demonstrated that he did not require the other six or seven bodies in the penalty area, applying an instinctive finish on the swivel that powered past Nick Pope between the sticks.
To put the quality of the finish in perspective, the goal had an xG of 0.07 and a high 0.59 xGOT (number of goals prevented).
Essentially, the Mexican was rolling back the years to the 2019-20 season where he contributed 17 goals and six assists for Wolves.
One of the main attacking threats for the Whites on Saturday, constantly threatening in and around the box, he had four shots across the course of the match with three on target.
The £5 million asset was also working hard off the ball, dropping deep to win the ball back, most notably dispossessing Bruno Guimarães.
Admittedly, Stansfield has netted three times in his first two appearances for the Blues; however, it is now eight goals in 11 starts for the former Dingle.
As Premier League watchers are fully aware, a Jimenez in red-hot form is extremely dangerous and not to be taken lightly.
