He has destroyed any goodwill he earned with this summer. Or is on the cusp of doing so, anyway.
I'm not saying his position is easy, but I'm not too far off on agreeing. With little of the window left, Zapata reeks of the 'easy', uninspiring and ultimately expensive choice - same stature, same strengths, just worse in every department.
Re: Marotta, he also hasn't managed to offload one single player for a transfer fee. When we've gotten rid of players, we pay for it (Joao Mario, soon to be Nainggolan and Vidal), or loan them out, paying some of their salary (Pinamonti, shortly) even though we have a bloated squad with players we don't need. Why isn't Vecino or Gagliardini on their way out? What is Lazaro still doing here? What's the deal with Perisic? He was giving a (admittedly, cowardly and disgusting) order to gain 80 million, and did so by selling the best wing-back in the world, and now soon one of the best strikers in the game (although not his choice). Maybe we could at least try to offload players that have no use to us? Even Milan are getting 12 million for Jens Petter fucking Hauge, but it seems we don't even try.
If Lukaku is sold, his statements of no more stars being sold were outright lies - allthough, again, not due to him, but still.... bad, bad optics.
We also have some urgent contract situations that need attention, namely Barella, Skriniar and most importantly Brozovic. And yet, no news.
One of his hands are tied behind his back,
but still I'd expect more from supposedly one of the best sporting directors in the game. This is turning out to be a
wretched transfer-window pretty much no matter how you look at it, and no matter how much you want to blame Suning.