Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espírito Santo has defended his demands for reinforcement amid simmering tension with the club's top brass.
The 51-year-old, speaking after Sunday's 1-1 Premier League draw with Crystal Palace, branded rumours he might be out the door as "absurd," just two days after revealing his relationship with owner Evangelos Marinakis had deteriorated -- partially pointing to the arrival of Edu as global head of football for Marinakis' group of clubs.
Nevertheless, Nuno was forced to concede after the Selhurst Park stalemate that he "cannot answer" the question of whether he will still be employed when the transfer window closes in a week's time, but remains optimistic they can "create harmony."
And asked if he was offended by the suggestion his job could be threatened after guiding Forest to European football for the first time since the 1995-96 season, he said: "This is how football is.
"There are things that I myself cannot control. What I said is, and I had a long thought about it, is my concern for the squad.
"These boys last season achieved something fantastic. If we as a club don't help them in terms of numbers, in terms of quality and talent, everything will go.
"So we have ahead of us the Premier League, Europa League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup. You know how many games this means for us. This is the respect that we have to show to our squad. Help them."
Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner can likely empathise. The departure of Eberechi Eze to Arsenal has left the Austrian's already thin squad further stretched ahead of Thursday's Conference League playoff second leg at Fredrikstad, a contest the Eagles enter with just a 1-0 aggregate advantage.
It also happens to fall on Glasner's 51st birthday. While the deadline has now passed to register players for that European clash, he would no doubt welcome the gift of a few items off his wishlist.
"It's not [just] adding someone," said Glasner. "If you lose one of your top stars who had 14 goals and 12 assists, yes, it's pretty clear you need to replace him with a starter, and not with a No. 18 or 19 in the squad."
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Glasner has already said Palace are not dreaming of a like-for-like replacement for Eze, but "sometimes what you need is scoring a goal, not after six passes and everybody has to do their perfect thing. [It's someone] who can travel past one or two and have a great finish. This is what Ebs gave to us.
"In a few moments, if you want to progress, you need this type of player and this is what we are looking for.
"[The profile] isn't what Eberechi gives us, we also know maybe what Eberechi did not give to the team. Ebs has a lot of strengths, but Ebs also has a few weaknesses, and maybe we find a player who is a little bit better where Ebs has his weaknesses.
"That's the kind of player we have to find -- no, sorry, we've already found a few of them, but it's now just getting them to south London."