Fabio Silva has struggled for form and playing time since joining Wolverhampton Wanderers from FC Porto over the summer. The 18-year-old has made four appearances in all competitions under Nuno Espirito Santo but is yet to score or make a telling impact on the pitch.
Nuno recently admitted he may drop Silva down to the U23s to get some playing time, so it’s not been the best start to life at Molineux for the £36m signing.
Price tag weighing heavily
Silva has amassed only 130/720 minutes of football across the board this season, spending the majority of the campaign as an unused substitute. The Portuguese U19 international has made just one start under Nuno, in our EFL Cup defeat to Stoke City, and has managed only one minute of playing time since September.
Raul Jimenez has played every minute of every Premier League game this season, scoring four goals. He’s rarely rested or substituted by Nuno, however, so Silva was always going to struggle for opportunities in attack. And with us having Daniel Podence, Pedro Neto, Adama Traore and Vitinha who can operate out wide, it was unlikely Silva would get many opportunities there either.
Silva was never going to hit the ground running
Silva looks like a flop to outsiders given we’ve paid £36m for a centre-forward that made 21 appearances for Porto last season, but the truth is he was never going to hit the ground running at Wolves.
The 18-year-old played in a lot of games for Porto, but he didn’t rack up a lot of minutes (531). Silva averaged a goal or assist every 106 minutes with the Dragões, but he only netted once in the Primeira Liga and made sporadic appearances (12/34) in the division last season.
Of the 12 Liga games Silva featured in, 11 of them came from the bench and he was substituted in the only match he started, so why were we expecting so much so soon? Silva is a teenager with less than 700 minutes of senior football under his belt, so he’s nowhere near the finished article.
It’s always difficult for a young and inexperienced player to be thrown into the deep end, so give Silva time to settle. We wouldn’t have spent so much money if we didn’t think he had the potential, but this is a long-term investment.
In other news, how is Morgan Gibbs-White getting on at Swansea City?
