Leicester City’s Adrien Silva has expressed his disappointment towards Sporting president Bruno de Carvalho after the midfielder was forced to wait until January 1st to make his debut for the Foxes.
The Premier League outfit agreed a fee with with Sporting for the transfer of the Portuguese international to the King Power Stadium on deadline day of the last summer transfer window.
The documents related to the player’s transfer reached their destination 14 seconds after the deadline, which made him ineligible to play for the English club.
Leicester appealed Fifa’s decision to ban Silva from playing in the first half of the 2017/18 season, which was turned down by the sport’s governing body. This forced midfielder to wait until the start of this calendar year to play for Leicester and was also forced to train alone in the second half of 2017.
Silva came up through the ranks of Sporting’s youth system before making his way into their first team in 2007. He spent a decade with the Portuguese outfit’s first team before moving to England last summer. The 29-year-old expressed his frustration towards Carvalho after the transfer did not go through in August 2017.
“Bruno de Carvalho did not understand that he had to repay and he preferred to understand things the way he wanted or how he managed,” Silva told RTP.
The midfielder made his debut in Leicester’s 3-0 league win over Huddersfield Town in January. Since then, he has made nine starts and played 744 minutes for the English club in all competitions.
Lack of playing time could have an impact on his chances of making it to Portugal squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, but FC Porto midfielder Danilo Pereira picked up an injury in January and is sidelined for several months.
Silva has sent a message to Portugal coach Fernando Santos, suggesting he can count on him to play in the defensive midfield position in the Fifa tournament later in the summer.
“It’s a very difficult question for me. If you ask me if I want to [go to the World Cup], then I want to. Do I deserve it? Many deserve it. The coach knows that he can count on me in both positions. I’ve played in that position [defensive midfield] many times, so it’s not a problem for me,” he added.
Bruno de Carvalho doesn’t take kindly to being questioned in public, and last time Adrien Silva suggested some of the fault for the transfer delay was his, he want public and questioned whether the Leicester City player is really a man.
Silva hasn’t been silenced and there’s likely another strop on the way from Sporting’s president, who, as always, is in the middle of more controversy right now at the Portuguese club.
