Rarely featuring under Claude Puel this season, Adrien Silva’s time at Leicester City ended (at least temporarily) in similar fashion to how it started: with him sitting around a lot.
With just five appearances to his name this season, the Portuguese midfielder sought a January exit to play more, and after a lot of deliberation and speculation, he ended up being loaned to AS Monaco with Youri Tielemans heading the other way.
This new challenge is one he will welcome, returning to live in the south of France for the first time in 18 years despite being born in Angoulême and growing up near Bordeaux.
Le Parisien decided to go find out more about the new Monaco midfielder by speaking to members of his family.
In 2001, at the age of 12, the family had to move to Portugal because of his father’s job, a country where he barely knew the language, but one that welcomed him as a footballer after Sporting CP noticed him and invited him to join their academy.
His dad, Manuel, said: “In the space of a year, he went through two big changes in a child’s life with the move to Portugal and then being separated from his family. It builds a strong character.”The rest, as they say is history, but despite being signed by Leicester, the midfielder was unable to play for them as his transfer was registered 14 seconds too late, having to wait until January 2018 to finally feature in the blue shirt.
His brother, Jérémy, recalled: “For two months, he couldn’t even train with the team. To stay fit, we were working together in the hotel’s gym.”
Now, it’s all about Monaco until the end of the season, where there’s hope he’ll have a positive impact under Leonardo Jardim as the club hope to climb out of the relegation zone after an atrocious start to their campaign.
