As ESPN Brasil’s website today features some bits of an interview with Fulham striker Rodrigo Muniz, he talked about a possibility he had to leave the Whites.
The truth is that the player doesn’t make it very clear whether that happened in January 2023 or January 2024. He just mentions that his loan at Middlesbrough in 2022/23 was something that nearly pushed him to accept a transfer.
“Last year was a difficult year at Middlesbrough. Then in January I got some calls from Brazil and I was thinking about coming back. But I spoke a lot with my wife, my parents, and I really wanted to be important, to score goals out here. And if I went back to Brazil it might have been difficult at the time. And today I’m sure that I made the best decision at the time.”
In case Muniz is speaking about January 2023, that would be because despite a good start at Middlesbrough, he was rarely used from November onwards.
From January, he wasn’t even being taken to games, and that’s why cutting short the loan spell may have crossed his mind.
Now if he’s talking about last month, that may be because he indeed got very much linked to a departure from Fulham, with Brazilian clubs interested.
He had been struggling in the competition for a place in attack and had scored no Premier League goals until the end of January.
Things seem to be turning around, though, as he has since scored three goals in the last two matches, against Burnley and Bournemouth, so that’s a good reason for him to be glad to have stayed.
