Fabio Silva Investment

[Contrarian]

Actually your post IS to discuss the whole deal.
But you, as most fans do, are asking about the deal after the fact. Football is littered with transfers that don’t live up to the fans’ expectations.
Its unfair to judge Wolves mgt. now . We are not privy to how or why the deal was made.

Personally, I have a lot of faith in Jeff and co. If they thought the deal was a good gamble, then ok…fine.
Its not like they were drunk, saw a few highlights of Silva on YouTube and bought him.

So as long as you are not drunk and basing it off Youtube highlights, then it *must* be a good transfer? Seems a very low bar! How do you rationalise the transfers that don't work out? Incompetence? Bad luck? Because as you say, loads of transfers fail and presumably not because the owners were drunk at the time.

Something you seem to miss, VancouverWolf, is that it matters not one iota whether Jeff and Co make better footballing decisions than *us*. They are not competing with us. What matters is that Jeff and Co make better footballing decisions than the owners of the other teams in the league. That's who they are measured against, not supporters opinion.

On hindsight, what exactly do you think those people get paid zillions for? Just making guesses and a year later crying "but how were we to know players ever got injured?". They get paid to have good judgement, don't they? To make wise decisions that lead to success, not lame excuses to hand wave away failure. They may have thought it was a good gamble, then again, you are aware of the really dodgy business surrounding that final fee? Football isn't run with good faith, honesty and decency, it's dog eat dog and as many dodgy deals as you can get away with and if you get caught...bribe the judge!

 

[Stafford]

Harry Kane at the age of 19 was playing in the Championship and averaged a goal every 230 minutes. Last year, aged 18 in the Premier League, Fabio averaged a goal every 344 minutes.

It’s not unbelievable that one day, he could be worth much more than we paid for him.

The mighty Kieffer More was playing for Paignton Saints in the South Devon League Division Two at 18.

 

[VancouverWolf]

I disagree. Property will more often than not appreciate
So if you buy the right building and do your homework you will gain
We bought something half built and did poor homework , we just helped out other clubs

You don’t know how much homework they did.
I feel comfortable to say that they probably spent months and months working on the deal. Nobody just spends £35m without very careful analysis of the player and most likely many, many discussions among all the pertinent mgt. and staff, not to mention lawyers, accountants etc.

 

[northnorfolkwolf]

SaneWolf, tut, tut, naughty boy! You basically plagiarised my post 293 in the Keiffer Moore thread (2.14pm) and started your own thread at 2.53pm. In my very short post I'd said how bonkers it was that we'd spent £35 mil on Silva, broke the bank and now with no money were trying to find a cut-price striker to play ahead of Silva!

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

Actually your post IS to discuss the whole deal.
But you, as most fans do, are asking about the deal after the fact. Football is littered with transfers that don’t live up to the fans’ expectations.
Its unfair to judge Wolves mgt. now . We are not privy to how or why the deal was made.

Personally, I have a lot of faith in Jeff and co. If they thought the deal was a good gamble, then ok…fine.
Its not like they were drunk, saw a few highlights of Silva on YouTube and bought him.

No, it's worse than that.

I've mentioned it before but Silva is a player we had tracked for years according to Jeff Shi and he was available for 10m euros release clause about eight months before we signed him. In the subsequent eight months he did nothing of note to warrant us paying 40m euros for him.

You can check that for yourself, but the point is that there's always been something not right about that deal and it's clearly to do with the Mendes/Porto connection.

Also, it proves you shouldn't have the faith you do in Shi.

 

[Sanewolf]

You don’t know how much homework they did.
I feel comfortable to say that they probably spent months and months working on the deal. Nobody just spends £35m without very careful analysis of the player and most likely many, many discussions among all the pertinent mgt. and staff, not to mention lawyers, accountants etc.

My point isn't even about will Silva come good or not, we all know we brought him on potential and fingers crossed he fulfills that potential.

My point is should we be spending such amounts of money on a player who we hope will be good in the future when the board would have known that 12 months down the line we would have FFP problems and a lack of a transfer budget?

Its not about Silva, lets call him player A. Should they have spent all of our money from Jota on a player who they knew wouldn't be ready for the first team for at least 2/3 years? They knew at that point we had no other striker.

 

[Sanewolf]

SaneWolf, tut, tut, naughty boy! You basically plagiarised my post 293 in the Keiffer Moore thread (2.14pm) and started your own thread at 2.53pm. In my very short post I'd said how bonkers it was that we'd spent £35 mil on Silva, broke the bank and now with no money were trying to find a cut-price striker to play ahead of Silva!

Great minds think alike!

I think the transfer rumors that have come out of recent days has made us all question certain things!

Only 18 months ago we were being linked with Portugese superstars and now we are being linked with a championship striker and loaning out one of our best players. That's a big fall.

 

[Flump]

My point is should we be spending such amounts of money on a player who we hope will be good in the future when the board would have known that 12 months down the line we would have FFP problems and a lack of a transfer budget?

Its not about Silva, lets call him player A. Should they have spent all of our money from Jota on a player who they knew wouldn't be ready for the first team for at least 2/3 years? They knew at that point we had no other striker.

If they the player is good enough, yes of course. Say Fabio was a Young Messi - even if we needed a CB and CM last year, it would have been worth it to spend our entire budget on Young Messi, right? So if they have enough faith in Fabio, yes.

Also, you keep talking as if the transfer was £35m up front, when there are of course add-ons and performance payments within that figure.

 

[VancouverWolf]

So as long as you are not drunk and basing it off Youtube highlights, then it *must* be a good transfer? Seems a very low bar! How do you rationalise the transfers that don't work out? Incompetence? Bad luck? Because as you say, loads of transfers fail and presumably not because the owners were drunk at the time.

Something you seem to miss, VancouverWolf, is that it matters not one iota whether Jeff and Co make better footballing decisions than *us*. They are not competing with us. What matters is that Jeff and Co make better footballing decisions than the owners of the other teams in the league. That's who they are measured against, not supporters opinion.

On hindsight, what exactly do you think those people get paid zillions for? Just making guesses and a year later crying "but how were we to know players ever got injured?". They get paid to have good judgement, don't they? To make wise decisions that lead to success, not lame excuses to hand wave away failure. They may have thought it was a good gamble, then again, you are aware of the really dodgy business surrounding that final fee? Football isn't run with good faith, honesty and decency, it's dog eat dog and as many dodgy deals as you can get away with and if you get caught...bribe the judge!

Hold on a mo…..I didn’t miss that at all.
I know very well that the business of football is also a competition for talent and not just winning games.
But we hope that we get it right and hire Sir Alec as Wolves coach…….oops, that one got away. We have the management that we have…..for better or worse.
imo, for the better so far.

At the end of the day we fans can only hope the club and the team do well. That all we got. Take this week on the transfer thread. 20,000 posts and it makes no difference to what may unfold.
Best to find some acceptance or being a fan will drive you insane and we’ll have no fun.

 

[Sanewolf]

If they the player is good enough, yes of course. Say Fabio was a Young Messi - even if we needed a CB and CM last year, it would have been worth it to spend our entire budget on Young Messi, right? So if they have enough faith in Fabio, yes.

Also, you keep talking as if the transfer was £35m up front, when there are of course add-ons and performance payments within that figure.

Bad example mate, If he was a young Messi he would be ready for the first team now, this player isn't and we was told he was brought with the future in mind.
We use the figure of £35 million as that is what we was told what it is, either way it is a big reason why we dont have any money to spend this summer!

 

[northnorfolkwolf]

Great minds think alike!

I think the transfer rumors that have come out of recent days has made us all question certain things!

Only 18 months ago we were being linked with Portugese superstars and now we are being linked with a championship striker and loaning out one of our best players. That's a big fall.

Ah, but my mind was thinking great things 39 minutes before your great mind!

 

[VancouverWolf]

My point isn't even about will Silva come good or not, we all know we brought him on potential and fingers crossed he fulfills that potential.

My point is should we be spending such amounts of money on a player who we hope will be good in the future when the board would have known that 12 months down the line we would have FFP problems and a lack of a transfer budget?

Its not about Silva, lets call him player A. Should they have spent all of our money from Jota on a player who they knew wouldn't be ready for the first team for at least 2/3 years? They knew at that point we had no other striker.

You, like most of us, don’t know how to run a PL club.
I, for one, am not even remotely qualified to say or judge how Wolves spend their money.

 

[Flump]

Bad example mate, If he was a young Messi he would be ready for the first team now, this player isn't and we was told he was brought with the future in mind.
We use the figure of £35 million as that is what we was told what it is, either way it is a big reason why we dont have any money to spend this summer!

You specifically said the point wasn't about current ability, mate.

If you thought that he would eventually turn out to be as good as Messi, then whatever else you needed in the squad, you would spend the £35m it needed to secure him, which answers your question.

 

[Sanewolf]

You, like most of us, don’t know how to run a PL club.
I, for one, am not even remotely qualified to say or judge how Wolves spend their money.

Correct, my worry is Jeff Shi didn't have any premier league clubs on his CV before joining Wolves either.

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

2017/2018: Wolves recruitment team have kept tabs on Fabio Silva as a 15/16-year-old playing for Portugal, according to Jeff Shi.

Up to this point Fabio Silva is available for 10m euros, as confirmed by the Porto president.

November 2019: Fabio Silva signs new Porto contract with 125m euros release clause.

During this period Fabio Silva features in 11 Porto games, scoring two goals. The majority of the appearances are as a sub. The goals come in the cup and a 4-0 win over a struggling side who had ten men.

September 2020: Fabio Silva signs for Wolves for 40m euros.

---------

Clearly, this transfer needs investigating. It's ridiculous.

You can put it down to the incompetence of Shi if you want, or he may just be lying when he says we've tracked him since he was a 15-y/o. But with £7m going to agents, there's clearly more to it than that, IMO.

Some will say we've benefited from Mendes, I'm not disputing or getting into that here. Some will debate his ability and say he will come good, I'm not disputing or getting into that here either.

This is just a point that nothing about this transfer made sense. Yes Silva was highly-rated but he hasn't even made the Portugal U21 squad yet, never mind then.

 

[KBWWFC]

I disagree. Property will more often than not appreciate
So if you buy the right building and do your homework you will gain
We bought something half built and did poor homework , we just helped out other clubs

But it isn't guaranteed to appreciate, depreciated pretty hard just over a decade ago, landlords losing out due to covid and rent protections.

No investment is ever risk free

 

[Sanewolf]

You specifically said the point wasn't about current ability, mate.

If you thought that he would eventually turn out to be as good as Messi, then whatever else you needed in the squad, you would spend the £35m it needed to secure him, which answers your question.

I get your point but I think using Messi as your example is slightly unfair but I do get your point.

If he is the next world beater sign at any cost at any opportunity, no matter what affect that could have on the short clubs/team/finances?

 

[Fenrir_]

If, in a couple of years, 32 year old Raùl wants a move to Spain or back home to Mexico and we have a 21 year old champing at the bit ready and able to take over from him, it'll look a fantastic piece of planning. And I fully believe that was part of the idea with his signing, not just as one for the future per se, but one who can take over from our current main man without costing us the £60m minimum that it normally would when the time comes

 

[Flump]

If he is the next world beater sign at any cost at any opportunity, no matter what affect that could have on the short clubs/team/finances?

If they think he's good enough, yes.

However, as I keep saying, it wasn't just £35m upfront, just like Semedo wasn't £27m up front, they both contain performance clauses.

 

[MasWolf]

This is a major reason as to why we need proper football people in charge of the club, not Jeff and his yes men. Let's be honest. The board clearly thought after two 7th place finishes, the trend would only go one way, but failed to do their homework on the likes of Ipswich, Leeds, Sunderland, Stoke and a whole host of other clubs who thought they were too big for their boots. In fact, they could have looked closer to home at Steve Morgan building a new stand instead of investing in the squad. It's really poor management from my view, and the idea that we're going to sell Adama makes me very upset, especially after the whole Jota episode.

 

[JohnMatrix]

Only 18 months ago we were being linked with Portugese superstars and now we are being linked with a championship striker and loaning out one of our best players. That's a big fall.

That's nonsense we are still getting linked to top class talent. Trincao is an extremely highly rated player who made 40+ appearances for Barcelona last season and has been signed. Sa is a decent keeper and signed.

 

[Jamwolf]

We overpaid for Semedo but we knew what we were getting. He's definitely worth his place in our starting 11.

Silva is a different story. Much as I would love him to come good we could have been sold an expensive pup. We'll know this year.

 

[Sanewolf]

If they think he's good enough, yes.

However, as I keep saying, it wasn't just £35m upfront, just like Semedo wasn't £27m up front, they both contain performance clauses.

Just like Jota wasn't 50 million outright.

We sell and buy the same way but for ease of debate we have to treat it as the numbers we are given. We sold Jota for something like £10 million upfront or something crazy like that.

 

[MasWolf]

If, in a couple of years, 32 year old Raùl wants a move to Spain or back home to Mexico and we have a 21 year old champing at the bit ready and able to take over from him, it'll look a fantastic piece of planning. And I fully believe that was part of the idea with his signing, not just as one for the future per se, but one who can take over from our current main man without costing us the £60m minimum that it normally would when the time comes

I don't want to be negative, but future planning is all well and good when you have certainty in the present - which is something we certainly don't have right now.

 

[MasWolf]

Just like Jota wasn't 50 million outright.

We sell and buy the same way but for ease of debate we have to treat it as the numbers we are given. We sold Jota for something like £10 million upfront or something crazy like that.

I think it was £4 million upfront.

 

[Contrarian]

Hold on a mo…..I didn’t miss that at all.
I know very well that the business of football is also a competition for talent and not just winning games.
But we hope that we get it right and hire Sir Alec as Wolves coach…….oops, that one got away. We have the management that we have…..for better or worse.
imo, for the better so far.

At the end of the day we fans can only hope the club and the team do well. That all we got. Take this week on the transfer thread. 20,000 posts and it makes no difference to what may unfold.
Best to find some acceptance or being a fan will drive you insane and we’ll have no fun.

Fair enough Yes, it all gets a bit intense round here as deadline approaches. And totally agree, we have to find acceptance because there's nothing we can do. Maybe that's why some do like demanding a certain player they like, that kind of thing? What else *can* we do other than be totally passive?

My big picture view is that we may as well forget the Sky 6, we can not overtake them any time soon. We are in "The Other 14" , though, where it is all a lot closer in terms of resources. So smart buys really can make a difference. And unwise buys also, the other way.

"You're only as good as your last match", yeah, bit of an exaggeration, but those 7th place finishes are history now. Could have tempted various players last summer when 7th was our position, Unfortunately, we are now a "lower mid-table" club so hugely harder to tempt the players we need. And this isn't all hindsight, some said it at the time.

Anyway, yes, been driven insane by it all a long time ago, there's no hope of fitting into the regular community now.

 

[GuzzWolf]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

How about some voluntery work with all that time on your hands!!!!...Jeezzzzz

 

[Flump]

Just like Jota wasn't 50 million outright.

No, because the Jota money is largely guaranteed, but staggered payments over a couple of years. The Semedo & Fabio deals have a higher proportion of the money as performance related, so for example, if Fabio flops, we won't end up paying the full £35m.

 

[MasWolf]

Who says £8m is the budget for a striker?

It may be the maximum we’re willing to spend on that striker, it doesn’t mean that’s the budget overall though.

Sorry, this doesn’t really detract from your overall point, just simply stood out as a statement you’re using to back your overall argument that may not actually be true at all.

They may just simply not value Moore at more than £8m. Another striker option could be £15m say, and they’d want to pay no more than £13m for them. I’d suggest our willingness to spend on a certain player doesn’t dictate that’s the overall budget for that position, just the valuation they have of that player.

This is a fair point.

 

[Sanewolf]

I think it was £4 million upfront.

No wonder we have no cash this summer!

 

[purplepault69]

2017/2018: Wolves recruitment team have kept tabs on Fabio Silva as a 15/16-year-old playing for Portugal, according to Jeff Shi.
Up to this point Fabio Silva is available for 10m euros, as confirmed by the Porto president.
November 2019: Fabio Silva signs new Porto contract with 125m euros release clause.
During this period Fabio Silva features in 11 Porto games, scoring two goals. The majority of the appearances are as a sub. The goals come in the cup and a 4-0 win over a struggling side who had ten men.
September 2020: Fabio Silva signs for Wolves for 40m euros.
--------early, this transfer needs investigating. It's ridiculous.
You can put it down to the incompetence of Shi if you want, or he may just be lying when he says we've tracked him since he was a 15-y/o. But with £7m going to agents, there's clearly more to it than that, IMO.
Some will say we've benefited from Mendes, I'm not disputing or getting into that here. Some will debate his ability and say he will come good, I'm not disputing or getting into that here either.
This is just a point that nothing about this transfer made sense. Yes Silva was highly-rated but he hasn't even made the Portugal U21 squad yet, never mind then.

How is this ripping Wolves off or some dodgy deal that needs investigating , he had a 125m release clause and nearly 12months later his value has increased.
Perhaps you are reading more into this just to match your agenda against either the club ownership or Shi himself ?

 

[Jamwolf]

This is a major reason as to why we need proper football people in charge of the club, not Jeff and his yes men. Let's be honest. The board clearly thought after two 7th place finishes, the trend would only go one way, but failed to do their homework on the likes of Ipswich, Leeds, Sunderland, Stoke and a whole host of other clubs who thought they were too big for their boots. In fact, they could have looked closer to home at Steve Morgan building a new stand instead of investing in the squad. It's really poor management from my view, and the idea that we're going to sell Adama makes me very upset, especially after the whole Jota episode.

If someone gave me a choice between the new North Bank or giving the money to Mad Mick to toss off on signings, give me the stand any day of the week. It was the best thing that Morgan did for us, apart from selling to Fosun.

 

[MasWolf]

No wonder we have no cash this summer!

Well, I don't know how accurate this is, but I'm sure i read it was £4 million upfront and staggered payments (including £12 million this summer). However after the whole "we need to sell to buy" thing, I'm doubting whether we are getting £12 million this year.

 

[MasWolf]

If someone gave me a choice between the new North Bank or giving the money to Mad Mick to toss off on signings, give me the stand any day of the week. The best thing Morgan did for us apart from selling to Fosun.

In hindsight, going to League 1 was probably the best thing that happened to us, but surely at the time you wouldn't have said this? It was utterly madness, which by the stroke of luck turned out to be a good thing. It was far from calculated.

 

[purplepault69]

How about some voluntery work with all that time on your hands!!!!...Jeezzzzz

I am bloody sure that my comment took me far less time than the crap stated in the OP.

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

How is this ripping Wolves off or some dodgy deal that needs investigating , he had a 125m release clause and nearly 12months later his value has increased.
Perhaps you are reading more into this just to match your agenda against either the club ownership or Shi himself ?

Because if we tracked him for years, we would've signed him for 10m. Why would we not sign him at that price?

I've even shown that in the period between him being available for 10m and us paying 40m he played 11 games, the vast majority of a sub. So, he didn't show anything that would convince us to pay 30m extra.

Instead, we wait and sign him for 40m, which around 25% goes to agents, including 7m to Gestifute, who didn't even represent him at the time.

It's quite clearly not right and quite clearly a rip-off.

There's no agenda. If another club did that, you'd be laughing at them.

Again, nothing against Silva or his ability.

To add, if you don't believe that there's anything dodgy about that, then it goes back to the OP, why are we throwing 30m extra that we didn't need to on a player who can't get in Portugal's U21s when we're restricted in what we can do.

 

[Contrarian]

If, in a couple of years, 32 year old Raùl wants a move to Spain or back home to Mexico and we have a 21 year old champing at the bit ready and able to take over from him, it'll look a fantastic piece of planning. And I fully believe that was part of the idea with his signing, not just as one for the future per se, but one who can take over from our current main man without costing us the £60m minimum that it normally would when the time comes

We'll have sold him long before he's worth £60M! That's my concern. Time will tell and hopefully proved wrong. But I fear either he falls short of expectation, or the moment he even remotely appraoches it (e.g Jota), he will be sold on. So we get the years of a developing, wayward, inconsistent player, some bigger club gets the best of him.

 

[Supadavewolf]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This.

With some extra zzzzzzzzz

 

[VancouverWolf]

Fair enough Yes, it all gets a bit intense round here as deadline approaches. And totally agree, we have to find acceptance because there's nothing we can do. Maybe that's why some do like demanding a certain player they like, that kind of thing? What else *can* we do other than be totally passive?

My big picture view is that we may as well forget the Sky 6, we can not overtake them any time soon. We are in "The Other 14" , though, where it is all a lot closer in terms of resources. So smart buys really can make a difference. And unwise buys also, the other way.

"You're only as good as your last match", yeah, bit of an exaggeration, but those 7th place finishes are history now. Could have tempted various players last summer when 7th was our position, Unfortunately, we are now a "lower mid-table" club so hugely harder to tempt the players we need. And this isn't all hindsight, some said it at the time.

Anyway, yes, been driven insane by it all a long time ago, there's no hope of fitting into the regular community now.

I said somewhere else the other day that the 14 clubs and the Championship shouldn’t sell to the Slimey Six. That Super league coup was a massive backstab as far as I’m concerned and to see them get away with a tiny fine bugs me.
There was an article I read the other day about the United 5 - Leeds1 game and the difference in their wage bills. Soooooo lopsided.

 

[vini69]

I know this has been mentioned to death but....
I've just had a Portugese emergency plumber round whose name was Fabio. Conversation turned to ours truly and it turns out hes an FC Porto fan. He reckons this lad is pure gold and will repay before the year is out! I know. It came unprompted.