The Portuguese never even had his chance to flourish in the Premier League. Thanks to a mere 14 second overtime (via the Guardian), the 29-year-old missed the deadline to sign for Leicester City during the summer transfer window of 2017. He arrived six months later instead, despite the club appealing to FIFA on multiple occasions according to The Guardian. Since then, nothing has changed for Silva.
His struggles have been widely noted with many fans and even critics putting it down to the six months he spent barely training or even playing football. For any footballer in their prime, wasting time doing nothing means speeding up their eventual decay and for a league like the Premier League, this further adds to their issues.
Now, Portuguese news outlet A Bola has reported that Silva is more than interested in a move back to Sporting, a club where he spent the majority of his senior career. Since his arrival a year ago, the player has only made 21 appearances with two coming this season. To make things worse, it looks like he isn’t in manager Claude Puel’s plans for the future and with the 29-year-old eyeing a place in the Portugal national squad, things could worsen.
To be part of a national side, Adrien Silva needs to play regular football. Since he’s clearly not getting that at Leicester City, it would be better for him to leave and find it elsewhere. Now with Hamza Choudhury’s rise alongside Wilfred Ndidi, things could get worse for the 29-year-old. Reports from Jornal de Noticias has further revealed that Leicester City want a transfer fee more than the €24million they paid.
It further adds that they are willing to use a loan deal with an option to make it permanent for any interested party. While this would interest Sporting Lisbon and anyone else, bringing in Adrien Silva for a fee more than the aforementioned sum could be a loss, given the fact that he’s 29 and will only get older.
However, his ability on the ball combined with his vision and eye for a pass should be enough to hand him a chance to rediscover his spark for anyone who’s willing to take a chance on him. For Leicester City, however, it’s time to let him go regardless of whether or not they make a profit on his sale.
