Maniche slams Benfica signing Palhinha: ‘It’s a disaster’ | OneFootball

Benfica are willing to make a significant financial effort to secure the signing of João Palhinha. The Eagles intend to invest, between wages, bonuses and the fee to be paid to Bayern Munich, around €40 million in the Portuguese international.

The possibility of an investment of this scale, however, is far from unanimous. Maniche, the former Portuguese international midfielder, strongly criticised Benfica’s strategy and believes the issue is not the player’s quality, but rather the amounts involved.

“The criticism aimed at Benfica is not about what Palhinha can offer as a player in that position, because in my view he is one of the best. The criticism of Benfica is that they have a recent track record that does not sit well with some signings made without proper criteria. It is easy to squander money, and it is true that Benfica have sold extremely well, but they have bought very badly,” he said.

Despite his criticism of the financial side of the deal, Maniche does not hide his admiration for Palhinha’s qualities and believes that, from a sporting point of view, the midfielder would be an excellent signing for the Eagles: “Obviously, from a sporting perspective, we may or may not criticise it; that will depend on the future, on how the season unfolds, even on João Palhinha’s personal and individual level. Only then will we be able to draw conclusions as to whether it was a good signing in sporting terms, and I am already anticipating that it is an excellent signing from a sporting point of view,” he acknowledged.

The former Portuguese international does, however, take a very different stance when assessing the deal from a financial perspective: “Financially, it is a disaster. Benfica are in the Europa League and not the Champions League, so they do not have Champions League money. These figures are exorbitant in Portuguese football,” Maniche concluded.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.