Pundit blames Varandas for Sporting’s transfer market failures | OneFootball

Commentator says that Frederico Varandas is the main culprit for the fact that some of Sporting's targets did not arrive

08 Sep 2025 | 19:54 |

Frederico Varandas is, for Diogo Luís, the main culprit for the fact that Sporting failed some signings in this transfer window. The commentator lists the cases of Alberto Costa and Jota Silva as examples of players who should have been presented at Alvalade.

“It seems to me that Sporting understood well the gaps that existed. The reinforcement should have been a left back, a right back, a midfielder, a winger, and two forwards, to compensate for the departure of Gyokeres and the inability of Harder to impose himself. The problem was when they started to identify the targets for each of these positions. Today we all understand that the administration had some targets and the coach had others”, he stated to the newspaper A Bola.

Next, Diogo Luís went case by case, starting with Alberto Costa: “For the right back position, Rui Borges wanted Alberto Costa. Sporting's structure favored Vagiannidis. Alberto Costa is 21 years old, knows the Portuguese reality and had already worked with Rui Borges. The investment to hire him was €15 M. Vagiannidis is 23 years old and does not know the Portuguese reality”.

The second example of this disagreement between Sporting's direction and Rui Borges was Jota Silva: “Another player requested by the coach that collided with the aspirations of the green and white administration. This is clearly visible by the posture of Sporting's direction in two distinct cases: Sporting tried to hire Kevin, for whom they offered €37 M in the last days of the market, but did not make a small effort to hire Jota Silva…”.

In conclusion, Diogo Luís spoke of the only request granted by Frederico Varandas, which was Ricardo Mangas, who is expected to make his Champions League debut against Kairat: “An express request from the coach that the administration only accepted because the investment was very reduced. The reality is that the player's performance is, once again, proving the coach right”.

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