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

Frederico Varandas is, according to Diogo Luís, the main culprit for Sporting missing out on 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 included a left-back, a right-back, a midfielder, a winger, and two forwards to compensate for the departure of Gyokeres and Harder's inability to establish himself. The problem arose when targets for each of these positions were identified. Today we all understand that the administration had certain targets and the coach had others,” he stated to the newspaper A Bola.

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

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

In conclusion, Diogo Luís spoke about 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 low. 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.