Wolves failed to sign a striker on transfer deadline day but manager Gary O’Neil appears to have no regrets about letting Fabio Silva leave the Premier League outfit for a loan spell at Rangers.
Understandably, given that Wolverhampton Wanderers came up short in their pursuit of Armando Broja, Yuri Alberto, Hugo Ekitike and co, much of the narrative facing O’Neil following Thursday’s dramatic 4-3 defeat to Manchester United focused on strikers.
Or, in fact, a lack thereof.
In hindsight, would the former AFC Bournemouth boss have had reservations about letting both Sasa Kalajdzic and Fabio Silva go – the duo joining Eintracht Frankfurt and Rangers – if he knew that there was to be no replacement forthcoming?
Wolves facing questions over Fabio Silva exit
“I don’t want to go through what ifs,” O’Neil responds. “It’s important Sasa plays, and I don’t think he’d have played much for us. It’s important that Fabio plays, and he wouldn’t have played much for us.
“Are we short of a number 9? Yeah. But I felt we were short of a number nine when those two were still here, so we’re still short. That’s where we are.”
Silva played fewer than 20 minutes of football in 12 league games before joining Rangers on loan right at the start of the January transfer window. The Portugal Under 21 international, who famously joined in a £35 million deal from FC Porto while still a teenager, has already started more top-flight games under Philippe Clement than he did in his final four months in O’Neil’s dressing room.
Striker awaiting first Rangers goal
“We will see what the situation is. I would prefer to buy Fabio,” Clement told the Daily Record recently, the Molineux-owned forward still yet to open his account north of the border.
“But he was too expensive for the club. So that’s why it’s a loan.”
Silva represents a third of Rangers’ January additions, joined at Ibrox by former Nordsjaelland midfielder Mohamed Diomande and Colombia international forward Oscar Cortes.
