Marco Silva admitted he can’t guarantee that Joao Palhinha will be a Fulham player when the White take on Manchester City this weekend.
The Portuguese international is reported to be Thomas Tuchel’s top target to fill the defensive midfielder role at Bayern Munich having starred in his first twelve months at Craven Cottage. The former Sporting Lisbon schemer trained at Motspur Park this morning, with Silva scotching rumours that he had failed to participate in the Motspur Park session in order to try and force through his move, but the Fulham boss was honest in that ‘anything can happen’ by the Friday afternoon deadline in Germany.
Silva told his pre-match press conference:
“As you know there has been interest from other clubs for Joao. I will not make any comments about the situation of Joao as there is nothing new to say. But of course, it’s the business part of the club. The people who are taking care of that are doing their job. I’m doing my job as well to work for the club, but anything can happen in the next few hours.
Probably it’s the first time this club is receiving so many offers, and big offers for some players. That means people are looking at what we did. I think it is a consequence of what we did and how we developed some players at this club. Now it’s up us to decide, from a financial point of view to take decisions and of course from a technical point of for me to decide, if I receive the okay from the club.”
The Fulham boss insisted that the club are continuing to try and strengthen his squad before Friday evening’s deadline as well.
“We are talking about so many details, the timing, all that stuff – there are many things involved. It doesn’t make sense for us to lose a player like Joao, but of course we should have a replacement to come and help us.
“It’s the last few days of the market and in some positions it’s really difficult to replace people. I am doing my job and that is to
