To start with, we have the very similar domestic league statistics of two unnamed Wolves’ players. Noticeably, Player 1 in the left-hand column has played about 12 less games worth of minutes while amassing similar goal totals, and similar per 90 stats. Player 1 totaled these stats aged 22, while Player 2 did this in his aged 23-24 season, and both seasons were in La Liga.
I’ll give you a second to get your final guesses in…
Player 1 is Fabio Silva in his current loan spell at Las Palmas(through Gameweek 31), and Player 2, is Jørgen Strand Larsen last year at Celta Vigo.
Which brings us to the core question behind this post, how much should we realistically be expecting for the transfer of the once beleaguered wunderkind Fabio Silva? Purchased from FC Porto for a whopping €40,000,000 in 2020, at only 18, the striker had struggled to make a consistent impact, and was widely viewed as a massive sunk cost for the club’s books. Most of us have been resigned to taking any slight recoup of his purchase price that could be reinvested into the lineup. Well at least that was the thinking until he has managed to turn things around this season at Las Palmas. Following this train of thought, I found the similarities to JSL’s last season at Celta Vigo so striking because the terms of his loan to buy obligation are rumored to be around €30,000,000, a fair number we will happily pay for a player tied for 11th on the Premier League scorer’s table and Wolves’ first real talisman since the pre-injury Raúl Jiménez.
So where does that leave Fabio Silva, putting up similar numbers in the same league while two and half years younger? To get an idea of what a player of his caliber should attract, I compiled a list of every player to score 10 goals in a Big 5 league 22 or younger in the past 5 seasons, and then for those of them had been sold to other clubs, I graphed their transfer price.
Of course there are outliers, like Kylian Mbappé’s record transfer fee to PSG and Eren Dinkçi’s lowly €5,000,000 price tag from a triggered release clause following his breakout season. But the blue line on the graph is the average price, around €43,000,000.
Silva will be entering the final year of his contract this offseason, although the club holds an option for a further year, so no funny business Atletico Madrid, thus the ideal time to move him is now. Based on this data personally, I’m hanging up the phone on anyone offering under €25,000,000, and I’d say real negotiations starts at €30,000,000 trending upwards, maybe utilizing that club option to send him on a similar loan to buy with obligations triggered by appearances. What was once a very fraught relationship between Wolves, Silva and Jorge Mendes, may have a relatively happy ending. And with clubs sniffing around Matheus Cunha, Wolves may enter the transfer window with a sizeable war chest to patch up some issues in the squad and push back up the table.
Just out of curiosity, what are your expectations for the transfer of Fabio Silva?