The Athletic’s Wolverhampton Wanderers correspondent Tim Spiers has recently discussed the Old Gold’s record signing Fabio Silva.
During the recent transfer window, the Molineux-based outfit forked out their club-record transfer fee of £35.6m to sign the striker from FC Porto (per BBC).
Since his arrival, the 18-year-old frontman has made just two substitute appearances in the Premier League for Nuno Espirito Santo’s side (per WhoScored).
In those appearances, Silva neither scored nor assisted and he earned a weak 5.97/10 average rating, making him the Old Gold’s worst-performing player so far this term.
During the latest episode of The Athletic’s The Molineux View podcast, Spiers discussed the lack of game time the Portuguese attacker has been getting.
He said: “You want him to come on every game, really, if you’re going to start developing him and integrating him into this team and this squad.
“But does Nuno trust him to come on at 1-0 up with 10 minutes to go, for example, to kind of hold the ball up and relieve pressure? I don’t think he does.
“So, I’m not sure when he does come on, really, at the moment. I mean, we saw him for 20 minutes at West Ham when they were already, I think, 3-0 down and obviously, [he] barely touched the ball.
“The price tag, unfortunately for him, is there. It’s not going away and if he continues [not playing] then people are going to ask where this £35m striker is.”
TIF Thoughts on what Tim Spiers had to say about Fabio Silva…
As can be seen in what Tim Spiers had to say, he believes that Nuno may not trust the Portuguese youngster to come on when the Old Gold are hanging on to a narrow lead, as they were against Newcastle United.
Do you think Nuno Santo should be prepared to bring Fabio Silva on when Wolves are winning 1-0 with 10 minutes left?
Yes, he needs to trust him
No, he's not ready yet
As Spiers noted, with Silva having set Wolves back a whopping figure of £35.6m, people may begin to wonder why he is not playing if it continues.
So, hopefully, for Silva and the club, the youngster can start getting some minutes under his belt and prove that he was worth the large fee that it took to get him to Molineux.