Fulham midfielder Andreas Pereira has shared how Marco Silva convinced him to leave Manchester United for Craven Cottage.
Fulham wanted big addition after securing promotion back to the Premier League in 2022.
Marco Silva dropped into the Championship to manage Fulham, so he certainly needed some backing after guiding the club back to the top flight.
Fulham delivered, landing the likes of Bernd Leno, Joao Palhinha and Andreas Pereira to help comfortably achieve survival.
Pereira has gone from being a forgotten man at Manchester United to one of Silva’s go-to players at Fulham – and the midfielder has now reflected on his move.
Andreas Pereira on Fulham move
Speaking to Fulham Fix, Pereira noted that Silva was absolutely crucial to his decision to join Fulham.
Pereira had spent the 2021-22 season on loan at Flamengo and was tempted to complete a permanent move back to Brazil.
Whilst born in Belgium, Pereira is a Brazil international and heading there permanently was seemingly appealing.
Fulham changed his mind though as Silva tapped into something Pereira was thinking deep down – that he wanted to prove himself in the Premier League.
Pereira only played 45 Premier League games for United and Silva seemingly knew that Pereira still wanted to prove himself.
Silva talked Pereira into the move, believing that would be able to show everybody just how good he really is.
“When the manager called, I still had that in myself, that I wanted to show people that I can play in the Premier League, that I can play at the highest level.”
“When the boss called me, he said ‘I know you have the quality to play in the Premier League and I want you to show it and I want to give you the chance to do it’, so when he said that, it was like a challenge for me. I spoke about it with my father and I said ‘I think I want to go back, I want to prove the people wrong, I’m a top player, I want to play in a top league’, so that’s what made me come to Fulham,” said Pereira.
Fulham struck a deal worth around £10million to sign Pereira and that deal now looks like a pretty incredible bargain.
Pereira is back in Brazil contention and has proven himself as a creative force in this Fulham side.
We can only imagine that Pereira is so relieved that he picked Fulham over a move to Brazil, and Silva is the man to think for making the move a reality.