Wenger should bide his time with Wellington Silva
There are few young players that have attracted the sort of attention and expectation from supporters like Wellington Silva has at Arsenal. Silva is being built up as one of the finest and most exciting young striking talents to emerge from Brazil in years and it appears that Fluminense loss has become Arsenal’s gain.
A £3.5m move for the 17-year-old has been agreed; but the Brazilian is unable to officially be registered until January 2011. Fluminense are keen to retain their young star on a loan basis and while they are suggesting it will aid his development, you do sense it is down that they simply want him to fill their striking hole left by the sale of Maicon to Lokomotiv Moscow. I wonder if it might be such a bad decision to let Wellington Silva remain in Brazil for next season at least, as surely playing competitive football is far more beneficial to his development.
Arsene Wenger as we know is overly protective of his young players, but is allowing his new signing to have another season of development in familiar surroundings really going to have such an adverse effect? While adjusting to new surroundings and a footballing culture won’t happen overnight, and you can understand Wenger’s keenness to get Silva settled in England as soon as possible, you do wonder whether mundane reserve team football, or the odd Carling Cup tie is what the player needs and whether it will do him any harm to get a full season of competitive football behind Silva before he arrives in north London? Let’s be honest with youngsters like Walcott, Vela, Bendtner set to be ahead of him for the striking berths, is there any rush to bring Silva over until the following summer?
Should Wenger entertain the idea of allowing Wellington Silva to remain in Fluminense to aid his development, or would it be better to get him settled as soon as possible in England?
Written by Billy Pearson
Football News 24/7
There is one major advantage to bringing him over to europe early. Getting his spanish passport.
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he will come as soon he is 18!! I am sure of that and dont be surprised if he will be used very early in the first eleven. Wenger wanted him for years exactly when he was 15. He got one of the biggest if not biggest talent in his group age. Better he is clearly older in his play as an 17 year old! I am so excited to see im at emirates!!
A brazilian Ronaldo/Romario/Robinho in the making!! An absolutely masterstroke of Wenger to get him for just 4 mill!!! Pato cost at least 17 mill €!!!
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Pato costed 22 million and he can come to arsenal when he reaches 18 years of age.
Wellington is going to stay in Fluminense first team for a year and he can arrive in January. I think Wenger will allow Wellington to stay till May so he can play 1 and half year of first team football and then when he comes here he can have a good pre season and then play his part in the carling cup, Fa cup and maybe even in EPL and CL.
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As Dom says he needs an EU passport. He’ll come over as soon as possible and go on loan at Salamanca for 2-3 years to get a Spanish passport. Then he’ll move back to Arsenal age 20-21 with 3 seasons of Spanish football under his belt.
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I think staying with Fluminense for an extra year would be of benefit to his development but would only be of advantage to Arsenal if he plays for Brazil for 70% of their matches – so that he could come straight to us (like Denilson did). As it is world cup year he certainly won’t make the Brazil first team but I think u21 competitions are counted differently – which could then be win – win for both teams (if he makes the national team)
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@ Tiki: He dont need an eu passport cause he will get a work permit. Also he played 75 % of international games so he is able to play in england as soon he is 18!!! He wont go out on loan like Galindo will do if we will finally sign him in summer.
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Like Tiki says he will follow the Vela and Botelho model..
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@arsenal4ever: no he will not get a work permit. Unlike Denilson, he will not qualify for a special talent permit. And he has not played 75% of Brazil’s national team games. He has played 0% and will not get capped until he at Arsenal. So no, he needs a passport.
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he should come to england in january so that he can settle and be familiar with new surrounding quickly and play with the reserve before been thrown to the carling or fa cup team.
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