£21m star saw Liverpool transfer blocked, now he's stuck in Premier League's relegation zone
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Even through their gold-tinted spectacles, the most hard-nosed of Wolves supporters must feel some sympathy for a player only a few months into his Premier League career.
Wolverhampton Wanderers won the £21 million race over the summer, with the man in question hoping he was joining a club looking to build upon a mixed first season under Gary O’Neil.
Instead, it appears that Andre Trindade ended up purchasing a ticket for the Titanic, rewarded only with a close-up view of the iceberg ready to send Wolverhampton Wanderers sinking into the seabed.
The former Fluminense midfielder hasn’t exactly set the world alight in his 10 Premier League starts thus far. Then again, it is hard to think of more trying circumstances for a new player hoping to settle into a new league and a new country.
A new continent, even.
Andre’s composed, considered distribution has been a rare glint of bright in an otherwise pitch-black sky – the Brazil international performed ‘very, very well’ on debut, to quote O’Neil, while completing 100 per cent of his passes – but as Wolves drift further and further into chaos, Andre feels increasingly like a pilot trying to calmly guide his craft in the midst of an electrical storm.
Andre Trindade could have joined Liverpool before Wolves nightmare
True, the 2023 Copa Libertadores winner is maybe playing more minutes than he would have done at Liverpool. But at what cost?
Arriving at Molineux with ten Brazil caps under his belt and amid suggestions that he could be Casemiro’s long-term successor for the Selecao, what impact will Wolves’ horror show of a season have on his once-glittering reputation?
Competition may have been far fiercer at Liverpool, minutes maybe a bit rarer, but Andre could be forgiven for glancing enviously at the Premier League table and wishing that Mario Bittencourt had issued a different response during the summer of 2023.
When Liverpool submitted a £25 million bid for Andre, and were told to get lost.
Manchester United and high-flying Nottingham Forest were linked with Andre, too, at various points.
"We had an offer of 30 million euros from Liverpool for Andre. And we said 'no'. We had agreed, along with the player, that we would not sell because we wanted to win the Libertadores,” Bittencourt tells Globo Esporte, a decision justified when Fluminense defeated Boca Juniors to claim South America’s answer to the Champions League a few months later.
"We refused Liverpool to prioritise the Libertadores. I was criticised a lot, because they said it was financially irresponsible. If I had sold him, it would have been sportingly irresponsible."
Liverpool decided against a new bid as Fulham walked away
Bittencourt would also confirm, via Radio Itatiaia, that Fulham ‘had been looking for Andre, as well as Liverpool’.
The Fluminense chief added that an offer had arrived from Craven Cottage that previous January too. But as Andre’s price rose, Fulham’s interest waned.
This, coupled with the arrivals of Wataru Endo, Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister at Anfield, meant that Wolverhampton Wanderers found themselves with a relatively clear run at Andre when the time finally came to pack his bags back in August.
Flash forward to January, with Liverpool looking like clear favourites for the title and Wolves staring relegation in the face, Bittencourt maybe shouldn’t expect a card from Andre Trindade this Christmas.
