Wolves have today completed the signing of Joao Gomes.
Wanderers thought they had the deal done a couple of weeks ago. But an offer from Lyon threw a spanner in the works.
They offered Flamengo more money.
But ultimately it was in vain, with Gomes adamant he wanted to sign for Wolves. He had given the club his word after talks with Julen Lopetegui and Matt Hobbs.
Gomes is an exciting capture for Wolves.
The star has really shone for Flamengo in recent times, and is known for being a steely midfielder, capable of playing as a number six (holding) of a number eight (box-to-box).
He will likely take some time to settle in at the club before being considering for first-team matches.
He hasn’t played any games for a couple of months, but he has been training with Flamengo.
It’ll be a chance for him to get to know his new teammates, and with Gomes being a Portuguese speaker, the settling in period should be fairly smooth.
Lopetegui has said previously that he is keen for everyone to be speaking English at Wolves. And Hobbs has stated that Gomes’ English is actually better than he expected.
He said (Wolves official): “What’s interesting in the makeup of our squad, I think the boys from South America, of all the Premier League squads, see adapting to our environment as probably the easiest due to the languages and nationalities.
“We’ve got so many Spanish and Portuguese speakers, and his English is better than I expected, but our squad is full of good people with great family units. You couple the ease of the language, alongside the type of people in our environment, it makes it very easy to adapt.”
An encouraging comment from Matt Hobbs regarding Joao Gomes’ English
This is great to hear from Hobbs that Gomes has a decent level of English.
It is not all that common for young players coming to the Premier League from Brazil to speak/understand the language.
He will no doubt be looking to improve it. But the fact he’s got an understanding already is great.
But even if it wasn’t so good, he is surrounded by Portuguese and Spanish speakers. So there’s little chance of him ever not understanding anything.