Fulham star reveals ‘really cool’ transfer fell through amid Forest ‘offer’: ‘I was looking forward to it’
Fulham midfielder Andreas Pereira says he was “looking forward” to joining French giants Marseille from the Cottagers before a deal fell through.
Pereira joined Fulham from Manchester United for around £8million in July 2022 and has made 94 appearances for them, scoring nine times.
He has adapted his game to play a little deeper this term following the summer sale of Joao Palhinha but has still been a key creative player under Marco Silva.
It has been revealed that Silva almost lost the Brazilian in the summer transfer window, however.
Pereira says Marseille held talks with him, while Premier League rivals Nottingham Forest also made an “offer”.
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The 28-year-old says it is ‘unfortunate’ that he could not move to Marseille from Fulham, which would have been a “really cool” move for him.
“From outside [England], there was an offer from Marseille, we talked, and unfortunately it didn’t work out,” Pereira said.
“In the last few days [of the transfer window], there was also an offer from Nottingham Forest. Those were the clubs that came closest to signing [me], but there was a lot of interest.
“Since I was on vacation, I was in more contact with him [agent, Giuliano Bertolucci]. But he always lets me know.
“He tells me, ‘Look, there’s a club interested, let’s see what happens.'”
He added: “It would be really cool [to go to Marseille] because of the way [Roberto] De Zerbi plays football.
“I was looking forward to it, but we’ll see now in January or at the end of the season if there will be a transfer or if I’ll stay at Fulham.
“Sometimes, I see something and I go excitedly to talk to him [Bertolucci], ‘Is this happening and you don’t know about it?’ And he says no. I think, ‘Wow, it’s complicated.'”
Fulham face Tottenham in the Premier League on Sunday and head coach Silva thinks his side can bounce back after being thrashed at home by Wolves last weekend.
“We have bounce-back mentality,” he said. “Of course the next one is always important. It’s important to analyse and be clear with the message to players to make them understand deeply what happened in the game.
“We lost a chance to get clear and get three points in that game. Being us and reaching certain standards we want to reach it was a winnable game. You have to be a certain level in Premier League.
“Before that game everyone was saying we were brilliant. We had a bad game for us but you have to react and bounce back. We cannot let one game take away the good things we have been doing.”
