How would Andre slot into Fulham’s midfield?

Here we are again twiddling our thumbs sitting and waiting for Fulham to make their first signing. Bids have been sent and rejected for a number of players with the most exciting being Brazilian midfielder Andre as we look to move on from Joao Palhinha, whose move to Bayern Munich was recently completed.

The 23-year-old is spoken of highly and is deemed a very exciting signing for Fulham (if we get it over the line) but how does he fit in? Where will he play? This article will take a dive into Andre and work out how he would benefit Marco Silva’s side.

A deeper dive

Before I start, I won’t sit here and claim to be an expert in Brazilian football or Fluminense, but the internet is a wonderful place for finding stats and a good place to start is with a podcast produced by Brazilian experts The Copa Club back in January when this rumour first came up. They did a segment on Andre – it’s a very good listen. Here are some pieces of information that I picked out.

“Andre is a press-resistant first-phase specialist, the young Brazilian has a profile that Europe’s elite should be interested in.”

“He’s a natural defensive midfielder but you wouldn’t know it from his ability to progress the ball forward.”

“Andre will inevitably play for a Champions League side at some point.”

“It’s not out of the question he could be sold in the future for £80-£90m as Brazil’s next best midfielder.”

Marco Silva’s side had the seventh highest passes completed in the Premier League last season, trumping the likes of Aston Villa, Newcastle United, and Manchester United, and if we are to continue to perform at those levels, we need to improve on our midfield options and bringing in someone like Andre seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me.

With Joao Palhinha gone, all the talk has been around how we can replace his tough-tackling ability and if Andre is that man.  To make things easier, I’ve put together a little stat graph of those who usually play in the double pivot for Fulham with both defensive and passing stats.

Player (all stats per-90)	Tackles	Interceptions	Blocks	Clearances	Aerials won
Andre	1.97	0.99	1.26	1.51	0.46
Palhinha	5.07	1.53	1.9	1.93	1.33
Reed	1.97	0.75	1.29	1.63	0.61
Lukic	2.65	1.28	1.44	1.52	0.88

Player (all stats per-90)	Passes Attempted	Pass Accuracy	Progressive Passes	Progressive Carries	Successful take-ons
Andre	84.63	94.8%	6.38	1.79	1.17
Palhinha	44.45	82.4%	3.23	0.27	0.37
Reed	50.81	83.8%	3.8	0.68	0.34
Lukic	39.79	86.3%	3.45	0.96	0.4

Where does he fit in?

During Joao Palhinha’s first season at Fulham we really struggled to find a way to play without the Portuguese midfielder but managed to adapt well last season with four wins out of five including wins against Manchester United and Brighton, our only defeat without Palhinha came at Manchester City – the most used midfield partnership during that was Harrison Reed and Sasa Lukic.

Personally, I think that Andre slots in more as an eight than a six. He’s got the ability to be a tackler for us and will need to be in a Palhinha-less midfield but the 23-year-old’s best strength is his ability to progress the ball forward from deep, I think he’d be a magnificent piece of business for Fulham.

The question then becomes how do you replace Palhinha? Is Andre the answer? I guess the answer is maybe. Fulham saw success without Palhinha by reverting to two eights and we could look to do the same again playing him alongside Sasa Lukic (whose defensive stats are relatively OK).

The other option comes with bringing in a more traditional six and while Scott McTominay has been touted, for me he isn’t the player that I’d go for (if Marco wants to continue playing with a six and an eight).

Vini Souza from Sheffield United makes so much sense to me as a Palhinha replacement. Despite playing in a poor and eventually relegated side, the 25-year-old would fit in like a glove at Fulham with his tough tackling and scope to develop. Sheffield United will surely sell in the summer and we should be all over that.