Matt Hobbs has been a long-time admirer of Andre, so the signing of the Brazilian, who arrives heading into his peak years, has the sporting director excited.
Hobbs was tracking the midfielder at the same time as Joao Gomes more than two years ago and finally got his man this summer, bringing in the 23-year-old on the back of six titles with his boyhood club Fluminense in Brazil.
Andre is set to add physicality and bite to the Wolves midfield, and having had success in the South American market in recent years, Hobbs believes, given time, his latest Brazilian recruit can truly flourish at Molineux in the future.
On getting the deal completed
“It feels like a long time in the making. He’s got the same agent as Joao Gomes and is a player we talked about when we brought Joao to the club. We hadn't been in a financial position in other windows to do it, when we were interested. This summer I met his agent in Portugal and there was so much interest in him from big clubs that I was gutted that it looked like he was going to play against us in the Premier League.
“Then, maybe a bit like the Pedro Lima situation, there was a little crack only two days ago, they were probably going to agree at a Premier League club, but he really wanted to come to us. Fair play to Jeff and the board for allowing it to happen. His agent's class, he was great with Joao, really simple, not complicated, and the same with this. It’s one that I thought we were going to miss out on, so I'm excited to have him come and join us.”
On a highly thought of player
“I want the fans to be excited about it, but remember when Joao came across, he had six months to sit under Mario and Ruben and get used to the country and the Premier League with minutes off the bench, and now we've got the Joao that we've got. Be really excited, but it's always important with these players that we give them the opportunity to settle because the Premier League’s such a different league.
“Wolverhampton is very different to Rio, so we’ve got to give him time to settle socially, but within here, we know it'll be easy with the languages and how many South Americans we’ve got now. Be excited, but we also have to give him time.”
On a player suited to the Premier League
“He works hard, wins his tackles and picks up second balls. He’s physically good and we think he’ll thrive in the Premier League, similar to how Joao has. Our midfield now feels like a real strength of ours. As a unit of players, I feel like we're really strong there.”
On arriving with trophies to his name
“You can never have enough players that have won trophies. But it's a player that we're picking on the way up, he's not coming to having won his trophies on the way down. He's won trophies at a young age and he's still on his way up and still wants to learn and grow and commit and be part of the project.
“Like I always say, all the players have to want to be part of our project, because it's not the norm in the Premier League, and I understand there's sometimes frustration around players moving on, but that's what our project looks like. The downside to that is top players leave and we reinvest, but we also need to have a certain amount of faith put in us that we can reinvest in the right way.
“But because that's our project, it allows us to get players that could go to bigger clubs earlier and sit on the bench, but they come here to play and develop. It enables us to attract players of high potential that maybe wouldn’t normally consider up.”
On having that South American attitude
“The ones that we’ve found are culturally brilliant, a determined personality. Everyone said that a lot of life there is tough, and you have to really work your way through it and have to fight and be really dogged and determined. They're the sort of type of Brazilians that we look for and the ones we look at have a huge amount of humility and come here wanting to learn.
“I think they're all excited to work under a young coach who is going to make them better. So, at the moment, by and large, we've done well in that South American market. The personality works for us, the quality works with us, the physicality works for the Premier League. So, I’m just really happy to have him here.”
