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Benfica plan to sign Manchester United’s Alvaro Fernandez Carreras despite his stuttering loan spell at the club.
The Spaniard enjoyed a wonderful time on loan last season at Preston, as he won the Championship side’s young player of the year award, playing 42 times.
However, this season has involved a lot more upheaval for Carreras as he started the campaign on loan at struggling Granada.
Carreras started off with a bounce but after a lack of gametime from November onwards, he moved to Benfica in January.
The 21 year old has hardly had a chance to show off his talent as he has largely been resigned to a bench role.
In nine league matches, he has not left the bench five times and in the other four, the maximum time he has been on the pitch in any one game is 45 minutes.
In fact, he has only completed 78 league minutes. His only starts have come in the cup or Europa League, where he has also struggled to make any real impact.
Therefore, it was reported recently out of Portugal that Benfica were not too convinced by their January signing and may not look to sign him for the €6 million he is available to them for.
However, Portuguese paper Record have different ideas.
They report that “Benfica plan to activate Álvaro Carreras’ purchase clause”.
Reportedly, they want to sign Carreras “whether the left-back plays half of the starting games or not, which would force club to pay €6 million”, which was written into the agreement signed with United back in the winter window.
The left back could still theoretically play the guaranteed starting roles as despite only starting two games, there are eleven left. However, as the matches enter the nitty-gritty stage of the season, with Benfica still challenging on three fronts, it seems unlikely they will suddenly begin to trust the Spanish Under-21 international.
Perhaps the Portuguese side see enough talent to take the risk, even though he is clearly not trusted yet to threaten the regular starters at the club.
Carreras was very impressive for Manchester United’s youth teams and was discussed as one of the club’s most talented products at Carrington. Now it seems likely that he will continue his career in red, but at the Estádio da Luz, not Old Trafford.
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