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The 22-year-old Brazilian has been the subject of a verbal £25M offer from Liverpool this week.
Liverpool’s efforts to sign deep lying playmaker André this week saw Fluminense reject a verbal offer of around £25M for the midfielder, with the Brazilian side resistant to losing a key player in the middle of their Copa Libertadores campaign.
The idea of a January compromise has been floated by the press in England and Brazil, but for Liverpool there is a desire to sign another midfielder now and if André isn’t available the club could move on from him entirely. Despite that, the player says he’s focused only on the present and Fluminense.
“It’s normal to receive offers,” André told Globo of this week’s reports of interest. “Especially with the team doing well, in the quarter-finals of the Libertadores, and at the top of the Brasileirão. I am happy about the offers, but my mind is 100% focused on Fluminense.”
Over the past week, much of the chatter surrounding Liverpool has focused on André and Bayern Munich’s Ryan Gravenberch, players with different profiles but neither of whom seem ideally suited to playing as a single-pivot for a side set up like Liverpool.
Gravenberch offers box-to-box hustle and can be counted on to put in a shift off the ball but mainly plays as an eight and has no real experience screening a defence as a solo six, with a profile that doesn’t look dissimilar to new signing Alexis Mac Allister or England U21 star Curtis Jones.
André, on the other hand, has at times played that role for Fluminense but has less than stellar defensive numbers and if his game was able to translate to the faster paced Premier League the closest comparison in the current squad would likely be Thiago.
