Alvaro Fernandez’s former Preston North End boss is delighted to see the left-back seal a ‘fantastic’ move from Premier League giants Manchester United to Portuguese powerhouses Benfica.
After Viktor Gyokeres went from Coventry City to Sporting Lisbon, the Portuguese capital is now home to another rising star who made quite the name for himself in England’s second tier.
Alvaro Fernandez, Preston’s Young Player of the Year during an impressive loan spell at Deepdale, joined Benfica on a loan-to-buy deal during the January transfer window, Manchester United opting to cash in on another academy graduate.
Manchester United send Alvaro Fernandez to Benfica
“I actually spoke to Alvaro a couple of weeks ago,” Preston coach Ryan Lowe tells the Lancashire Evening Post.
“He just dropped me a message. We’d lost, maybe on the television and he just said; ‘keep going gaffer, you will be okay and have been great’ and all that. (Fernandez told me) that he keeps looking out for all the results and we had a great start. It was nice of him, to be fair.
“To see him go for that type of money is credit to the kid.”
Fernandez, seemingly as much of a class act off the pitch as he is on it, could earn the Red Devils a cool £7.5 million if he features in 50 per cent of Benfica’s games between now and the end of May.
And Lowe is thrilled to see his former charge take his swashbuckling skillset to one of the biggest clubs in Europe, with Benfica boasting a formidable track record when it comes to turning bargain buys like Fernandez into mega-money exports.
See Enzo Fernandez, Darwin Nunez and, at some point in the near future, the Man United-linked playmaker Joao Neves.
‘A fantastic football club’
“There wasn’t many people jumping out for him when we took him and Man United really sent us a lovely message, saying how well we had done with him,” Lowe adds.
“He’s now earned an opportunity to go and play for another fantastic football club in Benfica, where I am sure he will thrive. So yeah, fair play to him.”
Fernandez could make his Primeira Liga debut for Roger Schmidt’s side when Benfica travel to Estrela Amadora on Monday.
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