Benfica loanee Joao Teixeira struggled at Wolves – but that’s nothing compared to his spell at Nottingham Forest.
When Joao Teixeira failed to make any sort of an impact at Wolves, you wonder why Nottingham Forest felt he could thrive some 60 miles north east.
The Portuguese midfielder somehow managed to feature 17 times under Walter Zenga and Paul Lambert. Though that’s 17 times more than he’s played in Forest colours so far.
Signed on loan from Benfica in January, Teixeira has only made the matchday squad once. And, with only five games to go until the end of the season, there’s a very real possibility that the 24-year-old’s temporary spell with Forest could end without a single minute of football to his name.
All of this begs the question; who sanctioned his arrival? If then-interim boss Gary Brazil had wanted Teixeira at the club, surely he wouldn’t have immediately excluded him from the squad.
Therefore, this suggests that controversial owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi, who has frequently been accused of failing to invest adequately in the squad, had chosen yet another ill-fitting freebie to go with Nicolao Dumitru and Patijm Kasami.
However, while Teixeira was at least spotted in Wolves colours from August to January, he was one of many unknown foreign players shepherded into the squad once Chinese consortium Fosun International completed their summer takeover.
Fosun’s links with super-agent Jorge Mendes, who has a huge influence over the comings and goings in Portugal, coincided with an influx of Iberian imports at Molineux. Yet, like the seldom-seen Silvio and the now-departed Ola John, Teixeira did little to justify why he was brought to Wolves in the first place.
If there’s one player who epitomises the potential hazards of owners influencing transfer policy, it’s Joao Teixeira, perhaps through no fault at all of his own.
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