Diogo Goncalves started just one Championship game after joining Nottingham Forest from Primeira Liga leaders Benfica.
Diogo Goncalves will not be Nottingham Forest’s record signing after all and that will come as a surprise to precisely nobody.
The highly-rated winger moved to the City Ground on a season-long loan from Benfica last summer. And, should he impress, Forest had the option to sign the 22-year-old permanently for a fee of £18 million, according to the Nottingham Post.
That would have made Goncalves the most expensive player in the club’s history, exceeding his fellow Benfica export Joao Carvalho.
But the diminutive attacker has done very little during the last nine months to suggest he is worth even a quarter of that £18 million price-tag.
Goncalves started just one of his seven Championship appearances and tallied more red cards than goals or assists. In fact, that ill-fated lunge against Stoke City in September was perhaps the only thing of note the Iberian forward produced in this most forgettable of loan spells.
So Forest fans won’t be shocked to learn that Martin O’Neill has no interest in stumping up that eye-watering £18 million fee to tie down Goncalves to a long-term deal.
Record claims that he will return to Benfica though it seems very unlikely that a first team role at the Estadio da Luz beckons.
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