Fabio Carvalho has revealed that Marco Silva cautioned him about life at Liverpool before he completed his move away from Fulham in 2022 — advice the Brentford midfielder now says has proven prophetic.
Carvalho left Craven Cottage for Anfield in an initial £5m deal in the summer of 2022, having impressed under Silva and turned down Liverpool’s advances the previous winter. The switch arrived with plenty of hype, but game time under Jurgen Klopp never materialised as hoped. He made 21 appearances in his first season on Merseyside, only eight of them starts, before two loan moves in a single campaign signalled his time there was drawing to a close.
Brentford eventually stepped in during 2024, but life at the Gtech Community Stadium hasn’t gone to plan either — and Carvalho says Silva, his old boss at Fulham, saw it coming.
“The grass isn’t always greener”
Speaking to A Bola in a recent interview, Carvalho recalled a conversation with Silva shortly before he departed west London for Liverpool, one he says has stayed with him ever since. He described being told the move represented a fantastic opportunity, but that it wouldn’t necessarily be straightforward — with Silva warning him that “the grass isn’t always greener.”
Carvalho said it wasn’t just the substance of the advice that struck him, but the fact his old manager took the time to check in on him as a person, not simply as a footballer — a gesture he says he still values.
A warning that came true
Carvalho’s switch to Brentford — a deal reportedly worth up to £27.5m — has yielded just 33 appearances, a long way short of what either player or club envisaged. Within three months of the move, his father and agent, Victor Carvalho, was publicly urging his son to find a way out after he’d managed only 284 minutes of football.
Injury problems have compounded the frustration. An ACL tear suffered in November was the latest setback in a stop-start spell at Brentford, and will keep the 23-year-old sidelined into the start of next season.
For a player once tipped for a big future at Liverpool, it’s a reminder that the warning from his old Fulham manager was more accurate than anyone at Anfield might have hoped.