Jorge Jesus arrival at Benfica has started the rumour mill of players that are linked with a move to the Lisbon side from Brazil's Campeonato. The latest player to be linked with Benfica is Fluminense's right back Gilberto. Brazil's Jornal O Dia is reporting Jesus was interested in moving the 27 year old Gilberto to his old club Flamengo and with his move back to Benfica for next season, Gilberto remains high on the coaches want list. Benfica President Luis Filipe Vieira has been given a list of reinforcements by Jesus and Gilberto's name is said to be near the top. Fluminense currently hold 50% of the players rights with Fiorentina holding the remainder and any move by Benfica would most likely involve the purchase of the player outright. Gilberto has spent the past three and a half seasons in Brazil after appearing in only 21 games in Europe split between Fiorentina, Hellas Verona and Latina Calcio. A move by Benfica for Gilberto would see current starter Andre Almeida move into a back up role with the club and have youngster Tomas Tavares shift down to play important minutes in his development with the clubs B squad. Gilberto joins the names of Bruno Henrique, Gerson, Leo Pereira and Lucas Verissimo as Brazilian league players linked with Benfica move.
Benfica who can not move from their current second spot in the league may have a different look when they take on Aves to their starting eleven and the club plays out the season. Benfica will take on Aves
tomorrow at 9:15pm WEST and will dress
20 players from the list below.
Keepers- Vlachodimos, Mile Svilar, Ivan Zlobin
Defenders- Tomas Tavares, Jardel, Ruben Dias, Ferro, Nuno Tavares, Andre Almeida
Midfielders- Chiquinho, Pizzi, Rafa Silva, Samaris, Florentino, Zivkovic, Gabriel, Paulo Bernardo
Forwards- Carlos Vinicius, Jota, Dyego Sousa, Seferovic, Goncalo Ramos
The move of Jorge Jesus to Benfica has already started the rumours of the manager being linked to former players, with the latest player to be linked with joining Jesus is former Sporting striker Islam Slimani. Jesus has always been a big fan of a two striker system in which one of the strikers is a more mobile moving striker as was the partnerships of Jonas/Lima, Gabigol/Henrique from past Jesus clubs. Slimani who was sold by Sporting to Leicester City in the summer of 2016 has spent the past three seasons on loan at Newcastle, Fenerbahce and Monaco and has a valid contract which will not expire with City until the summer of 2021. The English side should have no issue loaning the player out for a fourth straight season if Benfica want to bring the player in but the main stumbling block will be Slimani's €4.5M annual salary and if Benfica would be open to pay that sum for the 32 year old striker.
Slimani appeared in 82 games for Sporting across all competitions, scoring 32 goals with 10 helpers and was a member of Sporting's 2016 Super Cup and 2015 Taca de Portugal winning sides.
