There may soon be a chance for Fabio Carvalho to improve his loan move to RB Leipzig following a difficult time away from Liverpool.
If Fabio Carvalho was dissatisfied with the way his first season at Liverpool ended, things have gone even less as expected with his loan transfer to RB Leipzig.
When his contract with the Cottagers expires in the summer of 2022, the Reds will have paid Fulham an additional £5 million in compensation. Though the 21-year-old had a strong start to the season, scoring against both AFC Bournemouth and Newcastle United, he was quickly cut off from Jurgen Klopp’s squad.
Before the World Cup in Qatar in the middle of the season, he would make 16 appearances, starting just six of them, and play for just 520 minutes as a senior. However, he would only appear in five games after club football resumed, and in 2023, he played for a total of 75 minutes (66 of which were in a victory over Wolves in the FA Cup third round replay).
Thus, it came as no surprise when he signed a loan to leave Anfield in the summer. And after having a bid of about £10 million rejected, RB Leipzig, who had hoped to sign him permanently, decided to sign him on loan for the duration of the season.
Just 12 months into his Merseyside career, The ECHO understood at the time that Liverpool was not willing to consider Carvalho leaving permanently. Club sources, however, insisted that the forward’s best years were still ahead of him at Anfield, believing Leipzig would provide the ideal setting for him to begin realizing the potential that at the beginning of 2022 made him one of the most sought-after young players in Europe.
However, since moving to RB Leipzig at the end of June, neither the player nor the two clubs have seen success from the move. He has been in Germany for five months now, and he is playing even less in the Bundesliga.
In his ten appearances for his temporary club, the 21-year-old has played for just 234 minutes. He has made one start in the Bundesliga and one 15-minute cameo in the Champions League. Meanwhile, his options have been further restricted following his second-round DFB-Pokal exit to VfL Wolfsburg last month.
Although Leipzig’s attempts to convince Liverpool to sell Carvalho permanently the following year would not have been surprising in the past if the forward had performed well in Germany, the team’s supporters must be asking themselves why they were so eager to sign the forward in the first place based on the evidence they have seen thus far.
In actuality, he has not benefited from the fierce competition for spots or the Bundesliga team’s decision to not use a number 10, which is still his preferred position, similar to the Reds. Rather, his brief bursts of activity have occurred on the sides.
When their game time has been scarce in the past, Liverpool has not shied away from calling up loanees in the middle of the season; Owen Beck, Rhys Williams, and Billy Koumetio are just a few recent examples. It remains to be seen if they would take a similar action for Carvalho.
Even though he had the slowest of starts, it might be too soon to write off his Leipzig career. At least it seems like he’s still having an effect in Germany behind the scenes.
“He is a challenger; this is what his position was (always going to be),” Reds manager Klopp’s teammate at Mainz, Leipzig journalist Guido Schafer, recently told our sister website Liverpool.com. “And he competes (for a spot on the team) against some of the best players in his position, including Dani Olmo, Xavi Simons, Emil Forsberg, and Christoph Baumgartner.
“He was in the team from the beginning when they won 1-0 in Gladbach and I wrote an article about Carvalho – it was a good performance. He has only had a few minutes since but I spoke with some people and also one official at Leipzig and they told me Carvalho was very, very well-known player there and also a sympathisch (friendly) player and he is giving everything in each training session.
“He is a strong worker and participates in both regular and independent training sessions. He will play in more games and get more minutes in this way. Carvalho is excellent in this regard because Marco Rose, the coach, pays close attention to how the players act both on the field and in the locker room. Rose will undoubtedly give him additional playing time because he performs well in every session.”
Carvalho may have an opportunity in the New Year as Forsberg is expected to finalize a transfer to Leipzig’s sister team, the New York Red Bulls, in January.
This season, the Sweden international has made 15 appearances, starting nine of them. He is currently ranked ahead of Carvalho in the lineup, despite the fact that just four of those starts have occurred in the Bundesliga. He plays mostly on the left, so if you take him out of the game, the Liverpool loanee has one less opponent to compete with for starts and substitute duty.
Naturally, he will still have to contend with Olmo and the previously mentioned Simons and Baumgartner after he heals from a persistent shoulder injury that will keep him out of action for the remainder of 2023.
Given that Forsberg is one of Leipzig’s oldest players—he is 32 years old—it is conceivable that the German team was always considering options other than the Swede when they pursued Carvalho.
Leipzig’s final game before Christmas is an away trip to Werder Bremen on December 19, with seven more games remaining before the German winter break. After a mid-season training camp, they’ll play again at home against Eintracht Frankfurt on January 13 to have another chance to shine.
It’s unclear if they are still interested in signing the Liverpool loanee permanently at that point, and it remains to be seen if the player is still on their books. Forsberg has additional motivation to fight for his future in Germany, though, as he is getting closer to leaving on his own.
Carvalho will be itching to have the chance to make up lost time after the most exasperating eighteen months.