João Palhinha really pushing for Bayern Munich move

It has now been a little under a year since João Palhinha’s move from Fulham to Bayern Munich collapsed and fell through in the dying hour of the summer transfer window in Germany.

The Portuguese international had already flown to Munich and begun taking pictures with a Bayern jersey as a part of what would have been the official press release that accompanied the transfer announcement from the club. As Fulham failed to line up a proper replacement for the start central defensive midfielder, the move to Bayern was called off, even though he had clearly expressed his desire to join the Rekordmeister.

Fast forward to now, and Palhinha is still one of Bayern’s top transfer targets and the club’s front office, spearheaded by Max Eberl and Christoph Freund, is working diligently to try to get the Portuguese midfielder to Munich. Towards the beginning of last season, he had signed a contract extension with Fulham in what seemed to be a commitment to the future of staying in London with the club, but his desire to leave to join Bayern has never really waned.

Bayern and Fulham are still actively trying to negotiate a proper fee for Palhinha to join up with Die Roten, and Eberl’s ideal plan is to not have to pay more than around €46m for the midfielder since the club is also trying to land Xavi Simons from Paris Saint-Germain and Jonathan Tah from Bayer Leverkusen. Fulham would want more for Palhinha, but negotiations are still taking place.

Per new information from football transfer expert Fabrizio Romano (via @iMiaSanMia), Palhinha is really pushing for the Bayern move to happen. He’s not shying away from publicly making it known that he wants to leave Fulham to linkup with Vincent Kompany and company (no pun intended) at Bayern before this summer’s transfer window closes in Germany. Romano also suggested that he is privately doing everything he can to make the move happen while not pulling his focus away from Portugal and the EUROs. They are on to the quarterfinals and set to take on France.

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