Taking to his official YouTube channel, Brazilian reporter Jorge Nicola is attempting to clarify a growing throng of reports suggesting that Gustavo Scarpa could be on his way out of the City Ground just one year after Nottingham Forest picked him up on a free transfer.
Scarpa, Brazil’s 2022 Player of the Year at Palmeiras, started brightly under Steve Cooper before an injury brought an early end to his debut season in England. A loan move to Olympiakos over the summer, meanwhile, is yet to bare fruit.
But Nicola, who was so accurate when reporting on Scarpa’s move to Forest 12 months ago, insists that the late-blooming 29-year-old would be in no rush to head back across the Atlantic, even if the likes of Palmeiras, Fluminense and Atletico Mineiro could afford him.
“From what I heard from a person close to Scarpa, he will insist on staying (at Forest),” Nicola explains. “He has always had difficulty adapting during all his spells at big clubs. He took a while to break through at Fluminense and Palmeiras but persisted.
“Scarpa thinks he needs until the middle of next year to show whether he has the capacity to play in Europe.”
By then, Scarpa will have had an entire season under his belt at Olympiakos. He has started slowly in Greece but, as Nicola is at pains to point out, it usually takes the Brazil international some time to hit his stride.
The £35,000-a-week wage Scarpa earns as a Nottingham Forest player, meanwhile, is well in excess of the sort of figures even Brazil’s biggest clubs could stump up for him.
