Fabio Carvalho

Career
Fabio gained his professional contract at Fulham in the 18/19 season after working his way through the youth program at Craven Cottage. From 18/19 to the 21/22 season, he played 7 games for the first team. Fulham decided to let him get some first team experience in the 22/23 season at Accrington Stanley, that he did, scoring 7 (and assisting 6) in 34 games proved he is a quality player. After returning for the 23/24 season, he played 2 games and then was released at the end of the season. Gateshead noticed him on the free agent list and signed him to play for the 24/25 season. He performed well, mostly playing in CAM, scoring 4 and assisting 5 within 45 games. The next season he played very well, showing he can play in a deep role along with an attacking one. He finished on 10 goals and 7 assists in 47 games. Again, Fabio had a very good year in the eventual title winning League One season, he scored 3 and assisted 9 from deep in midfield. He has been impressing Ireland, especially with the talent available in the central position. His first year in the Championship went well too, scoring 3 and assisting 6 from 37 games playing mostly deep in midfield. For the 28/29 season, Fabio was used all over the midfield, he managed to score 2 and assist 3 from only 26 games through the year. At the end of the 28/29 season, he had appeared in 199 games for Gateshead, one away from joining the small band of player with 200+, which he looked to join in the 29/30 season. That he did, having his best season yet, scoring 10 and assisting 3 in only 26 games. This helped massively towards the Championship title push and eventually getting promoted to the big time. After helping so much to get to the Premiership, Ireland decided he wanted to keep hold of Fabio to help out a versatile player that could play all over the midfield. He ended up with 2 goals and 4 assists which in turn helped the club reach the Europa League spots in their first season in division 1. Ireland was very happy with Fabio's performance over the year, but a surprise £10,000,000 offer came in from Championship side Blackburn. Ireland decided to give Carvalho the choice, whether he wanted to stay and be a mostly bench player, or rip up the Championship for the remainder of his career. He chose the latter and made the move to Blackburn for a nice £45,000 a week salary. After moving he'd already had scored 7 goals in 10 games by only mid September which Ireland was happy to see him play as well as he knew he could. He finished his Gateshead career with 259 games, only behind Kai Kennedy and 3 above club veteran Alex Lacey. He bagged 34 goals (more than any other midfielder) and 37 assists (more than any other player, pipping Alex Mighten by 1).