Speaking with the Lancashire Telegraph, Blackburn Rovers boss Tony Mowbray confirmed the club tried to sign Reading hotshot Lucas Joao permanently during his time at Sheffield Wednesday.
The Portuguese hotshot has been in stunning form over the course of the 2020/21 campaign.
Joao has played a crucial role in Reading’s success this season. He has found the back of the net 20 times and laid on six assists in 18 games across all competitions. His total includes 17 in 27 Championship games, leaving him fourth in the goalscoring ranks.
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This season has been Joao’s most prolific to date by far. Since first arriving in England with Sheffield Wednesday back in 2015, the Angolan-born striker’s best goalscoring total came in the 2018/19 campaign, when he netted 10 goals.
During the 2016/17 season, Joao spent a stint on loan with Blackburn Rovers. He scored three times in his short stint at Ewood Park, playing on 13 occasions.
Now, speaking before Rovers’ 1-0 defeat to Reading on Tuesday night, Blackburn boss Tony Mowbray has revealed he tried to sign Joao permanently in 2018. As quoted by the Lancashire Telegraph, he said:
“Lucas Joao is a good footballer. I’ve gone on record before to say that we’ve enquired about Lucas Joao when he was at Sheffield Wednesday having worked with him when I first arrived here.
“I think he’s scored 17 league goals. He’s a very talented boy, he’s got physicality as well. He knows where the net is, he’s big, strong and scores lots of different types of goals.”
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After playing against his former loan club, Joao’s focus will now to turn to helping Reading continue with their play-off push. As it stands, they sit in 5th place after 34 games.
As for former club Blackburn Rovers, they occupy 16th position. Mowbray’s side have fallen down the table in dramatic fashion and are currently eight games without a win.
Sheffield Wednesday, another of the striker’s former sides, find themselves in the drop zone. New manager Darren Moore has been given the task of firing the Owls out of the bottom three with relegation a serious threat.
