Wolves trumped Chelsea to land the 18 year-old fullback from Sport Recife.
Hobbs said of seeing off competition for Lima's signature: “It’s one we’ve worked on a while now and he was always a player we wanted to bring in this window. That was always the plan, but we thought it might have been later in the window. But when Chelsea became involved and had agreed with Recife, it was a case of having a day to get it done, and thankfully Jeff was really supportive and we were able to do it.
“There was lots of competition, and I don’t mean this in an arrogant way at all, but had we been able to do it straight away, then there wouldn’t have been any (competition). Ben Wrigglesworth (head of scouting) went out and sat down with him, presented him the plan, how we saw him, the work we’d done on him and showed him the project. Being the only club who flew out not to negotiate or talk about money, but show him the plan, I think he really brought into Ben and they built a really good rapport.
“We are a club that sells our project through pathway, opportunity and connection, while other clubs use different tools like location, size and money. Luckily what appeals to Pedro is who and what we are.
“We don’t paint a picture to be anything it’s not, because when they get here, it would be something completely different. We sell it through honesty and sincerity, and if you do that, people buy into it. We understand that we might just be a part of Pedro’s journey, but we hope he’s part of a successful era in our journey, and that the two fit really nicely together.”
Hobbs also said: “Off the pitch, he has a real attitude to learning. He also has huge ambition and he put that to Gary (O’Neil) on his call, so Gary and the coaches know where he wants to get to and they will work with him to be better and improve. He has a massive desire to be the best player he can be.
“On the pitch, he’s a highly regarded young player, but he’s still a young player none the less, who has moved to a foreign country. Even though with Matheus, Joao (Gomes), and all the Portuguese speaking player we have, so it should be comfortable for him from that way, but on the pitch, we’re hoping to see a really exciting young player who has no pressure from us in these early stages. We’ll allow him time to progress and settle, but Pedro is one we have huge hopes for.”