George Lakin shares his honest thoughts on Wolves’ transfer window so far. With a major squad overhaul and little movement on signings, he explains why many fans are growing uneasy as the season approaches.
We all knew this summer was going to be a squad overhaul. And there’s seemingly been no issues whatsoever offloading the players we were expecting to leave: Nelson Semedo, Craig Dawson, Nasser Djiga, Bastien Meupiyou, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Joe Hodge, Tommy Doyle, Boubacar Traoré, Chiquinho, Pablo Sarabia, Carlos Forbs and Matheus Cunha all gone – with Gonçalo Guedes reportedly soon to follow.
Bringing in reinforcements however has once again left Wolves unstuck up to now, with only the young Spaniard Fer Lopez and Colombian Jhon Arias through the door.
This despite wholesale changes in the recruitment team, with Matt Hobbs departing shortly after the close of play last season and Vítor Pereira’s man Domenico Teti swiftly brought in to replace him.
A move that left many feeling initially optimistic about the summer ahead.
There was a feeling that Pereira had finally been given the remit that the likes of Nuno, Bruno Lage and to a lesser extent Gary O’Neil could only have dreamed of.
It looked at that moment like Vítor Pereira would be calling the shots on incomings, and Teti using his extensive contacts – including our illustrious friend Jorge Mendes – to go and make his footballing vision a reality.
But actual reality has now bitten, and it’s fair to say it’s ever so slightly bleaker than Vitor’s vision. Wolves fans in unison cling on to the hope of another late show in the market, even though £100m was raised in sales from early June.
With that in mind, it’s not unreasonable at this stage for fans to be slightly concerned. The club can dress it however they like, but at this point the lack of quality and depth in the squad is clear to see – we need serious reinforcements.
Last season Matheus Cunha, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Pablo Sarabia made 38 goal contributions.
In a team that scored a total of 54 goals.
In theory, that leaves just 16 goals in the team. Obviously football doesn’t work like that, but statistics do, and in this case they are worth looking into. Doing so helps fans on the outside understand what’s led Vítor Pereira to speak to the press about his frustrations in the transfer market in recent weeks. It sheds light on just how short the squad he currently has to work with really is in key areas.
Couple Wolves’ loss of firepower with losing both first-choice wing-backs in a team that conceded 69 (most outside the bottom three) and it’s easy to see how Pereira might struggle to get enough out of this squad, regardless of how good he is both tactically and as a man-manager.
And for my money, it’s unquestionable that he is exceptional on both fronts – which would make poor recruitment this summer doubly disappointing. Under him it feels like we could actually do something. There was, and still is, a genuine opportunity to progress, to push on, to re-establish ourselves as a genuine force in the Premier League.
Not just a club satisfied with making up the numbers, year after year. Totally devoid of any real hope or reason to exist other than to go through the motions, and pray it’s somebody else who has to stomach the cold, hard reality of relegation to the Championship.
Just how did we end up here? What’s truly brought on this malaise? It’s incredibly easy to point the finger at Jeff Shi, and while he is by no means faultless from a recruitment perspective, outside the top six, all other clubs appear to be in the same boat. You can’t necessarily blame the club, or Jeff Shi, or Fosun for market conditions such as these. Transfer dynamics have become a David versus Goliath-type battle for clubs like Wolves. Atlético Madrid gazumping us on a right-back from the second tier of Spanish football highlights that there really isn’t that much value for money out there anymore – if there’s even a flicker of potential in a young player, they are gobbled up by the elite and added to their already over-inflated squads.
The rest, Wolves included, carry on in earnest trying to get deals done quietly, before they’re nabbed from under our noses. But it’s nigh-on impossible. Instead most middling clubs accept their fate and wait, leaving it late in the window to weigh up their best options, look around at who they have left after been gutted yet again by the vultures – a wait-and-see which of the previously gobbled up players have now become cast-offs, available at a decent price now the chosen few clubs know the player can’t quite cut it at the very, very top.
What kind of model is this? It’s football in 2025, unfortunately.
And with that, the temptation to sign now risks missing out on better options at the death.
Rest assured Wolves are not the only club suffering from this absurdity. Oliver Glasner spoke recently about Crystal Palace’s challenges in the transfer market, echoing most of what Pereira had said before him – and they have European football to offer any potential incomings!
But as ever, it is money that always does the talking, and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking value in the market, it seems to have become something of an obsession for Fosun. They seem utterly averse to even the remotest prospect that they might have to pay even fractionally over the odds for any player, ever.
Perhaps this roots back to the Fábio Silva deal some five years ago. £35m for an unproven 18-year-old was steep. But it’s OK to take a punt now and again – that’s what ambitious clubs do. That’s what big clubs do. They hit, they miss, they keep the money moving around the table. That’s why the monied men of football keep making things happen for them. You can’t be getting squeamish about losing a small fortune here and there in this game. The agents that make anything and everything happen in football just don’t want to know clubs who operate like that, because what’s in it for them?
Ultimately, Fábio Silva is a decent player and the eventual hit if he is sold will probably only be around £10–15m, a similar figure to Gonçalo Guedes, who was brought in as a long-term target, a proven pro. In the end, both have done very little in a Wolves shirt – which just goes to show there is truly no safe transfer. It’s time to move on.
Fosun are always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Always trying to win the scratchcard like they did with a player like Pedro Neto. But these days they’re too often afraid to even buy a ticket. Besides, that whole way of operating is so much harder these days, for reasons already covered.
And while it’s an approach that has served Fosun well financially – with Wolves being one of the clubs to have generated the most profit from player sales in the last five years in Europe – it also reveals that the player trading model they rely on so heavily is currently running at maximum efficiency. And what direction is it taking Wolves as a club, as a footballing entity?
Undoubtedly on a downward trajectory. Consistently declining Premier League positions year on year points to that, with not much lower to possibly go.
In addition to this, there’s also an element of all corners of the football world catching wind of how Wolves do business – with no-one being particularly enamoured.
Time seems well and truly up for this particular approach and at the end of last season it looked as though Fosun knew it. We were told ‘lessons had been learnt’ and the ‘penny had dropped’. But actions speak louder than words, and so far this summer has looked remarkably similar to those that have preceded it. There’s work to be done for Jeff Shi to avoid being accused of lip service once again. This would be a catastrophe for him as I think most fans were willing to let bygones be bygones and move forward in a more positive direction together. Where does this leave him if that doesn’t materialise?
As we roll into August, it’s clear that caution and the usual wait-and-see approach is once again the order of the window, but we can now see patterns starting to emerge.
In the 17 games played in August since returning to the Premier League, Wolves have won just one. September isn’t much better either with just six wins.
The start of every season is being written off, year after year, simply because we haven’t got our squad together, because we haven’t had a proper pre-season. Players coming through the door on deadline day often take a couple of months to settle, and by then it’s Christmas and Wolves are in trouble again.
The relentless pursuit of ‘good value’ is costing us. Slow starts are putting us on the back foot year after year, leaving seasons dead in the water by November. That more than anything else is what is sapping the life out of fans. It’s excruciatingly frustrating, and all to save a few million quid. A figure that could easily be recouped by finishing a few places higher in the league, something a good start would make more than possible.
Back in the real world expect more uproar and further meltdown. Things probably get worse before they get better, and this window looks set to go down to the wire (again). While there’s still time to make things right, the clock is very much ticking.
Very healthy salary aside, Vítor Pereira is in an unenviable position right now. Tasked with building a team that can compete at the pinnacle of football, he waits day after day for the tools to do this job. Amidst our own frustration as fans, spare a thought for him.
He’s an excellent manager, but not a miracle worker, and while he obviously won’t come out and say this in public it’s clear to see that at this very moment in time he simply doesn’t have anywhere near enough to work with. Jean-Ricner Bellegarde played left wing-back against Stoke last week for crying out loud.
ARTICLE BY GEORGE LAKIN
George fell in love with Wolves the moment Colin Cameron fizzed one into the bottom corner against Plymouth Argyle on the 31st December 2005- during his first ever Wolves game as a child.
He loves digging a little deeper when it comes to Wolves, often conducting his own research to help him read between the lines and increase his knowledge and understanding of all aspects of our great club. He is keen to share his insight and findings with fans who share in his biggest love, -after his lovely wife, Amy and little boy, Tommy of course!- our mighty Wolverhampton Wanderers!
George is passionate about reaching and uniting all corners of the Wolves family, young and old, near and far. So make sure you don’t miss his weekly column exclusively for Always Wolves this season!