State of Wolverhampton Wanderers

This will be a bit of a combination of subjects regarding the club, where I'll address its history, how the ownership changed things, where they are now, and what the future holds.

History footballhistory.org/club/wolverhampton-wanderers.html and TM

Created in 1877, the club was one of the founding members of the football league in 1888. It's had four grounds over the years; Windmill Field when it was founded, John Harper's Field in the early 1880's, Dudley Road until the establishment of the football league, and since then Molineux has served as home for Wolves, which is way older than I'd have thought. Must have gone through a number of renovations. In terms of honors, Wolves won the first division three times in the 1950's, four FA Cups (1892/93, 1907/08, 1948/49, 1959/60), and two league cups (1973/74 & 1979/80). I'll be honest and admit that I don't care much about what happened in football before I was born, but it's interesting to note that this club's won things at some point, as some have never won anything. Jumping forward into the 21st century, Wolves started out in the Championship, coming up for a season in 2003/04 before going back down and staying there until 2009/10. They struggled in that stint, eventually relegating in 2011/12, and suffering a further relegation into league one in 2012/13. However, they bounced right back in 2013/14, and then finished a very respectable 7th in the Championship the following season. This leads to the ownership change, which is the next section.

Ownership change + Portugal (Mendes)

-the owner is Fosun International Limited, is a Chinese conglomerate run by a man called Guo Guangchang. The club was purchased in 2016 for a fee of 45 million pounds. I'm not going to go into super depth about why this was the case, but it seems like a ridiculously low fee, looking back.

Mendes clubs- Wolves, Valencia, Atleti, Benfica, Porto, Sporting, Braga, Familicao, Lille,

Figures he's agent for/has moved- CR7, Mourinho, B Silva, Cancelo, Falcao, Jota, Oblak

Seems like his first guys were the first two I mentioned above, in the early/mid 2000s, and since then he's grown his base of clients and clubs. When you have one of the GOAT's and "the special one", you tend to have pull with pretty much anyone else in that country. Focusing some on Wolves, as well as the rest of his "empire"...

This is my personal take on the whole thing. I look at it rather holistically, which is to say, taking what this current period has been, why it's been successful and where it's fallen short. The results speak for themselves for the first three seasons, and I'm talking the initial season when they came in, the promotion season, and the first in the PL, when they finished 7th. It makes perfect sense. When you come into a new situation as an owner, you want to assess how the club's operating and set your own plans into gear. That'll take a season at least due to the fact that you have tons of issues to iron out, mostly that the squad is unsuited to what your aims are. That's what we see in the activity in the market. Oh, and for that first season Paul Lambert was the manager, having replaced Kenny Jackett. I won't pretend to have watched Wolves those two seasons. My first exposure to them was Nuno's first season. To illustrate my point about the squad turnover, one player (captain Conor Coady) from the XI before Fosun took over is still at the club. There were two, until Matt Doherty was sold to Spurs last summer. This is somewhat normal; look at Villa's overhaul when they came up last and how much they've improved this season, as well as what happened each time Fulham came up. A club like Leeds, where it's the same squad except for four players, one of which has barely played, is not the norm. That's mainly down to Bielsa, but I digress. Still, the flipping of players is more than average, and that's down to Mendes. You see, agents have an agenda, which is obviously to buy and sell players so they can make money on agent fees and the like. If you bring in a young lad from Portugal, let's say, or one of his other clubs, he benefits when a PL club pays top dollar, and then if the player is successful he'll cash in ASAP. Perfect examples of this are Jota and Neto. Jota was bought for 15* million from Atleti, despite not playing for them, and then sold for 49 million to Liverpool. Likewise, Neto was bought for 10 million from Lazio and will be sold for more than Jota whenever his next move comes.

Overall, getting back to the holistic discussion, there are agendas for each party involved. The agent wants his fees, the owner wants to make a profit on the club when he sells, the players want to get big moves, and the fans want to win. When things are going well, it's great. But when they don't, like this season, and really since maybe halfway through last season, there becomes a disconnect. This brings me to the current situation.

*I realize those fees are a bit off. I was looking at dollars at one point and pounds at another, but the point is they make a profit off of their big players.

Current squad. Manager. Future?

As I was alluding to above, this season has been a perfect storm that illustrates why I don't like this project. I don't know how else to say this, so I'll just say it. Fans don't want to see ransom ass dudes from another country, mercenaries some would call them, playing poorly. This isn't just Wolves, it's the whole Premier League. It's such a product, so detached from the roots and original idea of football and rooted in money, that it's hard to relate to. Personally, the fans not being there is only an aesthetic issue; there are so many day-trippers and foreign fans that it hardly matters that grounds are empty. Especially at a club like Wolves, where they barely bring through young English players, and most of the team is Portuguese. So you have no fans at the ground, a Chinese owner, and a Portuguese manager coaching mostly Portuguese players. I haven't even mentioned the football itself, which is one of my gripes with the club. Other "soulless" clubs, such as Man City and the RB franchises, at least play aesthetically pleasing football. Wolves do not. I reckon it's a consequence of no crowds, but it's so unbearable now trying to watch boring games, and every Wolves game is the same. It's one thing to be bad, like Burnley, Sheffield United or West Brom, and the only option to be to play not to lose. But for Wolves to have created tons of chances in the past, and to now safely assume it'll be 0-0 at HT EVERY SINGLE MATCH is absurd. Looking at understat.com, this is the decline I'm referring to.

Season 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Points: 57 59 27 (23 GP)

Goals for: 47 51 23

Goals against: 46 40 31

xG: 53 54 23.9

xGA: 42 37 29.5

This is the best way I can explain it. Honestly, this may just be the asterisk season, in that the games are so compact and players are being denied the opportunity to play at random. Add to that the lack of transfer activity by most teams, and you get what we're seeing. That said, when you look at Chelsea, they look like crap despite the money they've spent. You look at Liverpool, and while they didn't spend either, they've been decimated by injuries, specifically at CB, and you can't plan for that. Wolves have had issues, but IMO they could have planned better, and the style (or lack thereof) has not helped. Again, looking at understat, they've played 6 different formations this season. Previously, they played exclusively 3-5-2 or 3-4-3, which was really a 5-4-1 or 5-3-2. It's a combination of issues; one of them is injuries, so I'll address how that's partly their own fault.

Let's look at their summer window. Marcal is older and has never been super reliable, so thinking he'll be the left of the back three or a left back was always faulty logic. Next is the duo from Porto. Neither Silva nor Vitinha was starting for Porto. They weren't even getting games like that. Reeks of Mendes and Mendes only, not looking out for Wolves. You then have Ait-Nouri, who I won't pretend to have watched at Angers. The point though is he's very young as well, and to think he or Marcal would fill in for Jonny (ACL injury) was silly. That's no backup striker, no LB/LWB, limited CB depth, and nobody established outside the main three CM options. Not to mention GK, where Ruddy is the backup, and he's never really been PL caliber, or RB/RWB, where Hoever is really young and Semedo is just a weird player. He's not been good enough going forward, as a wing back or full back, and he's never been good defensively. This is all to say none of the signings so far have worked out. Part of that is down to changing personnel and system so often, which is Nuno's fault entirely. I have no idea what he's thinking. It's like he doesn't want to be there.

Now, on to the future. At the start of the season, Nuno seemed to be moving to a more progressive style of football. That did not work, for the aforementioned reasons, as well as a lack of preseason prep. Thus, they've been floundering in lower mid-table, not in danger of going down (12 ahead of Fulham), but nowhere close to challenging for anything (10 off Everton in 7th, who have 2 games in hand). Looking at another Mendes club, Valencia, that's not a pretty picture. Most of that, tbf, comes down to Lim, so maybe that's not the best example. Shoot, maybe it is. Look at how many guys were sold once they missed CL football. Wolves will be out of Europe again, unless something miraculous happens for them, and you've gotta wonder how long certain guys will want to stay. What happens with Raul? Will he play again? It looks like he's training, but those skull fractures are no joke. Neves looks like he's stagnated, so how long does he tolerate it? Same with Adama, he hasn't scored a league goal in over a year and barely puts up assist numbers. He's 25 now and should be aiming higher. If I'm Pedro Neto, I'm looking to get the hell out of there after this season, next at most, to play for a real team with a manager that can coach attackers. I'll even say it right now, he might be the guy Real Madrid need to finally play right wing. Imagine him on one wing with one of the Brazilians on the left... Anyway, I got slightly carried away there. I just think Nuno needs to get it together and go back to that style adjustment he started the season with. That squad has too much talent, Raul or not, to be playing poverty football. It's also a case of other teams figuring out that they have one way of playing. West Ham 4-0 loss is the perfect example. Let them have the ball, they have no idea what to do with it and Nuno's only tactic is sit deep and counter.

For a solution, I think it mostly comes down to the midfield and the positioning of the players. It doesn't matter if you have the ball if you get scared of venturing into the opposition half for an extended period of time. PPDA reflects this point of their lack of intensity, as they rank 5th worst (highest) at that metric. I'm not saying Gibbs-White or Otasowie are going to be top level players, but at the very least they, along with Dendoncker, can provide some legs in the midfield, because Moutinho is well past it at this point. Could also put Vitinha in there. Have Neves do his regista thing with two runners ahead, Jose (or Silva) up front, flanked by Neto and one of Adama and Podence (when he returns from injury). The defense more or less sorts itself depending on who's fit. Ait-Nouri/Jonny/Marcal on the left, two of Saiss/Coady/Boly/Kilman at CB, and either Hoever or Semedo at RB. Not that difficult.

This whole experiment, in my opinion, is a black mark on "modern football", which is why I'm both enjoying and getting annoyed with the massive drop off from the club this season. I love when clubs that try to take shortcuts and it doesn't work. Mind you, I'm also all for fan ownership, so yeah. It's just that there are so many PL teams that are boring to watch, half the league in my view, and it makes the league much less entertaining. Why can't more be like Leeds? How many Leeds players would get into this Wolves side? Not many. Yet here we are, and it reflects the genius of Bielsa and the frustratingly defensive style of Nuno. The Premier League money is too much to see Fosun or Mendes leave anytime soon, so I just see more of the same. Nuno stays, the football stays crap, good players leave, random Mendes clients show up, and the cycle continues.