Beleaguered Wolves deserve better than managed decline
The Premier League’s worst team, Wolverhampton Wanderers are losing three goals a game and are ranked fourth in a mini-table with four other winless teams.
It seems like a long time ago when Molineux supporters were applauding an influx of Portuguese players as they advanced to the Premier League and reveling in Raúl Jiménez’s deadly goal-scoring abilities when they were the dominant side in the West Midlands. There have been roving wolves. Four seasons in the relative safety of mid-table have given way to a dreadful start and very few signs that it can be turned around after finishing in the top seven in each of their first two seasons back in the top level.
Gary O’Neil has the backing of his Wolves players despite a poor start
Prior to the October international break, Wolves’ captain Mario Lemina jumped to the manager Gary O’Neil’s defense following a chaotic 5-3 loss against Brentford. However, Lemina’s willingness to place the blame for his team’s failures on the players only conveys a portion of the tale. A degree of negligence occurring behind the scenes is the reason why Wolves are in chaos on the field. Although Wolves are still owned by Fosun International, they do not have the transfer clout of super-agent Jorge Mendes, who was the driving force behind the Portuguese revolution in the Black Country. Instead, the clubs surrounding Wolves in the Premier League’s bottom half are trying to stabilize.
O’Neil was appointed last year to replace a disgruntled Julen Lopetegui. The three players who left Wolves permanently in his first full transfer window were Pedro Neto, Max Kilman and Daniel Podence. They haven’t been adequately replaced and there was no obvious attempt to do so.
The Wolves boss is also suffering from the erosion over time of the squads that got the club to the Premier League and kept them there. He doesn’t have Matheus Nunes or Ruben Neves. He doesn’t have Conor Coady or Nathan Collins. He doesn’t have Morgan Gibbs-White or Jimenez, both of whom continue to thrive in the top half of the table.
This deterioration, gradual at first, has become impossible to ignore. There are still talented players in the Wolves ranks and still time for their summer acquisitions to prove themselves astute, but the loss of a succession of captains is indicative of an ownership group unwilling to prevent the key blocks being pulled from the Jenga tower.
In just their second season back in the Premier League, Wolves finished seventh for the second year in a row and reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League, losing only to a late goal against eventual winners Sevilla in Duisburg in 2020. Lopetegui was the coach who knocked them out.
Perhaps the inability to properly crack Europe after the coronavirus pandemic is one of the reasons the people responsible for the health of Wolverhampton Wanderers seem to have taken their collective eye off the ball.
Maybe the pandemic itself left a mark at Molineux, or the lessened influence of Mendes has made for a malaise that’s difficult for even a popular and capable manager to navigate.
Look at the trajectory of Wolves in relation to the clubs around them both geographically and in the league table, though, and it’s hard to escape the feeling that the appetite even to hold on to what they have is limited. Lopetegui’s gripes are bearing out in hollow backing for his successor and the bottom line is that this famous old football club deserves better than to be ignored from within.
So, it’s left to Lemina and O’Neil and the rest of the football people at Molineux to find a way out of a bind and stop the rot. The captain and manager clearly believe in one another and that connection gives Wolves something to rally around as they attempt to revive their season after the October break.
They couldn’t have asked for a more difficult start. Manchester City visit in the early kick-off on Sunday before a trip to Brighton & Hove Albion at the end of the month is followed by back-to-back crunch fixtures against Crystal Palace and Southampton – the other two teams currently in the bottom three – to kick off November.
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