Last season when Wolverhampton Wanderers were flying we had:
5 Top quality players – RAN, Gomes J, Lemina, Cunha and Neto.
2 Good prem players – Dawson and Semedo
2 Competent Premier League players – Sa and Kilman
1 Enthusiastic but not very good player – Toti
1 Modest player having a purple patch – Hwang
But minimal depth!
We sold Neto and Kilman. Lemina and Dawson fell off a cliff – Dawson predictably due to age and injury. Hwang reverted to being a modest player. Toti remains not very good and has had injuries.
So we were 5-6 players short of an acceptable 11. We bought Andre a good prem player and Larsen somewhere between Toti and Competent and some kids, some not very good players and brought back Yerson – (injured almost immediately!)
Therefore in the first half of the season we had:
3 Top quality players – RAN (his form has been inconsistent) Gomes J, Cunha
2 Good players – Semedo and Andre
2 Competent – Sa (qs about form again) and Larsen
and 4 simply not good enough – the 3cbs (Doherty, Bueno and Toti) and the other forward (Hwang/Sarabia/Guedes etc)
Obviously this is not good enough to win games. You might carry 4 poor players – although not all 3CBs – if you have 7 top quality players but we don’t!
How could the club not see this? With less than a week to go in the transfer window we have added 1 perhaps competent to good player. We are still losing regularly and let’s be honest, what can Vitor do to change this?
Who can he pick instead of the side he is picking, (Gomes R perhaps?), even though the side is rubbish and will lose!
All he would be doing is moving deckchairs on the Titanic!
There is only so much tactics, motivation, and training can do when there is such a shortfall in talent! We will not survive with 16 points, (as the other relegation-threatened teams still have to play each other and us) but it is hard to see where our next point comes from?
We play Ipswich and Saints away and Leicester at home – these probably have to be 3 wins, ( we might need to pick up another few points from the teams on the beach at the end of the season as well), but are you confident?
What a mess!
We have discussed why this is a thousand times and obviously – although denied by several still on here – it is heavily linked to our financial woes, (which have forced us to sell a number of our our better players and largely replace them and the players who we have lost for various other reasons – old age, injury, out of contract, loss of form etc – with cheaper/weaker options.), brought about by Jeff”s gross incompetence – see published accounts for details.
However, I am still far from certain that Jeff fully understands the cost of relegation and the impact that will have on Fosun’s investment and this of course explains entirely everything he has done over the past 4 years.
Someone who is, (football finance), illiterate won’t have been able to read the writing on the wall and react accordingly.
I genuinely fear that Jeff just doesn’t understand what is going on and that he may be surprised when Millwall turn up at Wolves next September and not Manchester United!
Written by Thefutureisoldgold1 January 26 2025 19:28:35
