Wolves, Recruitment Regrets and What Comes Next
A quiet window has reinforced the feeling that Wolves are planning for relegation. The focus now shifts to recruitment competence, PSR reality, and whether Fosun will finally back proper infrastructure growth.
I never really expected much activity this window and that is exactly how it’s played out. We’ve seen several player loans, one more significant sale, and incomings that, by my reckoning, come in at under £10m. It all feeds into the same grim mood: a lot of us are bracing for relegation, and it’s hard to shake the sense the club is thinking along those lines too.
Recruitment has dragged Wolves to this point
It goes without saying that, in recent years, Fosun and or Jeff Shi completely lost the plot with recruitment. For me that is the single biggest reason we’ve been dragged down to where we are now. So the big question is whether lessons have actually been learned, and whether transfer business is back in the hands of people who are more qualified to deal with it.
Right now, I’m still only at “maybe”. I do at least want to see an end to selling off what talent we have left for peanuts. And if we are heading into a relegation fight, or even planning for relegation, then low-cost but savvy appointments like Armstrong and Angel could prove important. We need smart decisions, not expensive noise.
PSR, borrowing and the risk of getting stuck
If one hole in the sinking ship is being plugged, what else is needed? The reminders about the club’s borrowings matter because the danger isn’t just going down, it’s not coming straight back up. Everyone knows how quickly a club can get trapped outside the Premier League if recruitment is wrong and momentum is lost.
For me it still comes back to transfer policy, but it also goes beyond the squad. The lack of ground and income development feels like another damning indictment of how the club has been run lately. Under PSR, transfers generally have to be funded by the club, not simply topped up by owners, so growing revenue really matters.
Infrastructure as the clearest sign of commitment
Nathan Shi’s comments, on the surface, appear to acknowledge Fosun’s mistakes. The main one, for me, was leaving Jeff Shi in place with a high degree of autonomy for far too long. What surprised me was hearing infrastructure discussed as well, because that has been my long-standing gripe. No more fans sitting in the rain would be a nice start.
The reason I bang on about it is simple: it’s a solid indication of commitment. It is something Fosun can pay for, and it sits outside PSR. So are Fosun genuinely Wolves supporters in the sense that they want to build the club properly, and has this impending demise hurt them like it’s hurt the fans? I think it’ll take another 12 months to find out. If by then Nathan Shi has shown he’s not a Jeff Shi clone, and there are cranes hovering over Molineux, then I’ll start to believe again.
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