Wolves lose essence while balancing top-flight status for little outlay | Wolverhampton Wanderers

W.What happens when you pit the Premier League's slowest starters against the club that scored in the first minute of their last three games? For Wolves, the first 60 seconds against Brentford on Saturday carry their curious amount of danger. Which in no way suggests that things will get easier for them after that.

It has become commonplace to blame Wolves' start to the season (they are last in the table with a single point) on the cruelty of the computer. Their first six games came against Arsenal, Chelsea, Nottingham Forest, Newcastle, Aston Villa and Liverpool, with Manchester City and Brighton lurking.

The underlying numbers are also more encouraging than the league standings would suggest. While Wolves have conceded the most goals of any Premier League team, in the more sustainable long-term metric of expected goals conceded without penalty, they rank 11th. Matches increase appreciably during November and December. Perhaps that's why there seems to be so little concern about Gary O'Neil's position in the boardroom.

These are the crumbs of consolation that the Wolves can cling to as they contemplate their worst start to a season. But running a football club has never simply been an exercise in logic and numbers. Sentiment matters too, and even if results are a short-term phenomenon, the broader malaise felt by many Wolves fans is not.

We caught a glimpse of this during the final minutes of the recent Liverpool match, when the Wolves… 2-1 down and chasing the equalizer, he patiently passed the ball back, to the obvious frustration of the Molineux crowd. “Stop it, honestly,” urged Gary Neville on Sky Sports. “It's very frustrating. “Many teams have forgotten the essence of football: putting the ball at the feet of the most talented players.”

The best Wolves teams of recent years were always in a hurry: technically adept when necessary, solid when necessary, but with a strong sense of purpose and a clear idea of ​​where the ball should be. Today the vision is a little darker. The speed of accumulation has been a constant complaint. The Wolves ranked third in shots created off of fast breaks last season and 11th this season, despite playing the type of teams that should be conducive to fast breaks.

But it's at the rear where the most pressing problems seem to lie. Conviction and morality seem to be the problem: individual mistakes, collective brain fades, an unwanted habit of buckling under pressure. Seven goals conceded in the last 20 minutes of the games suggest a slightly worn mentality. This is where the Wolves' short- and long-term issues feel most aligned.

The decision not to replace Maximilian Kilman, sold to West Ham for 40 million pounds In summer, it seems like a failed bet. Yerson Mosquera's brilliant start to the season was brutally cut short by a knee injury that could keep him out until next summer. Craig Dawson and Toti Gomes have already missed games this season. Although the club's sporting director, Matt Hobbs, recently said that signing a fifth centre-back was never the plan, for many fans this strategy seems to sum up the dilemma of the modern Wolves: a club increasingly trying to do the same thing with less.

By way of illustration, let's examine the Wolves' 2022-23 XI, in terms of most minutes played: José Sá; Nélson Semedo, Nathan Collins, Kilman, Hugo Bueno; Rubén Neves, João Moutinho; Adama Traoré, Matheus Nunes, Daniel Podence; Diego Costa. Of them, only Semedo is still in the team, although Sá is also in the club.

This is a frankly incredible level of turmoil in just two seasons. While part of this is the natural turnover of a mid-table club, part of this instability is also the result of decisions made over a period of years: the explicit decision to establish Wolves as a clearinghouse for the talent.

In the good years it worked wonderfully: Neves, Moutinho, Raúl Jiménez, Diogo Jota, Pedro Neto, European nights, famous triumphs. But increasing infighting by the club's Chinese owners, Fosun, has inevitably forced belt-tightening. The Gestifute agency's dependence on Jorge Mendes has been reduced, but equally the new signings have not been remotely of the same quality as the players replaced. O'Neil was reported to be frustrated by the lack of investment in the summer, as Julen Lopetegui was before him.

In a recent interview with the Telegraph, chairman Jeff Shi said Wolves have not been in danger of breaching profitability and sustainability regulations. If we take this at face value, the implication is that Wolves' new era of austerity is a deliberate strategy by Fosun: an attempt to string out a thread to maintain Premier League status with as little outlay as possible, perhaps even trying to manage the football club. make profits to plug holes in other parts of the business.

Maybe this makes sense as a business strategy. But as a sports model, it is especially sad. Aside from the fact that setting survival as your overall goal leaves you vulnerable to short-term solutions. Maybe O'Neil will pay for the current situation with his job. Maybe the next player will benefit from a fixed change. Maybe the show will stay on tour for a few more months.

Maybe the wolves will even stay awake. You could certainly argue that there are at least three worse teams. But in the long term it is difficult to identify a thread of hope in a club that seems increasingly hollowed out by forces beyond its control. Indirectly and unintentionally, Neville was right: the wolves have forgotten the essence of football. They are running out of time to rediscover it.