In June, the Birmingham Mail reported that Wolverhampton Wanderers’ owners Fosun were aiming for a top-six finish in the Premier League following promotion. By the end of September, managing director Laurie Dalrymple was publicly insisting that Wolves were in the Premier League to win it, not just survive.
It is at that point that you feel like placing a finger over Dalrymple’s lips and whispering something into his ear about pride before a fall. Even entertaining talk about winning the title – even if you don’t mean in the current season – after six matches of your first campaign back in the top flight strikes as particularly dim.
No club in the Premier League needs added motivation to beat another, particularly not when the battle to survive promises to be mighty difficult. But it doesn’t take much of a leap to imagine those words posted on the doors of dressing rooms.
Fire of expectation
There’s nothing wrong with vision or ambition, quite the opposite, but the problem with accelerated success is that it pours fuel on the fire of expectation. Most promoted clubs would consider 40 points and 17th position as cause for celebration, but not Wolves. That lack of natural ceiling of ambition can create an identity crisis where different factions of the club can disagree on season targets.
Wolves are certainly a club with tremendous vision. In his programme notes for Sunday’s game against Huddersfield, Dalrymple spoke of ‘developing our fan strategy and youth development in China’ and congratulated the club’s Brazilian eSports player Flavio Brito for qualifying for the Fifa Ultimate Team Championship in Bucharest.
There is a light show, flames and fireworks before kick-off. These are strange times in WV1. At least ‘Hi Ho Wolverhampton’ keeps pride of place for the traditionalist.
On one point, all parties can agree: Wolves expect to beat Huddersfield Town at home. But that slightly disrespectful, patronising assumption only exposes the truth.
The Premier League contains any number of success stories and any number of teams prepared to fight to make themselves greater than the sum of their component parts. Wolves’ contacts and cash provides a leg up, not a VIP pass.
Reality check
Their last game of November brought a reality check. Wolves were truly dismal, playing like a team that has not trained together regularly over the international break or in fact for many months before that.
The typical calling cards of the poor home performance were all present: midfielders being caught dallying in possession, defenders passing the ball out of play, throw-ins presented straight to the opposition and a total lack of conviction in the final third.
The first half was as bad a 45 minutes as Wolves have produced under manager Nuno Espirito Santo. The second half was just a little worse.
Ivan Cavaleiro was particularly guilty, to the extent that he changed his boots in hope of solace.
He lasted 15 minutes in the second pair before being substituted at half-time. Raul Jimenez was comically hurried in front of goal, blasting high and wide but rarely handsomely.
Every error – from Cavaleiro and each of his teammates – provoked its own groan. They conveyed angst rather than anger, but neither is ideal.
The half-time whistle provoked boos from pockets of supporters. If 16 points from 13 Premier League games would have been viewed as magnificent at any other point over the last 25 years, the rules have changed.
Huddersfield’s directness
It was in stark contrast to the directness of Huddersfield, who could have scored four or five times but for their own profligacy.
It was only their second away league victory of 2018, and their first by more than a single goal since their Premier League debut in August 2017. “How sh*t must you be, we’re winning away,” the away fans sang. Candid, but cutting.
If Nuno and his players complained about time-wasting and occasional physical treatment from David Wagner’s players as they scrapped and scraped through the second half, they are hardly averse to those principles themselves.
But for all the bells, whistles and glitter, this is a team created around the old-fashioned principles.
Limp
There are few managers in the Premier League who demand more physical effort from their players that Nuno. The limpness of Wolves’ display will cause him great anger.
This has been a strange Wolves season, one in which they have offered stern tests to top-six teams Tottenham, Manchester City and Arsenal but only actually beaten teams sitting below them in the table.
If promoted clubs often take time to acclimatise to top-flight life, Wolves began the season at sprinting pace but have taken a single point from their last five matches.
Wolves will not be relegated. There is too much quality in this squad and they have already accumulated a healthy cushion to the bottom three.
But then avoiding relegation was never the aim. If Nuno always faced a battle to manage the expectations of his superiors, his team’s actions on Sunday made the same argument far louder than any words.
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