The Premier League Thread

I think they may get less than Derby. They must feel like we did at this stage, knowing you are going down, just trying to get another 10 points over the line

 

It was always built on sand. It was the Mendes link and it always seemed like he potentially talked his clients into taking reduced terms so they would have a platform for a bigger move later. Because their wage bill when they had the likes of Neves in the championship didn’t make sense. So there was also some potentially shenanigans going on there with potentially more fees going to Mendes one way or another

The klaxon was that massive money bid for the teenage Portuguese striker who’d scored something like one goal ever. Seemed like a higher level Bebe like transfer where it was effectively a big financial transfer at massively over market rate with a large chunk pocketed by agents

 

Neves rather oddly stayed in the shop window at Wolves for six seasons; maybe he’s doing something similar now in Saudi; acting as a beacon to an unfashionable footballing project. His eventual sale felt like the beginning of the end of the Gestifute-era Wolves model.

The following season, Wolves were compelled to buy Matheus Cunha for around £50m after the appearance clause kicked in, despite him managing just 17 games and 2 goals during the loan. At Atlético he’d scored 6 in 40, yet somehow his value had risen from the £35m they’d paid Hertha. Still, once the purchase went through, his sudden transformation turned out to be an unexpected boon for Wolves.

The £100m generated from Cunha and the eventual sale of Gestifute-pipeline signing Rayan Aït-Nouri, with no following notable re-investment, it really feels like the last echoes of that whole project may have finally played out for Mendes/Fosun. The Chinese company now managing finances increasingly stringently due to the subsequent tightening of domestic regulations and its own debt-reduction strategy. History will see it as a unique strategic partnership which briefly elevated Wolves above their modern mean of mid-table Champ.