Wolves at a crossroads
On Saturday 14th August at good old 3pm Wolves play Leicester City in their 2021-22 Premier League season opener. The start of any new season is always a significant moment, made all the more so this year in that it will mark the first premier league game since 7th March 2020 that Wolves will perform in front of a live audience. On that last occasion, a dreary 0-0 draw at home to Brighton & Hove Albion, few knew as they left the Molineux that football in front of live crowds would be put on hold for the next eighteen months. Or that by the end of those eighteen months Wolves would no longer be led by their talismanic manager, Nuno Espirito Santo - the man who, more than any other over the last fifty years, had transformed their fortunes. It’s almost as if the club contracted Covid, required ventilation, recovered but is now suffering the effects of Long Covid.
Which probably explains why few Wolves fans view their club’s prospects for the coming season with unalloyed optimism. They know that in pure footballing terms the club has at best flatlined. The squad remains predominantly young with too few looking as if they are going to make it. Their manager is now at Spurs and Bruno Lage, his replacement, has a 2019 Portuguese league title with Benfica on his mantlepiece. But that’s a gig akin to managing Celtic in the Scottish Premier League and after six months of his second season he was dismissed. It’s far from confidence boosting record.
As a good mate observed. “Wolves are now the equivalent of a team which has just got promoted. The problem for the new manager is that the fans will turn on him if he does not bring success from the outset”. The spectre of 2017 and Walter Zenga looms large.
Wolves are indeed at a crossroads. Time will tell which route they choose to follow.
Ps. If you’ve got a spare thirty minutes listen to the one time-table tennis champion turned sports psychologist Matthew Syed and his excellent BBC R4 series Sideways. Here is his analysis of why the Danish football team triumphed at the 1992 European Championships. Sideways - 15. Best Feet Forward - BBC Sounds
©Mark Brennand