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What is going on at Wolves?

Just when you think Wolverhampton Wanderers are going to be a normal football club, back come Gestifute and Jorge Mendes to remind everyone what they signed up for.

The reaction of thousands of Wolves supporters to Rob Edwards suddenly being sacked — or indeed neutrals seeing the surprising news break late on Wednesday night or early on Thursday morning — will have been a collective: “What? Huh?”

That will have been immediately followed by a click on Google to search “Cesar Peixoto”. He is considered one of the most promising coaches in Portuguese football. And he has inspired Gil Vicente to be able to compete with clubs boasting significantly larger budgets.

However, his career history is checkered to say the least. He was sacked after short-term stints at Pacos de Ferreira and Moreirense, and his 15 months in charge at Gil Vicente is the longest he has lasted at any club. While guiding them to sixth in the Primeira Liga is a notable achievement, it’s not exactly unheard of. They finished fifth in 2022, after all.

Look, this is football and this is what happens when your owners have a financial commitment which ties them to an agency (Fosun have a minority stake in Gestifute). 

Sure, Edwards hardly had a convincing seven months in charge. He made some mistakes, he wasn’t universally popular with supporters, but he engineered some great results against Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal, and, amid extremely trying circumstances — he took over with Wolves in the midst of the worst start by any club to any season in the history of English football 

This shock move has the fingerprints of Mendes, Gestifute, and Fosun boss Guo Guangchang (based in China) all over it, rather than sporting director Matt Jackson or perhaps even new chairman Nathan Shi.

Everyone remains at the whim of Mendes, Gestifute and Fosun owner Guangchang, pulling the puppets along on strings. Wolves are not a serious football club, argues the New York Times.   I think that is going a bit far, but they could do with nee owners who take a more balanced long-term view.   Football clubs in general (and fans) need to get over the idea that everything is down to the coach.

It may all work out. Peixoto may be the new Nuno, Mendes may deliver a raft of exciting Gestifute signings this summer and Wolves may be back in the Premier League in a year, asking everyone what were they worried about.

But right now, just when Wolves supporters who had to endure the team’s worst season in its 149-year history thought they were getting their open, transparent, sensibly-run club back, they are heading once more into the unknown.

 

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