FOOLS’ GOLD?
Rob Edwards did his best to keep his beloved side from the trap door marked Do One but, after eight seasons in the Premier League, Wolves have officially been relegated. West Ham – managed by former Wanderers manager Nuno Espírito Santo – earned a draw on Monday to finally put the Old Gold out of their misery, ending what has been a miserable season that had all the inevitability of Rúben Neves taking aim from 30 yards. Most relegations are an exercise in finger pointing and half-baked theories over what could have been but Wolves’ capitulation is remarkably easy to explain: years of systemic decline underpinned by Wanderers’ board of directors tendency to sell their best players and largely replace them with duds.
Much like Mikel Arteta scribbling Jake Humphrey-style social media disgrace posts on to the innards of Arsenal’s dressing room, the writing has been on the wall for some time. Wolves barely stayed up last season, owing their Premier League survival almost entirely to the trio of Matheus Cunha (15 goals), Jørgen Strand Larsen (14) and Rayan Aït-Nouri (third best on … four), and so it was not entirely startling that after the club packed Cunha and Aït-Nouri off to Manchester last summer and flogged Strand Larsen to Crystal Palace in January, they found themselves in something of a pickle this time around.
Wolves’s list of departees in recent years is staggering, with Pedro Neto, captain Max Kilman, Matheus Nunes, Neves, Nathan Collins, Raúl Jiménez, Adama Traoré, Fábio Silva, João Moutinho, Rui Patrício, Matt Doherty (when he was good), Morgan Gibbs-White and Diogo Jota all sold for a pretty penny since the 2019-20 heyday in which Wolves reached the Bigger Vase quarter-final. That’s not to say that Wolves have not spent money – nearly £600m since that 2020 defeat to Sevilla – it’s just they have spent it (or not spent it in the case of Vitinha) preposterously badly and have somehow now ended up with a squad where the only saleable asset appears to be Mateus Mané, a teenager signed for peanuts from Rochdale’s academy.
The Old Gold will be back, probably. When? Football Daily couldn’t possibly say but the sooner that the club’s board and recruitment department stop running the club like Homer Simpson in charge of a nuclear reactor, the better. Say what you like about Monty Burns, but at least he knew how to run a tight ship.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Simon Burnton at 8pm (BST) for Premier League updates on Brighton 2-1 Chelsea.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Taking part in the [Geopolitics] World Cup with the Bosnian national team means a vast amount to me and this summer a huge dream will be fulfilled. Ahead of the playoff games I signalled there’d be drinks for the VfB fans if I really would be there at the [GWC]. Now I want to keep that promise” – Stuttgart forward Ermedin Demirovic vows to stick to his word and hand out free Tin and ice cream to fans at a spring festival in the city after booking his place at the big summer shindig.
I read with bemusement the suggestion that Erling Haaland’s ‘basic decency’ in Sunday’s showdown may well have saved the Gunners’ season (yesterday’s Football Daily). His refusal to ‘do an Arsenal’ and capitulate under the merest hint of pressure has been cast as an act of nobility akin to something from a Jane Austen novel. The reality is that he probably realised any such action would lead to his rightful vilification by the likes of Football Daily and various social media disgraces. As the yellow was flourished at Gabriel, I’m sure he mouthed lovingly: ‘I thought only of you.’ So selfless” – Anthony Brady.
It is commendable of Haaland not to take a tumble, but as you point out, the ultimate result is that Gabriel will not now miss matches through suspension that he ought really to be missing. I think it’s worth going back a step, and considering why players started diving in the first place – it’s to make sure the referee’s attention is brought to what the diver thought was a foul. If justice was served on a regular basis anyway, the need for diving would not be there. If only there was some sort of assistance available to referees, perhaps involving cameras and monitors, maybe they’d get it right more often, and quite so many players wouldn’t feel the need to cheat. Wait, what? Oh” – Gumley Slats.
Granted, your Devon Loch comparison with Arsenal is a good one (yesterday’s Football Daily), but the 1973 National with Red Rum catching and overhauling Crisp from way back after Crisp had led for a long time is, in my opinion, much more apposite. Arsenal are lolling all over the place, just as the desperately unfortunate top weight did and City are chasing them down like the multiple winners they are and Red Rum became” – Richard Askham.
Fantastic to see Chelsea’s Frank Lampard’s Coventry back in the Premier League. If old Frank does a decent job of it, he could well find himself back in the hot seat as Chelsea’s Frank Lampard’s Chelsea manager” – Scott Coyne.
If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Gumley Slats. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
It’s David Squires on … Manchester City, Arsenal and an epic clash of the titans.
RECOMMENDED SUBSCRIBING
Want a newsletter that explains how the World Cup became the cultural, social and political behemoth that it is? Then look no further than The World Behind the Cup, a new email from Jonathan Wilson coming soon. You can pre-subscribe … but please stick with your faithful Football Daily too.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Get your ears around Women’s Football Weekly as the pod squad discuss a fourth Women’s World Cup qualifying win in a row for England and more. Then listen up, as the Football Weekly crew chew over Coventry’s promotion and Leicester’s potential relegation to the third tier. You can watch it here, too, if you like.
Leave a Reply