Wolves: £16m flop, 3-game disaster, failed prodigy

Wolverhampton Wanderers have been under the ownership of Chinese conglomerate group Fosun International for almost seven years.

The owners have seen Wolves promoted to the Premier League as Championship winners and reach an FA Cup semi-final and Europa League quarter-final in that time after investing millions of pounds into the playing staff.

Walter Zenga, Paul Lambert, Nuno Espirito Santo, Bruno Lage and Julen Lopetegui have all felt the benefit of Fosun’s riches since the summer of 2016, with players such as Ruben Neves, Joao Moutinho and Raul Jimenez wowing the Molineux faithful.

However, it hasn’t been plain sailing for Fosun, with the club frequently wasting large amounts of money on unfulfilled talents, which could have been a factor in the club’s recent rumoured financial struggles.

Let’s take a look at some of Fosun’s worst signings.

5) Paul Gladon

During Fosun’s first summer in charge at Wolves, the Chinese owners appointed Zenga before just over a month’s worth of scattergun recruitment, most of which proved unsuccessful additions to the playing squad.

Nobody encapsulates the failings of that transfer window more than the £1m signing of Heracles Almelo striker Paul Gladon in August 2016.

The now 31-year-old made three appearances for Zenga’s side before his career at Molineux was over, having provided no goals or assists during his 186 minutes of action.

And the flop was loaned back to Heracles the following summer before having his contract cancelled by the West Midlands outfit in January 2019.

Gladon’s time at Wolves epitomises the shortcomings of Fosun’s first season at Wolves.

But the club’s owners can point to the following season’s transfer window as a sign of their upcoming success.

4) Ki-Jana Hoever

After selling Matt Doherty to Tottenham Hotspur in September 2020, Wolves had no senior options on the right side of Nuno’s backline.

In came the duo of Ki-Jana Hoever and Nelson Semedo from Liverpool and Barcelona, respectively, with the former costing an initial £10m.

However, the 21-year-old has barely made an impact at Molineux and was criticised by Lage last season for failing to prepare after coming off injured in a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace, his most recent appearance for the West Midlands outfit.

The five-cap Netherlands U21 international has made just 25 outings for Wanderers and has spent the last season on loan at PSV Eindhoven and Stoke City, with the full-back bagging four goals in 17 showings for the latter.

However, with Wolves triggering Semedo’s two-year contract extension last month, it looks as though Hoever’s time with the Premier League outfit could come to a permanent end this summer.

3) Fabio Silva

Whilst there’s no denying Fabio Silva has the potential to become a top-level striker for Wolves, the young talent has yet to reach the giddy heights initially predicted on his initial move to Molineux.

Silva signed for Wanderers from FC Porto for a then club-record fee of £35.6m in September 2020, as Nuno looked to freshen up his squad after the heartbreak of the previous season’s Europa League quarter-final defeat to Sevilla.

The then-teenager was thrust into the limelight before schedule when a horrifying fractured skull injury suffered by first-choice striker Raul Jimenez in November left Nuno with no choice but to expose the starlet to senior Premier League football.

Four goals and six assists in 62 appearances followed over the next two seasons, representing a solid but not exceptional return.

Admittedly, expectations surrounding the 20-year-old’s ability were heightened by the exorbitant fee that Wolves paid for the striker.

But the club’s decision to part with that money may have contributed to their current Financial Fair Play issues.

Therefore, whilst Silva could yet prove to be a smart signing but at the time of writing, this looks to have been a poor decision on the recruitment staff’s part.

2) Patrick Cutrone

With Wolves set for Europa League football during the 2019/20 season, Fosun needed to provide Nuno with a backup centre-forward option to Jimenez, who led the line admirably in the previous campaign.

The £16m arrival of Patrick Cutrone from AC Milan was an exciting addition at Molineux and felt like the perfect foil for Jimenez and Diogo Jota, who had generally been the side’s operators in the final third.

However, the Italian could never settle in England and struggled to adapt to life in the Premier League, bagging just two goals in his short time at the club.

After being dropped from the squad in a 2-1 defeat at Liverpool in December 2019, Cutrone was loaned to Fiorentina.

The striker briefly returned to Wolves in the January 2021, but four appearances failed to yield a goal or assist, and he quickly moved out on loan again, this time to La Liga outfit Valencia.

And the former Italy international eventually left Molineux for good last summer, signing for Serie B outfit Como, a sad indictment of a transfer that had promised so much.

1) Goncalo Guedes

There was great excitement coming out of Wolves when Lage’s side secured the signing of Valencia and Portugal forward Goncalo Guedes in a deal worth £27.5m.

The 26-year-old came with a positive reputation, having registered 19 goal contributions during the previous season at Valencia.

However, what followed proved to be nothing short of a disaster of a move, with neither Lage nor Lopetegui able to get a tune out of the 32-cap Portugal international.

The Benavente-born man registered just three goal contributions in 18 appearances for the Molineux outfit, who sat in the relegation zone for the majority of the forward’s half-season at the club.

Lopetegui then revealed that Guedes had asked to leave the club in January and was allowed to seal a temporary switch back to his native Portugal, where he spent the remainder of the campaign at former club Benfica.

Wolves will struggle to recoup the outlay they spent on bringing the highly-rated attacker to Molineux, and it could be argued that his impact and transfer fee has made him the club’s worst signing under Fosun.