Bruno Lage manager
Wolves supporters were left frustrated by the club’s transfer business on deadline day. The Wanderers chairman Jeff Shi addressed the club’s transfer window business – insisting that “the budget wasn’t an issue”.
Jeff Shi said “Bruno said he wanted three or four top players and he’s right. From a coach’s view, if he has those three or four top players, something special can happen. He’s spot on, I totally agree with that and I appreciate the ambition. But the market has been very difficult to acquire top players. We could have spent money on a player, the budget wasn’t an issue, albeit we can’t spend like Manchester City or Chelsea. We could easily have bought four or five players, but Bruno had the say on who he did or didn’t want. It’s not all about the budget, it’s about finding top players to come here, which isn’t easy. You need the player to be top quality, to want to move, the club (he’d be leaving) to want to sell and the fee to be more or less fair.”
But many still questioned why the decision to act so late in the window.
Jeff Shi continued: “People ask why did Wolves leave all their targets until the final day… It’s not the truth. All the targets on the last day weren’t totally ideal targets. We’d been working for several months on ideal top targets. “
Although Lage expressed his wish to have at least two more players coming through the door a few days before the end of the window, Shi claimed it was a joint decision to not bring anyone else in.
Jeff Shi said “He (Bruno Lage) was with us throughout the process, on deadline night, he was here with me and we jointly made the decision that we were done”
Despite the outcome of the summer window, there were also positives to take. Wolves managed to keep a hold of key players in Ruben Neves and Adama Traore, despite interest from other clubs.
Lille’s asking price for Botman was apparently £35million, while Wolves bid of £25m, preventing the two sides from coming to an agreement. Despite the arrivals in the likes of Jose Sa, Yerson Mosquera, Francisco Trincao and Hwang Hee-chan, head coach Bruno Lage expressed his desire to sign more “top players”. However, Wolves ended up sticking to those four signings, despite the desire to bring in the likes of Lille’s central defender Sven Botman, midfielder Renato Sanches, Marseille’s midfielder Boubacar Kamara and Cardiff City’s Keiffer Moore, on deadline day.
