- It’s not who each clubs buys, it is who leaves and for how much
- The curious tale of H Kane, Totts, Bayern and a lack of trophies
By Tony Attwood
This summer Wolverhampton lost 1-3 at home to West Ham, lost 3-1 away to Crystal Palace, beat RB Leipzig 3-0 away, and lost 0-1 at home to Rayo Vallecano – a club which finished 17th in the Spanish League last season – just one spot above the relegation places.
This summer they have spent €15.00m on Rodrigo Gomes from SC Braga, €10.00m on Pedro Lima from Sport Recife and €5.00m on Tommy Doyle from Manchester City.
Overall last season they came 14th, but this can be slightly misleading when we consider their home and away form, in that they actually came 12th in the away league, although with a performance that was eight points worse than their home form.
| Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Arsen home | 19 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 48 | 16 | 32 | 47 |
| 12 | Wolverhampton Wanderers away | 19 | 5 | 4 | 10 | 24 | 35 | -11 | 19 |
Although Arsenal’s home form in the league had them third in that table the points difference between Arsenal at home (47 points) and Wolverhampton away (19 points) is obviously a rather significant 28 points.
But perhaps the biggest difference on the pitch between the clubs was in goals. Arsenal scored 24 more at home than Wolverhampton did away and conceded 19 fewer than Wolverhampton, again comparing Arsenal at home with Wolverhampton away. That gives a difference overall of 43 goals across 19 games – over two a game.
And here is an interesting couple of pointers considering the start and finish of last season. For then Wolverhampton won just one of their first six games in the league at the start of the season, and won one of their last ten league games of the season.
So after the first six games of last season the table for both teams read
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 14 |
| 16 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 12 | -6 | 4 |
Now as we know Arsenal came second in the league last season and Wolverhampton 14th, so those first six games didn’t really represent where the clubs eventually ended up., although in general terms relative to each other, those tables do give a clear view of the difference between the clubs.
But perhaps the biggest insight of all can come from looking at Wolverhampton’s last ten games of last season and how a league table based just on those last ten games would look, showing the top and bottom clubs.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 10 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 33 | 6 | +27 | 28 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 10 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 5 | +16 | 25 |
| 3 | Chelsea | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 28 | 16 | +12 | 23 |
| 18 | West Ham Un. | 10 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 15 | 25 | -10 | 9 |
| 19 | Brighton & H | 10 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 18 | -13 | 6 |
| 20 | Wolverhampton W | 10 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 8 | 21 | -13 | 5 |
If we were to take just the last six games of last season Wolverhampton would still be bottom with the one win and five defeats while Arsenal would be second on goal difference after six straight wins.
Now given that situation both in the league as a whole and the end of the season it seems rather strange that Wolverhhampton should not have tried to strengthen their squad more than they have done.
But the problem comes from the club’s finances and FFP. As the BBC noted (using as they do the familiar “Wolves” name for the club, “Wolves look set to avoid breaches of Premier League spending rules despite recording a loss of £67.2m for the financial year to 31 May 2023.” And that gives a hint of the problem for they made a similar loss the previous year.
As you may recall, Premier League teams can lose up to £105m over a rolling three-season period or £35m per campaign, before facing sanctions. So it looks like financially Wolverhampton are teetering on the edge, just as they are in terms of league position.
On the positive side of things Wolverhampton missed relegation by a fairly large margin – 20 points in fact, so there was never really any thought of things going wrong from that point of view. And Everton, Brentford and Nottingham Forest provided a cushion between Wolverhampton and relegation.
But there is a deeper point here. In previous eras we would have expected to see Wolverhampton buying a number of players both last season and in the summer in order to give their supporters something to look forward to. Now with FFP, this can’t happen, and I wonder how long it will take for supporters to express their annoyance at such a state of affairs.
To my mind it seems likely that Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Leeds United will all go back down again, just as Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United did the yoyo act the year before – and this simply because FFP stops clubs buying to survive in the Premier League (although it does mean they are more likely to survive financially.)
Leicester City particularly could be in trouble with it having been reported by the BBC that their total losses for their last three Premier League campaigns to over £215m.
In short, the financial issues of last season could most certainly still be around in the season to come.
Leicester is doomed.