Matt Maher: An era of Fosun signings that struggled for Wolves impact
There have been worse Wolves players than Fabio Silva.
But when everything is taken into account, the Portuguese striker must surely rank as the most calamitous signing of the Fosun era.
That is not to say he doesn’t have competition. His countryman Goncalo Guedes, sold this week to Real Sociedad for £3.5million, three years after being signed for nearly eight times that amount, is certainly in the frame.
At least Silva, during his first few years at Molineux, gave the impression of actually wanting to play for Wolves. Guedes, seven goals in 51 largely forgettable appearances, typically looked like he would rather be anywhere else.
No other signing, however, epitomises the errors which have seen Wolves slip from being “best of the rest” behind the Premier League’s so-called Big Six, to being bottom half regulars quite like Silva.
Remarkably, it appears Wolves may now well get back around half of what was a then club record £35m fee paid to Porto five years ago.
Yet even if Wolves are able to wrangle £20m out of Borussia Dortmund, his biggest suitors, it will still be a long way short of the £100m some inside Molineux believed he would be worth by now. Though Silva might still only be 23, he remains a long way from becoming the “generational talent” Jeff Shi once claimed he had the potential to be.
But then the problem with the Silva deal was never just the money. It was also the timing.
