Comment: End of an era at Wolves – a club in a hurry

Six months later and his near-decade stay at Wolves is over, sold to Reading for £1million.

When footballers are concerned you normally take quotes like the above with a pinch of salt, as an empty platitude, a tired cliché.

But with Dave the words came with substance. One of the most articulate and moral-centred footballers you could meet really gave a damn.

Edwards doesn’t act like a ‘normal’ footballer. This is a man who recently said “I’d love to get to a point where I literally just did charity work – what a great life to have.”

Wolves were lucky to have him and indeed with their player ins and out having a higher turnover than the staff roster at Poundland, (25 players in and 22 out since Fosun took charge) it’s increasingly likely that, academy products aside, a spell of anything approaching 10 years at Molineux will be very rare indeed.

When the chips were down, it was Edwards who would stand tall, encourage his team mates and never shirk his responsibilities. He didn’t bask in glory or attention but when it came to facing up after a defeat, he'd be the one clapping the fans at full time and was often the player who’d try and justify Wolves’ performance to the press. Those qualities will be missed.

Supporters generally like their players to be wear their heart on their sleeve, give 100 per cent every single time they cross that white line, respect the club's traditions and fans, play with passion and get every ounce out of their ability. Edwards did all that. He also rescued Wolves a number of times and provided some unforgettable memories, the winner in the 4-3 against Leeds and the injury time goal in the 4-4 thriller with Fulham last season standing out among many.

For all the stinging and wildly unnecessary criticism he received from people who were unable to ignore what he couldn’t do on a football field, instead of appreciating what he could do, the reaction to his exit was mostly one of sadness. As it should have been – Edwards was a fine representative of Wolverhampton Wanderers. Dependable, reliable, the archetypal model professional who left an indelible mark on those he afforded his time to – and that, with Dave, was everyone who requested it. That sadness has been reflected in the dressing room where Edwards was a role model for many.

The reaction has been similar with Nouha Dicko. He loved Wolves too – the striker was reportedly in tears after Saturday’s draw at Brentford, knowing it would be the last time he turned out in gold and black (or light blue).

One third of the Dicko, Afobe, Sako triumvate whose thrilling 'partnership' burned so brightly but too briefly, Dicko was a prolific and at times electrifying goalscorer in his first 18 months, notching 28 in 59 appearances and displaying the drive and passion that the club had been so sorely lacking in the couple of years before he joined.

A devastating cruciate knee ligament injury sullied his Wolves career but he deserves the utmost respect for the way he battled back to full health and never cowered during that horrible goal drought he endured last season. Ironically he was just started to look like his old self again.

Again the memories are numerous...a hat-trick in the 6-4 Rotherham madness, two more in the aforementioned Leeds victory and winners in 1-0 victories against Forest and Leeds (again) towards the end of last season at the forefront, as was a confrontation with a Walsall fan on the Banks's pitch when Dicko stood his ground. "He's one of our own," they sing.

So two loyal and likeable servants have departed in a summer that has very much felt like the end of an era.

Edwards and Dicko’s time at Molineux adds to a combined total of 13 years. Add in the departures of long-serving staff Pat Mountain, Tony Daley and Rob Edwards, the latter pair having also played for Wolves, and you’re talking 43 years’ service.

But despite sadness within the club at losing affable and popular players and staff, the feeling among the fanbase is that a clean sweep was necessary.

There is sound logic to that. Wolves' last two seasons had been mediocre and apathetic.

"I think the club definitely needs shaking up," Paul Lambert said in May.

"I think there's been an acceptance here for too long, for too many years. We have to try and shake it up."

Fosun have certainly done that and sentiment is an alien concept to Jeff Shi, to Nuno and certainly to the increasingly influential Jorge Mendes.

While Edwards was being pushed out the door at 2.20pm on Saturday, Shi was in the pub buying drinks for fans. The coincidental timing was unfortunate but the imagery felt apt. This club is moving on in a hurry.

And if the chairman is to be getting a celebratory round of Champagne in at the Hogshead in May, this is what he and the hierarchy feel is necessary.

After two seasons of going nowhere changes had to be made. "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new," Socrates philosophised 2,400 years ago, and it's a motto Wolves have adapted, led by the trump card that is Nuno whose opening weeks have been deeply impressive.

It's ruthless, perhaps cold...but in 12 months this has become a very, very different club to the one run by Steve Morgan – a club which spectacularly failed with successive relegations to League One in one of the low points of Wolves' modern history, either side of their longest stay in the top flight for 30 years and a pride-restoring couple of years under Kenny Jackett.

The 'cosy club', as many fans came to term it, has now been disbanded.

In its place is a carousel of mostly overseas recruits who see the club as a stepping stone to the Premier League, with or without Wolves, and whether success is forthcoming or not won't hang around long enough to be heroes in the mould of Wright, Richards or Bull. Those days are long gone.

Do fans care? While the team is winning, it appears not. Heck, Ruben Neves admitted he saw the club as a path to the top flight and no one batted an eyelid. Should they care? The game has moved on and now, rightly or wrongly, Wolves are catching up. Whatever the rights and wrongs of leaning so heavily on an agent, whose primary motivation is to make money, Mendes has attracted players to Molineux that wouldn't even consider talking to Wolves in normal circumstances. The concern isn't of Wolves using Mendes...it's of Mendes using Wolves.

But this is an exciting new era and the Molineux hordes are daring to dream – that is a wondrous thing. Football is nothing without hope. Losing the likes of Edwards and Dicko and sacrificing loyalty and players that the fans can more readily associate with for a perceived increase in quality seems to be collateral damage if the Premier League dream is to be realised.

Wolves tried the hard-working plucky underdog route under Mick McCarthy which took them to giddy yet too-brief heights, then the youthful and loyal approach under Kenny Jackett which, when extra funds weren't forthcoming, had its limitations. Now it's the superstar mercenaries era.

As is increasingly common at Wolves these days the methods may leave a sour taste but the destination supersedes everything and everyone.

Losing its soul? Maybe. Reinvention, revolution and a dispensing with tradition? Certainly. A brighter future? We can but hope...that's what these fans crave and deserve.