Johnny Phillips: Fosun frustrations forced Wolves into major reset

How many of the new arrivals are genuinely starting XI ready?

Matt Doherty can certainly be called upon but it will be fascinating to see if Gary O’Neil hangs his hat on any of the others for starting places in the Premier League despite the obvious promise that comes with the new arrivals.

“We didn’t manage to achieve all our targets,” admitted Wolves’ head coach in advance of the Crystal Palace defeat, in a clear reference to the failure to bring in a striker, which he had identified as a priority during his early days here.

That Wolves were ineffective in this position at Selhurst Park, with Fabio Silva at number nine, was perhaps indicative of the issue.

The elephant in the room during this entire summer period has been the lack of investment from the ownership which the Wolverhampton-based hierarchy previously believed would be forthcoming.

This would have made any Premier League profit and sustainability issues redundant and allowed Wolves to act quite freely in the transfer market. But Fosun withheld funding – for reasons entirely within their rights – and instead changed strategy, demanding a clear and significant profit from the summer window.

Fosun chairman Guo Guangchang, in particular, is believed to have become frustrated at the lack of return on investment in recent transfer windows and believes the club should be standing on its own two feet.

Fosun also want support from outside investment, which has not been forthcoming so far, and the club needs to be ready for any changes that would trigger.

The lack of internal investment was what sparked the long and drawn-out saga with Julen Lopetegui. All parties were ultimately able to make a clean break and out of the wreckage of the affair there is hope that some good may come of the situation.

The Spaniard inadvertently shone a light on the structural problems at the club after sporting director Matt Hobbs had said the project was back on in January. Either nobody in Shanghai told him it wasn’t, or something changed in the subsequent five months that led to the public breakdown in communications which played out over the summer, where the head coach even enlisted the help of a Spanish journalist to force a move out of the club.

Incredibly, Wolves agreed to pay off almost half the remaining time on Lopetegui and his coaches’ lucrative contracts – in excess of £10million a year – to make a clean break despite Lopetegui being the principal agitator and forcing the club’s hand.

The souring of the relationship between Lopetegui and Fosun after such a lengthy courtship was staggering.

Going forward, supporters want to see a more clearly defined structure in place where transparency and collective thinking is at the fore.

Wolves chairman Jeff Shi has the unenviable task of being the sole liaison between strategic decision-making in Shanghai and how that impacts daily life at Compton Park and Molineux at all levels and departments of the club.

The role of Gestifute remains important and Jorge Mendes’s relationship with Wolves, which has cooled considerably since the heady days of Wolves’ first steps in the Premier League under Fosun, needs addressing.

It was Mendes, after all, who was able to secure £100m of revenue from the sales of Ruben Neves and Matheus Nunes alone, highlighting just how effectively he can operate at the elite end of the market.

Nunes left under a cloud but despite his regrettable behaviour it would be wrong to point the finger of blame entirely in the player’s direction.

The former Sporting Lisbon midfielder was given assurances from his agent that he would be moved on this summer, at the latest, when he originally joined Wolves a year earlier and as the window wound down, he became frustrated. Of course, it should not be for an agent to dictate when a player moves – and as Wolves had little choice but to go along with Nunes’s wishes they did not get the best price for him – but this is where we are.

The positive outcome of the summer’s fire sale is the opportunity to genuinely reset. Wolves’ new head coach was appointed by Hobbs and the handful of signings the club was able to make have also been under the control of the sporting director, which illustrates the greater autonomy that now exists with the job title.

Three defeats and one victory from the opening four games is a fair reflection on where the current squad is in their development in the Premier League.

There is a huge amount of work to be done and O’Neil deserves time to be judged on his coaching abilities after being given a great opportunity in very difficult circumstances.

All at the club will want to look ahead, now that the transfer window and the Lopetegui era are firmly in the rear-view mirror.

The biggest questions that remain concern Fosun’s investment plans, and these have not been properly addressed, but the owners have provided enough in recent years that they cannot be expected to keep the tap turned on indefinitely.

Their arrival in 2016 took the club to the next level and beyond. For Wolves to re-establish their brief acquaintance with the upper echelons of the Premier League it will take some turn around.

A new era is under way with a squad that has its work cut out to establish a foothold in the Premier League this season.

The ‘One Pack’ mantra has never been so pertinent as Wolves seek to prosper once more.