The highs and lows of Matt Hobbs' Wolves tenure

The understated Scott Sellars moved on and in came Hobbs, a big character, someone who got on well with his peers and had a keen eye for promising players with his extensive scouting background.

In several roles, including chief scout and head of recruitment, Hobbs spent a decade at Wolves before leaving the club by mutual consent this week as the club embark on a restructure of their football operations department.

The success of the new regime is yet to be determined and by departing, Hobbs leaves behind plenty of positives from his tenure.

He struck up a good relationship with Julen Lopetegui, with the pair coming into their roles at very similar times, and the January window that followed proved to be a masterstroke from Hobbs and the hierarchy.

Wolves brought in six players that all played their part, in different ways, at keeping Wolves in the Premier League and on to big roles in the season that followed.

Matheus Cunha, Joao Gomes, Mario Lemina, Pablo Sarabia, Craig Dawson and Dan Bentley were all recruited to mark an impressive first transfer window with Hobbs as sporting director.

Hobbs also put an emphasis on signing players that wanted to be at Wolves in an effort to change the culture.

The days of over-relying on Jorge Mendes and his Gestifute agency were over and although they were still used for deals, Wolves were more independent under Hobbs in scouting elsewhere and making their own moves. How that will now change under the new structure remains to be seen.

In many ways that worked perfectly and J.Gomes is an example of a player that desperately wanted to come to Wolves and has since been a revelation.

In addition, the focus on South American players allowed Wolves to unearth some gems, including Andre and Pedro Lima, and Hobbs was working on more deals in that region for this summer until time came for him to depart.

Hobbs had a love for the club he had spent 10 years at and turned down a chance to move to Southampton to stay at Wolves. It would certainly not be a surprise to see another club snap him up quickly.

However, he also endured some difficult times at Wolves that earned him some criticism from fans.

Without total control, considering the final decision comes from chairman Jeff Shi and Fosun, Hobbs would at times be swimming against the tide when it came to recruitment.

For most of the summer of 2023 the money was not there, hence why Lopetegui walked and O'Neil arrived. The squad needed more balance and was left short, although O'Neil still did a fantastic job with what he had at his disposal.

Last summer, Wolves desperately needed a proper Pedro Neto replacement and a strong centre-back but Hobbs was unable to deliver either.

Instead, Wolves signed Sam Johnstone for £10million and it was a poor choice.

Hobbs and his peers should be credited for fixing a lot of the squad's problems this January, but that only came because O'Neil was not given what he needed in the summer.

The Matheus Cunha new contract contract and £62.5million release clause also came under Hobbs' tenure and although he would not have had sole control over it, it did mean Wolves perhaps got slightly less money for the talented player than they could have.

However, Hobbs also leaves having secured new long-term deals for J.Gomes and Yerson Mosquera and he departs with Wolves in a stronger position than he found them.

A sporting director role is difficult with one hand tied behind your back and Hobbs made a good fist of it.