It has been a dismal season for Wolverhampton Wanderers and on Monday 20th April West Ham’s point against Crystal Palace sealed relegation.
Wolves have been bottom of the table since the third week of the season and after going 23 games without a win stretching back to last season this was always how it was going to end.
Their first win of the season only came when they beat West Ham on January 3rd which was their 20th game of the season.
It had been inevitable that this was always going to happen with such under-investment in recent years and key players not being adequately replaced.
After the loss of players such as Matheus Cunha and Rayan Ait-Nouri and them not being replaced by players of similar quality the performance of the team was always going to suffer.
After promotion in 2018 under Nuno Espirito Santo and securing a 7th place finish and European football this sent the Wolves fans into raptures.
A second successive 7th place finish came the following season, but Wolves were denied European football due to the winners of the F.A Cup.
However, in the 2020/2021 season the team suffered massively following a horror head injury to Raul Jimenez and this led to the sacking of Nuno Santo.
After Bruno Lage was installed as manager this looked like the start of something new but unfortunately it wasn’t the start of something good.
With top half finishes now being a thing of the past and them being replaced by relegation battles and this has not changed.
Successive managers had good starts but ultimately ended with the same kind of results and Bruno Lage and the managers who followed, Julen Lopetegui, who left before the start of a full season, Gary O’Neil and Vitor Pereira all suffered the sack.
Under current manager Rob Edwards it has not seemed to get better despite beating Liverpool and Aston Villa and they appear to be going down with a whimper rather than a bang and the worry is this lack of momentum could continue into next season
Last time Wolves got relegated to the Championship they suffered the heartache of being relegated the following season to League 1 and played there for the first time since 1980. With the under investment in the team this could unfortunately be the same again and they could fall even lower after 8 years in the Premier League.
The fans have protested against the owners and urged them to sell but unfortunately the owners have rejected this and have gone so far as to say that if you wanted a team that competes for trophies and European football then Wolves are not the team for you.
That is not what fans want to hear and the best thing the owners could do is sell the club and allow them to rebuild and compete at the highest level again rather than fall so low that the club is unrecognisable.
