Next season 'starts not in August but on Monday' published at 16:55 15 May
Mike Taylor
BBC Radio WM reporter
Gary O’Neil was conflicted. Some Wolves fans – perhaps not as many as would have done had they won the game – stayed after the defeat by Crystal Palace to see the end-of-season prizes handed out. Their generous applause gave the coach some consolation.
"They’re great at putting perspective on stuff here, which you don’t always expect from football fans but these are incredible with it," he said. "I stand here really disappointed – one of the most disappointed days I’ve had here. But they’re still singing and cheering players and stayed right until the end, because we have more points, more wins and more goals than we did last year, with a squad that was ripped apart."
Wolves have scaled high peaks this season, but they are starting to recede into the distance. The campaign has had a troubling tail for Wolves, who have been fading badly since the FA Cup quarter-final in March, to O’Neil’s growing discomfort.
"What I do like about it," he said, "is that I’ve seen a lot of things that have to improve, in the last few weeks. The last couple of games, we can look closer to home than looking at the injuries…a lot to look at and a lot to improve over the summer."
The list of injuries has eased although the difference between being fully fit and merely uninjured has been clear, especially in the toils of Hwang Hee-Chan and Matheus Cunha since their return.
Alas, there is no realistic solution to this that will not require spending money. That part is not in question; the tricky bit is generating the money in the first place.
"I don’t think there’ll be money available to us if nobody leaves,” said O’Neil last Friday, which quickly gave some supporters the jitters, thinking they were hearing echoes of Julen Lopetegui this time last year.
Not really - or at least, not yet. A summer of net-zero spending would be very different to the large profit needed last year. It will still mean making difficult decisions, perhaps at speed if and when offers come in for current players.
"My obvious hope," said O’Neil, "is that we all are on the same page and we can push things forward in a direction that we’re all looking to."
That page will need to be written very soon. In effect, next season starts not in August, but on Monday.
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