The we’ve lost again verdict thread. Liverpool 2-1 Wolves

[Deutsch Wolf]

He was head of player recruitment, therefore has some responsibility, it was literally his job title.

Come on now. You know as well as I do that Pereira and Teti signed these losers.

 

[EnglishBob]

Where does/will this rank in our worst season's ever?

I think objectively it has to be the worst. We're literally setting records every week for all the wrong reasons and are projected to get 4-5 points in total for the entire season. There are no excuses for what's happening, we are an established team that has been allowed to get worse year in, year out, due to indifference or incompetence. Or both.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Come on now. You know as well as I do that Pereira and Teti signed these losers.

Yes, but Jackson will have signed them off too, that was his role - he was head of player recruitment

 

[Lycan]

The players are shite but Leeds, Burnley & WHU have shite players as well. The difference between them and us is that our players are gutless cunts.

 

[SSB]

Noticed again, plenty of tickets in the away ends are ending up in the hands of non Wolves fans. Also, not much, if any anti Fosun chants today. Won’t miss visiting Anfield whatsoever.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

You really think we hired a Director of Football - at the manager's behest - then they both had to go cap in hand to Matt Jackson to say yes when they picked out a player?

Again, come on now.

 

[Lycan]

Noticed again, plenty of tickets in the away ends are ending up in the hands of non Wolves fans. Also, not much, if any anti Fosun chants today. Won’t miss visiting Anfield whatsoever.

Loads of 'proper' Wolves fans around me today. None of them sang anything, let alone any anti Fosun chants.

I think our support are just shite.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

You really think we hired a Director of Football - at the manager's behest - then they both had to go cap in hand to Matt Jackson to say yes when they picked out a player?

Again, come on now.

So what was MJ doing whilst Teti was here then?

In his role as player recruitment director?

Are you suggesting he had no involvement!? That’s far more ridiculous that what I am saying.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I don't know what "MJ" was doing.

It's pretty obvious who was in charge though.

 

[Lycan]

It doesn't matter who was responsible for assembling this squad. They're an absolute disgrace and it's nobody else's fault but their own. Fucking rats.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Not sure why your mocking me for shortening his name, do you not know who I am referring to?

And not sure why you are being so binary, I'm saying our player recruitment director would have had involvement in signings in the summer, that is not an outrageous claim.

Also expecting our club to make decisions that are logical, sensible and correct is more "come on now" than anything, have you not learnt from experience?

Fosun/Shi have barely made a good decision for years, and our head man now is Matthew Alan Jackson and Nathan Shi forgive me for not feeling confident about them doing what is necessary for us to be successful next season.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

They pied off Cutrone and Guedes inside six months when they were shite.

I think the concepts of a) Matt Jackson having much influence this summer when we quite obviously appointed Domenico Teti to oversee that side of thing and b) us blindly insisting on picking players next season who this manager (or the next one) didn't sign, are shite, don't want to be here and won't be equipped for the Championship are daft.

Doesn't mean I have any faith in Fosun at all, I just don't think they'll say "well we spent £20m on Jhon Arias so he'll simply have to play against Millwall on Saturday".

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

You’re right about Cutrone, but not Guedes. He was given repeated chances, under multiple managers, over more than one season.

The club persisted with him for a long time before finally giving up.

In fact, he’s a good example of the wider problem. He kept getting chances because of what he cost, not because of what he produced. If he’d been a £5m signing, he’d have been gone far earlier.

That isn’t the kind of ruthless correction we’re going to need next season. It’s hesitation.

And then there’s Hwang. He’s been largely shit, we had a brilliant opportunity to sell, and didn’t take it. Again, that’s not decisiveness, it was keeping him because of this mythical income his presence at Wolves give us.

As for Jackson, last summer he was Player Recruitment Director, during our worst window ever. That role involves recruitment decisions. That’s literally the job.

Saying he has some responsibility isn’t the same as claiming he overruled Pereira or Teti. It’s just acknowledging how football clubs work.

What I'm saying is that i don't trust Nathan Shi or Jackson to do what is necessary this coming summer, Jeff Shi leaving isn't suddenly going to correct that, particularly as his replacement has zero experience of football.

If you do, great, I hope you're right I really do.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Guedes was gone on loan just over four months after we signed him and stayed out on loan for the next 18 months. He only came back because no-one would take him, even for free.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Yes, he went out on loan quickly. That doesn’t contradict what I’m saying.

The fact he kept being loaned rather than written off is exactly the point. We spent years trying to salvage value from him instead of taking the hit early and moving on.

Multiple loans, multiple summers at the club, more chances, different managers. That’s persistence driven by sunk cost, not performance.

If he’d been a cheap signing, we’d have cut our losses far sooner instead of cycling him round Europe hoping something might change.

So whether he was starting games here or being loaned out, the underlying behaviour was the same, reluctance to admit a bad decision and reset properly.

And what about Hwang? Or the contract extensions of VP and GON?

That pattern matters, because it’s the same hesitation/bad decisions we’ve seen repeatedly under Fosun, and it’s why I don’t suddenly trust this summer to be different.

If you think that mindset has changed, fine. I just don’t see the evidence.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We weren't hoping anything would change (because it obviously wouldn't, he is awful), just a loan was the best we could do to get the knobhead out of here, and then we couldn't even do that because he was absolutely shite on loan elsewhere.

Plus selling him at the price we ended up getting rid at would have crippled us on PSR if we'd done it two years earlier.

 

[Tony Towner]

Signed in Summer 22, loaned out in Winter 23.
Loaned out for 23/4 season to 2 different clubs
At Wolves for 24/5 as nobody would take him on due to those failed loans and from an FFP perspective it was more practical to keep him than binning for what he was worth at that point. Got minutes as he was part of a threadbare squad.
25/6 sold for whatever could get once FFP was more acceptable. He wasn't kept around because there was an edict to make things work, he was because it was such a shit deal.

As for Jackson, if you really believe he was involved in any of our incoming business last Summer then you are a fool. They were all Pereira and Tete with the exception of Lopez who was a Mendes backhander

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

But that doesn’t undermine my point, it reinforces it.

We spent years managing the consequences of a bad decision rather than taking the hit early and resetting. Whether that was loans, sunk-cost PSR logic or squad desperation, the underlying behaviour was the same: hesitation, value-protection, and an unwillingness to admit mistakes quickly.

That’s a Fosun pattern, not something unique to Guedes.

And it isn’t just Guedes.

Hwang is another example (that you keep ignoring Dan). We had a clear opportunity to sell him for decent money and didn’t take it, it's gair to say that's because of his South Korea popularity isn't it.

We extended contracts for VP and GON that many people questioned at the time (that you also ignore). Again and again, the club prioritises asset management and perceived value over decisive football decisions.

On Jackson, calling someone a fool doesn’t make the argument stronger TT. Last summer he was Player Recruitment Director. That role exists to shape recruitment. Saying he had some involvement or responsibility is not the same thing as claiming he overruled Pereira or Teti.

If he had no involvement at all, then that reinforces my point further, what the fuck was he doing? Why didnt we get rid? Again a lack of decisiveness.

Football recruitment isn’t binary. It isn’t “manager alone” versus “exec mastermind”. It’s layered, and responsibility is shared.

So what are you both even arguing here?

That Nathan Shi, whose football background is basically Club Med and corporate oversight, and Matt Jackson, whose senior experience includes Grasshoppers and involvement (large or small) in our worst window ever, are suddenly going to do what’s right this summer?

Because that’s the leap of faith I’m not making.

 

[Lycan]

It's all a distraction.

The players are a fucking disgrace and they deserve the absolute worst of us. Instead we're applauding them off the pitch. Why? We need to start pouring the poison on them.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

It's all a distraction.

The players are a fucking disgrace and they deserve the absolute worst of us. Instead we're applauding them off the pitch. Why? We need to start pouring the poison on them.

It is strange how many times Wolves teams that displayed far more effort and ability got so much more abuse.

Andy Keogh got more stick than all of these have.