What can Fosun do now?

[Squeak]

Fosun have provided the financial clout but their ability to run a competent football club under the stewardship of Jeff Shi is frankly embarrassing.

Really easy to knock Shi when you look at a list like that but, for balance, Shi has also overseen the most successful period we have had in decades. I get the agenda is to hunt down Shi because some are upset about pricing and feeling disenfranchised from the club.

I'd also add that pretty much every club goes through periods where things don't go well. Look at Liverpool before Klopp, MUFC are still a basket case, Tottenham under Levy, etc ... what we are experiencing is pretty normal. Every club will make poor, in retrospect, decisions with buying and selling players or recruiting and firing managers.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

No retrospect required with Lage, a truly incomprehensible decision right from day one which on its own catapulted us backwards.

 

[Squeak]

No retrospect required with Lage, a truly incomprehensible decision right from day one which on its own catapulted us backwards.

Definitely a false dawn but his first three games were enjoyable even though we lost them 1-0. It was weird as we totally dominated games but couldn't score. Then he became pragmatic and got points on the Board. But yeah, overall, I agree it was a poor decision.

 

[C.L.D]

Really easy to knock Shi when you look at a list like that but, for balance, Shi has also overseen the most successful period we have had in decades. I get the agenda is to hunt down Shi because some are upset about pricing and feeling disenfranchised from the club.

I'd also add that pretty much every club goes through periods where things don't go well. Look at Liverpool before Klopp, MUFC are still a basket case, Tottenham under Levy, etc ... what we are experiencing is pretty normal. Every club will make poor, in retrospect, decisions with buying and selling players or recruiting and firing managers.

Can't rebuild my house that got destroyed in a storm, it might get damaged again in the future. And other houses got damaged too in the storm, so really everything is fine, people complaining about their houses damaged are just being negative for the sake of it.

 

[C.L.D]

Fosun bought Wolves because of Mendes and Mendes gave us the players, that we would never have acquired, if it weren't for Mendes.
Of course, it was all about Mendes, but it would be difficult to make a case, that we would be where we are. Without Mendes.

I guess we should pay him £13M/year in perpetuity then, no matter who we sign, it's what we're doing anyway.

 

[KiwiWolf61]

Really easy to knock Shi when you look at a list like that but, for balance, Shi has also overseen the most successful period we have had in decades. I get the agenda is to hunt down Shi because some are upset about pricing and feeling disenfranchised from the club.

I'd also add that pretty much every club goes through periods where things don't go well. Look at Liverpool before Klopp, MUFC are still a basket case, Tottenham under Levy, etc ... what we are experiencing is pretty normal. Every club will make poor, in retrospect, decisions with buying and selling players or recruiting and firing managers.

I take your point or points . . . but those clubs you mentioned are on a different level (ie the Sky 6).

As DW said:

Any mid-sized club is vulnerable to a bad season (often caused by bad decisions, of which Fosun have made many) which might end in relegation.

this then requires prudent competence as the impact of relegation can be catastrophic - which given Wolves history over the last 50 years we know so well.

Although I should add I believe most clubs (or a sizeable majority) are poorly run.

 

[Squeak]

I take your point or points . . . but those clubs you mentioned are on a different level (ie the Sky 6).

And still they mess it up....

What makes this whole situation worse is that we had several years of investment. Recruited some really good players (and had some misses) with a really good manager (for us) , achieved a certain level of success and then a world event came along to upset everything.

We've then struggled to recover and despite some continued investment, we haven't hit those heights again. Many reasons for that and yes, Shi is responsible for some of them but not all.

He is responsible for overseeing the latest pricing policy and disenfranchising many loyal fans who deserve far better than the way they have been treated. However, it must be remembered that he came into football with little to no experience and one that is always fluid. I'm not excusing him, simply trying to bring some balance to the anti-Shi stuff we are reading.

I don't see him going anywhere soon so hopefully he learns from his mistakes. Further, it seems that on the football side we are making moves to address some of our weaknesses. He gets stick when recruitment goes wrong so why not a bit of credit when he is taking steps to try and improve our team? Why no credit for bringing in GON or changing our recruitment and putting Hobbs at the helm of that?

As I said, dead easy to criticise, and yes, he's deserved a lot of it, but we also need to recognise the things that have been achieved.

 

[AndyWolves]

It might be a negative view, but I think our ongoing premier league survival relies on others being worse than us, rather than us being better

 

[Alan]

Very few clubs are ever properly established in the Prem IMV.. It only takes one season for everything to fall apart, and with the amount of pressure it’s very easy for a bad run to become a spiral.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

It's semantics really, I'd say if you've been in the league for 5+ years and you aren't constantly circling the drain and staying up by a couple of points every year, that counts as "established". But it doesn't make you immune from relegation, and the likes of Charlton, Wigan, West Brom and Bolton used to be in that bracket and look at them now.

 

[Squeak]

Very few clubs are ever properly established in the Prem IMV.. It only takes one season for everything to fall apart, and with the amount of pressure it’s very easy for a bad run to become a spiral.

Indeed and when it did fall apart for us, Fosun / Shi took decisions to change things and invest in the team. OK, there were repercussions with FFP later because of that but they did stabilise the ship. And now, because of those decisions, we are in a better place.

The thing about football is that fans can never be satisfied. Arsenal fans calling for Wenger to be chopped, MUFC fans wanting Fergie out...all at times when they had achieved success.

What we are seeing from our club and owners is perfectly normal. We're not a basket case like Everton, we haven't won the league and FA Cup and been relegated like Leicester and we haven't been promoted and relegated like many other clubs in recent years.

I get some folks are really unhappy and with good reason. I started this thread because I wanted to see how we could build something positive from all of this negativity. Some have given some good suggestions and if those suggestions are listened to by the club, then we can all be better for the experience IMO.

 

[The Bear]

Personally when you get to 10+ consecutive years of not finishing within 5 points of relegation then you can consider yourself established IMO.

 

[Walshes Wolves]

That is literally mind blowing in listing Shi's incompetence over a period of time.

Some here have mentioned we're established Premier League club (7 years). Well for me that's in-spite of Shi (and to some extent Fosun), and it's a minor miracle we haven't been relegated.

We were fortunate to get Nuno who for 4 years created a special bond with the fans and the community - the previous appointments never gave the impression that they could lead the club forward.

I'd argue we would have been relegated in 2022/23 if to wasn't for the peculiar scheduling of the World Cup Finals that gave Lop some extra time to prep the squad.

We lucked out with GON in 2023/24 when most pundits (and I'd dare say a few here) thought we were in for a relegation scrap.

The abysmal transfer dealing for most of the period where we have wasted so much money on a group of over-priced prima donnas.

It could have all been so much better if there had been just a modicum of competence in the overall management of the club. To be honest I'd rate quite a number of people on this site who could better run the club.

Fosun have provided the financial clout but their ability to run a competent football club under the stewardship of Jeff Shi is frankly embarrassing.

If you are part of the Mendes web you get players that probably you would never get without him and at the same time, you get donkeys that are completely over priced. That is the way Mendes works.
For me his web is quite complex and it is very easy to concentrate on the donkeys and not the gems we have had, but all that matters is the system they have been using, has kept us in the Premier League, for 7 years.

 

[Walshes Wolves]

No retrospect required with Lage, a truly incomprehensible decision right from day one which on its own catapulted us backwards.

It was a typical Mendes appointment, of a little known, lack of experience and often a failed journeyman player, who later became a manager, type of appointment.
Mendes mananagers are often just facilitators in signing Mendes players, hence when Lopetegui couldn't splash the cash that Mendes wanted to spend at Wolves, he orchestrated his own departure and looked for another club, who would spend big amounts of money. Not forgetting, that Lopetegui had record spends at Oporto and Seville which definitely wasn't because of any success in league football, before going to Seville.

 

[Walshes Wolves]

It might be a negative view, but I think our ongoing premier league survival relies on others being worse than us, rather than us being better

Survival always depends on clubs being worse than you. It is like saying winning, depends on scoring more goals.

 

[Tony Towner]

If you are part of the Mendes web you get players that probably you would never get without him and at the same time, you get donkeys that are completely over priced. That is the way Mendes works.
For me his web is quite complex and it is very easy to concentrate on the donkeys and not the gems we have had, but all that matters is the system they have been using, has kept us in the Premier League, for 7 years.

From memory we've signed one value for money Mendes player since Covid and that was Sa. Some will say Semedo, but I don't think he's ever been a £30m player. Your analysis would be accurate before that but not any more though. We now use him to broker deals for which he earns handsomely off and clears up some of his mess - Nunes, or helps us Neves. Saying we still sign good players from him is a fallacy.

 

[Walshes Wolves]

What does Jeff do now? Promoted as champions to the Premier league.

Are we going under? =Premier league Club
What did he get wrong? =Premier league club.
I thought he had it sorted =Premier League club
Lost the other day. =Premier League club
Maybe I'm just stupid. =Premier League club
Can't he try again? =Premiere League club.
No-one told me costs were rising= Premier league club.

 

[Mel Evo]

It was a typical Mendes appointment, of a little known, lack of experience and often a failed journeyman player, who later became a manager, type of appointment.
Mendes mananagers are often just facilitators in signing Mendes players, hence when Lopetegui couldn't splash the cash that Mendes wanted to spend at Wolves, he orchestrated his own departure and looked for another club, who would spend big amounts of money. Not forgetting, that Lopetegui had record spends at Oporto and Seville which definitely wasn't because of any success in league football, before going to Seville.

If you have any kind of judgement you’ll know it was an appalling decision to retain Lage at the end of his first season, regardless of the appointment. That’s the particular mismanagement. To give them credit for orchestrating an awful mess that then cost a fortune to get out of is laughable. Any other opinion merits the kind of condescension you and other club sympathisers are showing towards even-handed critics.

 

[Walshes Wolves]

From memory we've signed one value for money Mendes player since Covid and that was Sa. Some will say Semedo, but I don't think he's ever been a £30m player. Your analysis would be accurate before that but not any more though. We now use him to broker deals for which he earns handsomely off and clears up some of his mess - Nunes, or helps us Neves. Saying we still sign good players from him is a fallacy.

Football changed after Covid. You can't draw a line in the sand, where you want to start from, but we are talking from the beginning of the Fosun ownership.
FFP changed how and who we buy players from too. It is a different scenario now.

 

[Walshes Wolves]

If you have any kind of judgement you’ll know it was an appalling decision to retain Lage at the end of his first season, regardless of the appointment. That’s the particular mismanagement. To give them credit for orchestrating an awful mess that then cost a fortune to get out of is laughable. Any other opinion merits the kind of condescension you and other club sympathisers are showing towards even-handed critics.

I don't sympathise with the club, but from the beginning, the idea of Fosun was to make us in to an established Premier League club and they have done that. To miss that out of any analysis, means you are choosing things that upset you, but failing to mention that they are achieving their objectives.