Johnny Phillips: Wolves watershed arrives – what’s the outcome?

An opening three league fixtures that might not have yielded a single point have instead brought all nine and the manner of the victories have made the wider football public sit up and take notice.

Early-season form can be a fickle beast, an indicator of everything or nothing – Stale Solbakken’s Wolves were third going into the autumn international break of the 2012/13 Championship season – but if it is too early to draw lasting conclusions about what is happening on the pitch, there is a cultural shift taking place at Molineux the like of which has not been witnessed in a generation.

The last time such change occurred was in the summer of 1993.

News broke in different ways back then and on page 302 of Ceefax, the football home page of the BBC’s teletext service, the headline at the top of the page confirmed that Wolves had signed the England midfielder Geoff Thomas from Crystal Palace for £800,000, fending off interest from Arsenal and Kenny Dalglish’s big-spending Blackburn.

Chairman Jonathan Hayward proudly announced the signing was: “A watershed for the club and people can be in no doubt where we are meant to be – the Premier League.”

If he was wrong about the outcome, he was right about it being a turning point.

The Rubicon had been crossed and Wolves, thanks to his father’s investment, were now competing on a new level after years of scraping by in the lower leagues.

Other high-profile arrivals like David Kelly, Kevin Keen, Cyrille Regis and Peter Shirtliff came in. The team and its surroundings were transformed.

The newly-opened Billy Wright Stand suddenly made Molineux look like a football ground fit for the 21st century. Bristol City were beaten 3-1 in swashbuckling style on the opening day in August.

That 1993/94 season turned into a story of what-ifs.

A terrible injury to Thomas derailed the campaign and manager Graham Turner left in March after a grim 3-0 defeat at Portsmouth as his team laboured in mid-table.

But there was to be no turning back at Molineux – investment and expectation levels continued to rise over the following years.

Back then it felt as if Wolves had grown up after years of make do and mend, finally joining the era they were playing in.

The club have trodden a fairly unremarkable path ever since, evolving over time with solid foundations but lagging behind similar-sized clubs who have found a competitive edge, such as Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion who are now taking part in their 10th and eighth successive seasons in the Premier League, respectively.

What is happening under Nuno Espirito Santo is another watershed.

The team is developing an identity like no other in its history, with a huge influx of continental signings joining the group.

Wolves players are being trained and coached in a different way to previous regimes.

Those opening three results are more valuable to Nuno than just the points that come with them.

They have bought the head coach the time and trust he needs from forces he cannot control.

Wolves could quite conceivably have lost those three tough games and then what?

Look at the hysteria already building around Steve Bruce at Aston Villa. There’s an international break on the way at the end of the month – a week of dead air set to be filled with media knives and howling supporters.

Wolves’ start has ensured Nuno is not facing any difficult early questions.

Then there is the noise from within.

The head coach has spoken of the importance of those not involved in the team at this moment who have a big role to play going forward.

The unchanged starting XI we have seen so far will be different come May, but convincing players to bide their time and wait for an opportunity can be difficult.

It is much easier to keep a winning squad on side – dissenting voices become marginalised when games are being won.

Nuno’s methods are convincing players of their own worth. One reliable gauge of any manager’s qualities is whether or not he can improve those he has inherited. Four players have made it into the starting XI who were here last season and all are performing better than ever.

There is nothing more soul-destroying for supporters than watching players depreciate in value on the pitch. Roger Johnson and Jamie O’Hara spring to mind from recent history.

Fosun want a different return on their investment but it is not a mutually exclusive end game to that of supporters’ hopes.

If Fosun’s assets go up then it will mean success has been achieved on the pitch.

The outlay has been huge but, unlike other spells of major spending in Wolves’ history, these assets – if you pardon the unpleasing language of business – do not look like shrinking.

The way the team has performed over the past fortnight has brought an open-mindedness to this fresh approach.

Conventional wisdom before the season kicked off was that Wolves were short of a proven striker to lead the attack, but if the three matches so far have taught fans anything it is that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

This isn’t innovative football in a global sense, but it is new to Molineux.

The rider, of course, is that just three matches have been played, which somewhat undermines Hull manager Leonid Slutsky’s pronouncement that Wolves are ‘the best team in the league’. But it is a great start.

The hopes of supporters in that transitional summer of 1993 were never realised in the way they could have been. Nuno’s Wolves have rekindled dreams. Whether the outcome will be any different is another matter, but once again we are passing a watershed moment in the club’s history.