Comment: Nuno leaves huge shoes to fill at Wolves

Never mind recruiting players, the first task facing the board is to find someone who can build on the legacy of a manager who was arguably the club’s greatest since Stan Cullis and certainly the best of the last 40 years.

Whoever accepts the challenge will find a Wolves almost unrecognidable to the one Nuno first encountered four summers ago. Over that time he succeeded in transforming not only the club’s league position but also perceptions about just what is possible at Molineux.

At times during the most recent, somewhat underwhelming 12 months, those heightened expectations have on occasion come back to bite him.

For all the success, Nuno is leaving a club now parked at a crossroads. What happens in the next few days, hours and weeks will say more about Fosun’s long-term ambitions than any statement posted on the club’s website.

While Nuno’s departure is officially by mutual agreement and relatively amicable, the decision to make a change was nevertheless driven by the owners and in particular chairman Jeff Shi.

So integral a figure had Nuno become at Molineux, the search for his successor will test an infrastructure at which Shi and recently-appointed technical director Scott Sellars, now sit at the centre.

Assistance will, as always, come from Jorge Mendes, the man who sourced Nuno and who continues to be a trusted adviser.

Wolves’ model has always raised some eyebrows but it was Nuno who helped supporters buy into the project and trust Fosun, after the owners’ chaotic first year at the helm typified by slapdash recruitment and the occasionally crazy 87-day reign of Walter Zenga.

Granted, it helps when you have players of Ruben Neves and Diogo Jota’s quality to help you escape the Championship. But Nuno’s Wolves were always about the collective rather than the individual and for all the fantastic signings of those early transfer windows, it still requires the sharpest of football brains to spot Conor Coady’s potential as a centre-back.

For more than two-and-a-half years, Wolves just kept on climbing.

Yes, there were setbacks, an agonising FA Cup semi-final defeat to Watford at Wembley most notable among them. Yet they were comfortably outweighed by the high points, of which there were countless: Victory over Villa in 2017, Bristol City away, Manchester United in the FA Cup, Turin, Manchester City both home and away. You can pretty much take your pick.

Nuno united the club and its supporters like few before him. An almost iconic figure, his image can be seen plastered on posters and murals around the city.

The peak, on reflection, was perhaps last season’s 4-0 Europa League win over Espanyol. Molineux was packed to the rafters, Neves scored a spectacular goal and supporters filed out dreaming of more memorable nights to come. Just three weeks later the pandemic hit, the last-16 tie against Olympiacos was forced behind closed doors and fans have not been back to Molineux since.

Nuno and his players returned in early summer to resume the Premier League season but from that point on there was something missing.

An almost non-existent close season, indifferent transfer window and cruel fortune with injuries, most particularly the loss of talisman Raul Jimenez, quickly transformed the 2020-21 into a joyless slog.

Rarely a man of many words, at least in public, Nuno became more and more candid. Press briefings, which frequently failed to break the 10-minute mark in previous years, were now extending twice, sometimes three times as long. Unable to travel home to see his family in Portugal for months on end, he cut an increasingly lonely figure and as the team began to struggle, so a coach who always seemed to have the answers was suddenly struggling to find them.

As he struggled to maintain his identity, so did the team.

Still, his departure comes as something of a shock, not least because news emerged less than an hour after he had faced the media yesterday lunchtime, with no inkling a major announcement might be imminent.

Until very recently, the mood music emanating from Compton Park was of a Nuno refocused and rejuvenated, determined to correct the mistakes of the past year and challenge again in the top half of the league next season.

Reports earlier this month he might leave were batted away, Nuno adamant he would honour the three-year contract signed only last September.

Ultimately, Shi decided a change was needed but no matter the circumstances, the head coach’s departure prompts obvious questions about the discussions which have taken place in recent weeks over plans for the summer transfer window.

After losing ground on those clubs looking to challenge the Premier League’s elite, the feeling is Wolves will need to do some considerable work in the market in order to get back on track. Now those concerns will belong to someone else.

Nuno might not have taken Wolves quite so far as supporters once dreamed he might.

Yet he took them further than any would have dared imagine when he first walked up the steps of the Billy Wright Stand four years ago. Off the field, meanwhile, his donation of £250,000 to launch the Feed Our Pack initiative was a simply extraordinary gesture, guaranteeing a legacy which will remain long beyond his reign.

The next man to make the journey has some very big shoes to fill.