Johnny Phillips: Gary O’Neil deserves a window of opportunity from Wolves owners
The story of Wolves’ transfer window was not the paucity of signings.
We knew that activity would be limited given the financial climate the club is operating in both at home and in China. Nor were the outgoings anything other than entirely predictable.
Fabio Silva and Sasa Kalajdzic could have remained at the club but that would have served no purpose.
Gary O’Neil had no intention of giving either player game-time, and the gap opening up for Nathan Fraser to gain some first team experience is far more useful in the long term.
Instead, the real story came with this quote from O’Neil – more than a week ago – revealing that Wolves’ financial circumstances changed during the window.
“The financial side of why, I’m not 100 per cent clear on,” he said. “Financial fair play or the position of the club financially.
“But it’s clear we still need to be very, very careful and even more careful than we thought when I spoke to you guys last week about the targets we were looking at.”
That is more than simply an admission that the goalposts moved mid-window, it is a tacit acknowledgment that targets were affected by the change in circumstances.
All Premier League clubs have been operating under the restrictions of profit and sustainability regulations but this demonstrates other factors at play.
The shifting sands of finances are nothing new at Wolves.
