17 February 2024 , 17:11
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It is not hard to sympathise with Wolves fans who feel they are being punished by sticking to the Premier League ’s long-existing but recently-applied profit and sustainability rules.
Gary O’Neil’s team have been a pleasant surprise all season. Relegation favourites in August, they have bloodied the noses of Man City, Chelsea and Tottenham with their hard-pressing, compact style.
But going into this latest impressive win away to Spurs, talk again surrounded whether they will need to sell one of their best players come the summer so they can finance improvements in other areas.
Pedro Neto has been framed as the next cab off the rank, with the 23-year-old Portugal forward already being linked with Arsenal among others.
Yet as he worked tirelessly against Spurs this afternoon, setting up Joao Gomes’ second with a superb counterattacking run, it was both easy to see that he could fit in Ange Postecoglou’s team while lamenting the financial realities facing the league’s middle class clubs.
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Last summer Wolves lost key players and their then head coach, Julien Lopetegui, because of the need to conform with the league’s three-year £105m loss limit. And to remain within that cap next season - avoiding the charges handed to Everton and Nottingham Forest - while still bolstering a squad lacking depth there is a sense they must cash in on one of their buzzy attackers.
On the eve of this game O’Neil did not exactly kill the speculation when he said Wolves do not plan to sell Neto but there are plans in the background in case he did go. “If we do lose players in the summer they might not always be like-for-like replacements,” the head coach added. “Sometimes it will be what the squad needs best so I’m keen that these answers aren’t linked to Pedro Neto – it’s just a case of if we lose players, money will be invested the best way we see fit.”
Neto has what it takes to do a job for a big team, underlined by his lung-busting run in the 63rd minute before squaring for Gomes to make it 2-1, but it is a shame for the sport that financial realities could preclude Wolves from offering him a big enough platform to thrive.
Joao Gomes celebrates scoring his second goal for Wolves against Tottenham having been teed up by Pedro Neto's ninth assist of the campaign.At Chelsea two weeks ago Neto was the outstanding performer despite Matheus Cunha scoring three of their four goals and this afternoon his ninth assist of the campaign, leading to Gomes coming across to kiss his boot in appreciation, moved him level with Mo Salah and behind only Kieran Trippier and Ollie Watkins in terms of creating goals.
Neto ranks in the 97th centile of all players in Europe’s big five leagues when it comes to assists per 90 minutes but he is not the finished product and only two league goals points to finishing being an obvious area of improvement.
But the wider context is he is playing thrilling football for a club that in the three previous seasons struggled to average a goal per game. Wolves’ transformation is still travelling under the radar - again, the curse of the Premier League’s middle class - but having now completed the double over Tottenham, a side decorated with praise all season, the spotlight must be shone more directly.
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