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Rob Edwards did his best to keep his beloved side from the trap door marked Do One but, after eight seasons in the Premier League, Wolves have officially been relegated. West Ham – managed by former Wanderers manager Nuno Espírito Santo – earned a draw on Monday to finally put the Old Gold out of their misery, ending what has been a miserable season that had all the inevitability of Rúben Neves taking aim from 30 yards. Most relegations are an exercise in finger pointing and half-baked theories over what could have been but Wolves’ capitulation is remarkably easy to explain: years of systemic decline underpinned by Wanderers’ board of directors tendency to sell their best players and largely replace them with duds.
Much like Mikel Arteta scribbling Jake Humphrey-style social media disgrace posts on to the innards of Arsenal’s dressing room, the writing has been on the wall for some time. Wolves barely stayed up last season, owing their Premier League survival almost entirely to the trio of Matheus Cunha (15 goals), Jørgen Strand Larsen (14) and Rayan Aït-Nouri (third best on … four), and so it was not entirely startling that after the club packed Cunha and Aït-Nouri off to Manchester last summer and flogged Strand Larsen to Crystal Palace in January, they found themselves in something of a pickle this time around.
