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Wolverhampton Wanderers, who might raise well over £100 million ($126.8 million) in the transfer market this summer, still have sales as their top priority.
However, the club will start making additions in the coming weeks as they attempt to assemble the team that manager Julen Lopetegui desires for his first complete season.
What therefore is needed by them? The Athletic looks at Wolves’ priorities for transfers.
Attacker
This seems awfully familiar: Wolves were the top dog this summer, they were the top dog in January, and they are the top dog once more this summer. But this puzzle has a lot of moving pieces.
Will Raul Jimenez, a modern-day legend, receive a sufficient offer from the club to conclude his five-year tenure at Molineux, as seems all but inevitable when he did a moving lap of honor after the season’s last home game?
Is it possible to convince Fabio Silva to fully commit to giving his Wolves career another shot? Will any other team match Wolves’ valuation if not?
Can Matheus Cunha, a record-signing for Wolves, establish himself as a No 9—the position he most frequently played for Atletico Madrid—or does his future lie wide or in a supporting role behind a central striker?
And after nearly a year, how soon will Sasa Kalajdzic be prepared to make an impact?
And how quickly will Sasa Kalajdzic be ready to make an impact after almost a year out with the anterior cruciate ligament injury that has restricted his Wolves career to just 45 minutes?
Irrespective of the answer to each of these questions, it feels like Wolves need a ‘main man’ to lead the line and become the club’s primary goalscorer.
Not since Jimenez was in his pomp in his first two seasons have Wolves had a centre-forward they could bank on. While Cunha is an exciting prospect and Jimenez, Kalajdzic and Silva might all have roles to play, a new man seems like a must.
Coventry’s Viktor Gyokeres has been watched for a while but, as it stands, an asking price of more than £20million makes him a long shot.
Viktor
center-back
Initially, it didn’t seem like a top priority to strengthen the defense at the center, but after Nathan Collins’ surprise £23 million sale to Brentford and Napoli’s strong interest in Maximilian Kilman—who may end up playing in the Champions League—things have changed.
Conor Coady’s departure for Leicester this summer confirmed the expectation that he would depart permanently.
Given that he was obviously not entirely satisfied with Collins, Lopetegui will view Collins’ departure as an opportunity rather than a problem. With Kilman gone, Wolves would need two center defenders to compete with Craig Dawson and Toti.
There’s not a desperate attempt to Wolves to sell Kilman but, equally, there is an acknowledgement that a £35million offer, which might yet arrive from the Italian champions, would be smart business and allow Lopetegui to bring in another player on his list, probably while achieving a profit to help balance the books.
