

“He came in with the likes of Diogo Jota and Willy Boly, and we didn’t know much about any of them. “We didn’t know much about him,” says John Ruddy, the promotion-winning goalkeeper who arrived at Wolves in the same summer as Neves. Neves has been making an impact in these parts since top agent Jorge Mendes persuaded him to swap Champions League football with Porto in his homeland for the Championship a year into Fosun’s ambitious ownership of the club. It is a sadness that is felt even more keenly in this leafy village, two miles north west of the city centre, that Wolves’ sizable contingent of Portuguese and Spanish imports have made their home since the Fosun takeover of 2016.

There were also tears in Neves’ eyes as he said goodbye on Friday.Ī message from /tWAcfnkp5q Neves’ departure, for a surprise new footballing home in Saudi Arabia, provides the cash to help ease the financial fair play issues that will dominate the club’s summer business and the clarity for Lopetegui to put his stamp on the team he inherited last November without the most dominant on-field figure from previous regimes dictating how he needs to set them up.īut there is sadness, too, that the fans will no longer get to see the finest Wolves player in half a century pull the strings at Molineux.

Wolves are attempting this summer to draw a line under a glorious era that has now run out of road and build a new identity under current head coach Julen Lopetegui. A post shared by Jamie Cope hair is a sense around Wolves that Neves has timed his departure perfectly after six years of excellence on the pitch.
