Talking with people, communicating and filling in huge gaps in my knowledge I have been out and about this week. The gap in my knowledge is football transfer business. I am mostly ignorant about what goes on. But I know it’s not like swanning into Tesco and picking up a jug of pseudo milk or a jazzy chocolate bar…and a pack of blue….no, green Rizla.

I was told today that Barcelona have 680 PAID scouts looking at kids for their under 21 squads. That’s the under 21’s mate. I double checked and rang my footballing skating mate in Spain to double check the amount…he rang back and laughed. It’s more like 1,600 he said. What about Real Madrid? They have a worldwide scouting network of over 3000 scouts in every continent in the world. These people are just taking in matches everywhere looking for the next Messi or Ronaldo, Suarez or whoever. This is what we are competing with now. This is the landscape we are operating in. Complicate that with Agents. I know we have some sort of thing about Uncle Jorge but he is the least of out contacts on the big stage. Wolves have easily 30+ Agents to deal with who are all shuffling their rostas around big clubs like nobodies business. I tip my hat to the staff at Molineux who have to deal with the complexities of dealing with these numbers. No matter how powerful the whole FOSUN machine is and how slick the operations at Molineux are now it must be fucking mind boggling dealing with it all.

As our team have been plying their trade over the last two seasons we have grown massively. Footballing wise anyway. We are now busting beautiful shapes and dismantling teams that have been in the Premier League for a long time. So we have quality in our side. Our small squad enables a continuity and engenders a close minded team, close personally and well as professionally. We have great players and I don’t want to wax too much about that because most of you know that. So what’s the problem?

Well, buying a player isn’t like buying a bottle of milk. I know that’s a pretty simplistic analogy but it is a correct one. Let’s have a look at Joao Moutinho for instance. Last season it was known he fancied a move, he wanted a new challenge, he’s an athlete but he still has the capacity to learn new things and he doesn’t have to ‘learn’ in order to progress his career because by last Summer his career could stand by itself as a major achievement. No, he wanted to learn more because that is the type of player he is. One that wants to continue to grow and develop even in the twilight of his playing career. So, that’s good. Let’s ring him up and ask him if he wants to come to Wolves.

Laurie Dalyrimple made 40+ phone calls to ascertain whether Moutinho fancied it. That was at maybe 30 minutes per call to agents, representatives, and all the associated shit that follows a Pro Footballer through his career. So that is 1200 minutes on the phone before he even got to talk to Moutinho. I don’t know what the going rate is for a dude in Lauries position but I bet it wasn’t cheap. So eventually Moutinho answers the phone. He is probably lounging by the pool in his megavilla feeling the sun tickle his flesh. It is warm and beautiful, his wife and kids are making family noises in the villa, they are happy and beautiful too. He’s in Red Snapper and Saffron mood. Another glass of that fine Vino? Fuck yeah? Mooty somebodies on the phone for you! Somebody from Wulferhempateng or something…Who’s this dude on the phone and who the fuck are Wolverhampton Wanderers?

(Of course the day after I posted this Laurie Garglypimple got put on Gardening leave…which means he was taken out the back of Compton and shot in the back of the neck by black clad Fosun Ninjas…fucking typical)

There’s a thing…we have a museum and a history, we are dripping in it. Everybody (nearly) in Wolves knows Billy Wright, Dec Dougan, Phil Parkes, Steve Bull, all the names mate. But nobody else does. None of the players we have been touted as being connected with us have a fucking clue who Wolves are, they might have a half idea of course if they are a student of the history of English football, but for the most part they wont have a clue. We have been dangling on the arse end of relegations and a crisis every month for years. We aren’t really anybody….yet, no matter how many shirts we sell. Nobody cares about Wolves at the moment, that will change, but at this moment in time nobody gives a fuck about us.

Now we are in a very difficult position. The pool we are fishing in for players has got smaller and smaller and the fish have got a lot bigger. And fewer. The quality we need to replace members of our squad has grown exponentially. In the Championship you can afford to bring in snotters and Journeymen all you want (see Cardiff) but now we have achieved the momentous glory of a high position in the Premier league the quality needed in high. So the actual targets that can bring something to this team are small in number and to all intents and purposes already tied into big lucrative contracts at other more glamorous clubs. The glory of the Spanish League? Italian? German? Maybe they play in South America…maybe they are in with a chance of winning things in the Champions League.

So…you have to fight to get to talk to a Players Agent after a shit load of calling around, perhaps you talk to the club first I don’t know. The club has to be willing to sell, and at a good price for the club. Don’t forget that maybe they don’t want to sell a player and get arsey about you coming in mob handed? Then there are the myriad of Sharks in the pond that want their pound of flesh too, so everybody is jostling for position and power because there is money to be made, good money. Through all this noise we get to the player. Maybe Laurie rings them up. Maybe he’s very bloody good at this negotiation stuff and can placate and absorb the bullshit. Now you have to convince the player. Come to Wolves it’s great and the slick PR Laurie comes out to sell the idea of Wolves to a young man that has a hard time tying his shoelaces and for fucks sake where is Wolves in England? He googled it, no such place…oh Wolverhampton. Let’s have a look where my family will live…..fucking hell. He puts the phone down. Get Nuno to ring him. Fuck mate it’s not that bad he says, and all the Nuno magic gets poured out into this kids head while his Agent is making cut-throat mimes just off camera.

Maybe the kid loves what Nuno has to say, listened to what Laurie has to say too. Maybe he sees a move as the best thing for him. The Premier League, playing Europa League footy…living in Tettenhall. It looks ok…kind of. Then there is the fee to negotiate and all the Sharks have to have their piece of flesh before they swim off into a frenzy.

Getting the players we currently have must have been a monumental struggle to be honest. I bet there were some fervent late night calls going on from the team at Molineux. I bet you any money while we are sunning ourselves trying to hide that big promotion hard on that Nuno and company haven’t had a real holiday since they came here. I tip my hat to them, it’s what you are paid to do lads, suck them millions up. Transfers are fucking difficult things to suss out and I bet the names we have been linked to have been contacted and spoken with and I bet there is some massive PR grooves going on to convince them to come here. That’s why Social Media fume for me is funny. I laugh at most of it especially when it comes from people I talk to at matches who can’t handle three pints or stop their pie from dripping down their spangly new shirts. Leave it the fuck to the club eh? It’s nothing to do with us, we are idiots, we find it hard enough to dress ourselves and communicate properly with other human beings on the internet, What the fuck do we know?

I will stand by my earlier predictions made at the end of last season. There will be a lot of players going in the next few weeks. A lot. They are being shifted on as I speak and they all have clubs interested. We will see new players from the under 23’s being bloodied. I feel good and bad for them. On the one hand they now have their chance to stake a claim in the squad and all the riches and craziness that the lifestyle contains. Bad, because there is no room for love here any more. No more comfy feet under the table bollocks that this club has suffered with for years. It’s now perform or piss off somewhere else. We still have two or three marquee signings currently going through the old stress tests to see if some middle ground can be reached. Endless negotiations, chats, phone calls and emails, as well as sorting finance schedules, payments, kick backs and crinkly hand shakes that rustle in happy jolly ways. Best thing to do is to leave it to the experts, let them sort the shit out.