It has been a horrible start to the 2024/25 season for Wolves, and the club’s transfer activity in the summer is now starting to come under the microscope.
Wanderers made a bright start to the window, signing Rodrigo Gomes, Pedro Lima and Jorgen Strand Larsen.
But Wolves then went silent for several weeks, before springing into action towards the end of the window with four new faces arriving over the final two days.
In between, Wolves sold two key players; Max Kilman and Pedro Neto.
Kilman had been linked with West Ham United for weeks, and he was eventually sold for £40 million and the deal was widely praised at the time. Especially because Wolves had only signed Kilman for £40,000 six years prior.
Many Wolves fans were fairly happy with the sale of their former skipper. While he had been a very capable Premier League centre-back, the feeling for some was that he was not irreplaceable at Molineux.
But since Kilman left, Wolves have been all at sea at the back.
But for pundit Danny Murphy, the situation would not be all that different had the defender never left.
Danny Murphy doesn’t agree Wolves are any worse off without Max Kilman
The sales of Kilman and Neto have been spoken about a lot more recently due to Wolves’ poor form, with people trying to work out what has been behind the club’s worrying slide.
Alan Shearer pointed to the two sales as a season for Wolves’ struggles on Match of the Day after the defeat to Brentford.
Former goalkeeper Shay Given also felt Neto and Kilman leaving had not helped Gary O’Neil this season.
For Danny Murphy though, the sale of Kilman hasn’t been such a big reason for Wolves’ struggles.
He said: “You’ve got to be careful to jump on that. West Ham have been hammered a couple of times with Kilman at centre-half.
“Let’s not make him into Virgil van Dijk. The reality is Kilman at Wolves at the beginning of this season would still be in the same place.”
Kilman sale has stung Wolves
This is a questionable take from Murphy because Wolves really have been atrocious at the back for far this season.
Currently, Wolves have conceded 21 goals in just seven games. This is a truly alarming rate, and if it continued until the end of the season, then Wolves would smash the record for most goals conceded in a Premier League season.
| Wolves after 7 PL games with Kilman 23/24 | Wolves after 7 PL games without Kilman 24/25 |
| Goals conceded – 13 | Goals conceded – 21 |
The sale of Kilman was only a good one in terms of the money received for a fairly decent player.
However, had the star stuck around then it’s hard to argue he would have been any worse than Toti Gomes, who has really struggled. Toti was described as a ‘recipe for disaster’ after his latest showing at Brentford.
And Wolves, of course, did not replace Kilman, which ultimately makes it a poor sale.
Time will tell if Wolves selling their former captain will lead to a relegation battle this season, or unthinkably, relegation itself.