Seven-year plan at Wolves is no pipe dream... it’s a game changer

WOLVErHAMPTON Wanderers have a sevenyear plan. This season, it is to finish inside the top 10 in their first Premier League campaign since 2011-12. To put this into perspective, their Premier League record to date runs bottom, 17th, 15th and bottom. If they can make the top 10 it will be their best year domestically since 1979-80.

So that’s year one. In the five years that follow the aim is to establish Wolves as a Champions League club. Again, to place this in context, Wolves’ last season in UEFA competition was in 198081, when they were eliminated at the UEFA Cup’s first-round stage by PSV Eindhoven. Their previous European Cup campaign was in 1959-60, when they defeated Vorwarts Berlin and red Star Belgrade, before losing 9-2 on aggregate to Barcelona in the quarter-finals. This was also the last season Wolves won the league — which is coincidentally their target seven years from now.

And there’s the plan. By 2025, Wolves aim to be champions of English football. Of course, so do Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and probably Everton. Apologies for leaving anyone out. Because there will be others; and that’s what makes this so exciting.

It may seem strange to envisage surprises at a time when many are predicting Manchester City could improve on English football’s first 100-point season, but we may be about to enter a golden era for the modern game. It could be, if Wolves’ plans are realised, that the Premier League could become as open as the Football League once was. Indeed, we have been edging that way for several years now.

To start with, the 26 complete seasons of the Premier League are not quite as stale as imagined. In that time, 13 different clubs have finished in the top three spots, including Norwich, Nottingham Forest and, of course, Leicester. In the last 26 years of the old Division One, 19 clubs shared the top three, so it wasn’t quite the free- for- all that is recalled. What was different was that clubs regularly came from nowhere to get landmark results. Between 1983 and 1991, Crystal Palace, West Ham, Southampton and Watford all recorded topthree finishes that represented the best campaigns in their history; 1991- 92 was Sheffield Wednesday’s finest season in over 30 years; Aston Villa’s 1981 title win was their first since 1910.

By comparison, once the Premier League settled down it often saw the same names swap places. Between Leeds in 1999-2000 and Manchester City in 2010-11, no new teams came into the top three; no clubs that had not been there before in modern times. Then, over the past eight seasons, three new names: Manchester City, Tottenham and Leicester. None of them had challenged in the Premier League before, and two have remained strong. We now factor in City and Tottenham as title contenders each season. The big four has become a big six. Wolves fancy making it a big seven; Everton, maybe, a big eight.

Now we’re getting somewhere. There is a huge difference between enjoying the odd good year, as Charlton or Bolton did, and the sustained elevation made by Tottenham and Manchester City, and planned by Wolves. That changes the game, as it has for Arsenal — now outside the Champions League for two successive seasons — as it has for Manchester United, without a title since Sir Alex Ferguson stood down.

Wolves’ ambition represents a serious threat. And considering that last season they were a Championship team, with the right investment, might that not one day be true of Leeds or Aston Villa, too; or another Leicester, as yet unimagined?

No matter how Wolves’ next seven years plays out, this is a very positive development. The fear was that with every elite power grab, it becomes harder to

co-exist competitively. Certainly, there was a reaction to Leicester’s title win, the big clubs demanding a greater share of foreign TV rights.

The size of the overall Premier League contract, however, has made this a diminished issue. This summer we have seen clubs such as Wolves, Everton, Fulham and West Ham investing heavily in an attempt to do more than survive. It brings no guarantee of success, but makes the potential for surprise more likely.

Certainly, the days when a tiny band of clubs swept up every player of substance in the English game are gone. Jose Mourinho predicted it three years ago, talking about Yohan Cabaye’s arrival at Crystal Palace and the signings made by Everton and Stoke prior to the 2015-16 season. Much the same could be said of players such as Ruben Neves or Richarlison. Time was, they would have been the preserve of the biggest clubs, now they go to Wolves or Everton. Is there so much difference between the arrivals at Arsenal this summer, or the business done by Marco Silva or Nuno Espirito Santo?

If Unai Emery cannot improve what remains of Arsene Wenger’s squad, if fractious relationships at Manchester United take a toll, if Maurizio Sarri’s ideas do not click instantly at Chelsea, if Tottenham stand still — there is vulnerability at the top. Those beyond the big six have every right to think big. Wolves’ sevenyear plan is not some fanciful pipe dream; indeed, it may be a fresh sign of change to come.