WOLVES AT WAR!
Jackett facing game’s toughest job
LIFE in League One is going to be difficult for the new Wolves manager Kenny Jackett. The sky-high expectation levels of a disgruntled supporter-base and a wage bill to match would be difficult for most new managers to juggle.
But with the alienation of several senior players and a fragmented dressing room that is struggling to right itself, success will have to be earned the hard way in the Black Country.
Wolves’ drop into League One was only the 10th time in history that a club has fallen through the divisions in successive seasons. But such was the speed with which they dropped that the players’ contracts were not tailored to suit accordingly, leaving the club with a £20m headache.
A glut of players remain on sevenfigure yearly salaries, some of whom are no longer part of the first-team squad. Two of the outcasts — Roger Johnson and Jamie O’Hara — are two of the most highly paid.
How did the situation descend to the point where Wolves’ fans turned on their own players during the final day of last season at Brighton when their ‘double-dip’ relegation was confirmed?
Fuelled by rumours of a dressing room split — Johnson and O’Hara in one corner and the now departed Karl Henry et al in the other — Wolves’ punters made their feelings known at the Amex when former Spurs man O’Hara was perceived to be taking too long to get back into position. He sarcastically applauded 2,000 travelling fans. That was to prove the final straw.
When Johnson, whose card had been marked ever since he turned up at training worse for wear following a five-goal defeat at Fulham in the Premier League, offered his jersey to the same fans, he found the shirt remained untouched.
Henry suffered an erosion of confidence. But ever s i nce he surrendered the club captaincy to Johnson two summers ago, there has been an unhealthy atmosphere.
For a club whose success owed a great deal to the endeavour eked out by Mick McCarthy, the result was damaging. Those three, along with Stephen Ward, were placed on the transfer list almost the minute Jackett’s appointment was confirmed. As yet, only Henry has generated any interest.
Chief executive Jez Moxey was never given the chance to renegotiate contracts which, if it wasn’t for on-going parachute payments from television, would now be financially strangling the club.
It isn’t just O’Hara and Johnson who, between them, have five years to run on money in excess of £1million a year.
There are others such as Ireland duo Kevin Doyle and Ward along with injured keeper Wayne Hennessey who remain on the books as expensive liabilities, given their collective performances.
That means, staggeringly, Jackett could be sidelining several players whose salaries could prop up the playing budgets at the majority of their competitors in League One.
The fallout has been spectacular, heightened by the dismissal of a string of managers — Mick McCarthy, Terry Connor, Stale Solbakken and Dean Saunders. Chairman Steve Morgan has borne the brunt. His decision- making, until he handed over Jackett’s appointment to Moxey, has been little short of catastrophic. The new man, though, is positive. ‘The potential here knows no bounds. The aim is to produce a young, vibrant side that has no hangover from the past two seasons,’ said Jackett, whose side open their season on Saturday at Preston.
As ever, the proof will be in the results. Wolves are the only club in history to have slipped twice from the first to the third division in successive campaigns.
The last time, they were relegated for a third successive season (198384, 84-85, 85-86) and ended up in the fourth tier for the first time in their history.
History cannot be allowed to repeat itself.