Wolverhampton Wanderers will now have to shift their focus to the Premier League after they were sent crashing out of the FA Cup over the weekend.
A last-gasp winner by Coventry City proved the magic of the cup is very much alive, and it will allow Gary O’Neil to divert all his attention to securing a top-half finish in the league.
This may be harder than anticipated due to several of his key players being out injured. Pedro Neto could miss the rest of the season with a hamstring injury, while Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-Chan have been absent for the previous few games prior to the international break.
O’Neil will be keen to get to the end of the season and enter the summer transfer window with an onus on bolstering his squad, as the depth simply is not where he would like it to be.
While his team have generally been solid, the Old Gold have failed to truly replace Ruben Neves since his departure last summer.
How much Wolves sold Ruben Neves for
The Portuguese midfielder spent six seasons at Molineux, making 253 appearances and scoring 30 goals as he helped the club claim promotion back to the top flight during the 2017/18 campaign before establishing them as a solid Premier League side.
It became clear that due to his performance, teams were beginning to show interest in signing the midfielder, but many of the Molineux faithful did not expect him to leave to join a team in Saudi Arabia.
Matheus Nunes
Manchester City
€62.00m (£53m)
Ruben Neves
Al-Hilal
€55.00m (£47m)
Diogo Jota
Liverpool
€44.70m (£38m)
Morgan Gibbs-White
Nottingham Forest
€29.50m (£25m)
Nathan Collins
Brentford
€26.85m (£23m)
After weeks of speculation, it was announced that he had joined Al Hilal for a fee in the region of £47m and considering his contract was due to expire in 2024, it certainly represented good business for the club.
Manchester United and Barcelona were also keen on luring the Wolves captain away from the Midlands, but the riches of the Middle East clearly proved too much for him to turn down.
Ruben Neves’ career at Wolves in numbers
During Wolves’ five seasons in the top flight prior to this campaign, Neves missed only 15 matches, showing remarkable consistency as he helped turn Nuno Espirito Santo’s side from winners of the second tier to top-half Premier League finishers in three of those five seasons.
Last season was arguably their most difficult since they gained promotion in 2018, but Neves was the heartbeat of the team, and eventually they pulled away from the relegation zone.
Indeed, he finished the term ranked first in the squad for goals and assists (seven), shots per game (1.9) and accurate passes per game (48.8), showing how vital he was to the club.
Losing him was a major blow and while O’Neil has established a central midfield pairing of Mario Lemina and Joao Gomes, they haven’t quite filled the void left by Neves.
Perhaps if they made a signing in the summer of 2022, however, the Old Gold would already have had an heir apparent to the former Porto midfielder, as Enzo Fernández was a player who got away.
When Wolves wanted to sign Enzo Fernandez
Following a successful debut season under Bruno Lage, Wolves were aiming to significantly bolster their first-team squad in anticipation of the 2022/23 season.
One name who the Midlands side were linked with was Fernandez, who was then playing for Argentinian club River Plate.
He was reportedly available for a fee of just £17.5m and, considering his vast potential, it looked like a deal that Lage should have gone all out for.
The youngster ended up joining Benfica instead and thrived for the Portuguese giants during his six months at the club, scoring four goals and grabbing seven assists across just 29 matches, yet it was his displays in the 2022 World Cup for his country that caught the eye of a few clubs.
Not only did he help Argentina win their third world crown, but Fernandez won the young player of the tournament award too, as he scored and chipped in with an assist, starting five of their seven matches in Qatar.
These performances made sure a club like Wolves would now be out of the running to sign someone of his quality, and it represented a major missed opportunity by the club.
Enzo Fernandez's transfer value in 2024
Just weeks after winning the World Cup, Fernandez was a Chelsea player. Todd Boehly once again flashed the cash, splurging a staggering £107m to lure the talented midfielder from Portugal to England in January 2023.
He has since made 57 appearances for the Blues, but he has to deliver consistently good performances in what is a team full of expensive misfits.
That said, former Porto manager Jose Peseiro has still compared Fernandez to Zinedine Zidane, saying:
"(It is) absolutely surprising the level at which he plays at, at only 21 years old. The best player I worked with was (Zinedine) Zidane, at Real Madrid. Of course, I don’t want to compare. But I’m talking about Enzo’s passing and surprising vision; a bit like Zidane."
He hasn’t quite hit those levels yet, but there is still plenty of time, and he already has the same number of World Cups as the legendary Frenchman.
Fernandez would have been a wonderful heir to Neves had he spurned the chance to join Benfica and linked up with Lage instead.
He may not have lasted very long at Molineux considering his talents, but there is no doubt he would have made the club a very tidy profit.
O’Neil will already be thinking of the summer transfer window and where he needs to strengthen. The former Bournemouth manager may need to move on a player or two in order to balance the books and comply with financial fair play regulations.
Securing a top-half finish in the Premier League will certainly help him secure players of better quality, especially if there is a chance of the club perhaps improving and grabbing a European spot next season.
With Fernandez in the heart of his midfield, O’Neil may have been close to achieving that this season.