Wolves needed an adrenaline shot and the signing of Nunes could deliver it

Wolves have been stuck in a rut for the last couple of seasons, but could breaking their transfer fee record finally end this torpor?

Wolves finished last season under something of a cloud. They took just two points from their final seven league matches of the season and finished in 10th place, an enigmatic position considering that it was an improvement of three places on the year before, but still something of a disappointment, given that they’d been on the outskirts of European qualification for much of the season. As for so much of the last couple of years, no-one quite seemed to know what to make of them.

And when such an atmosphere hangs over a football club, that feeling of mild aimlessness can be as frustrating for supporters as a really dreadful run of form. It can lead people to start thinking about the game in broad strokes, and when clubs need people to pay a lot of money for season tickets, that can become a problem for the clubs themselves. They absolutely do not want people to start thinking about what they get for their money.

Wolves scored 38 goals in the Premier League last season, exactly one per game and the least of any team in the division that are not now in the Championship. And while yes, it is fair to say that the defence performed reasonably well, mentioning that they also conceded the least goals below the top three hardly seemed likely to set fans’ pulses racing ahead of the start  of the new season.

It was a trend that lasted throughout the summer. Transfer activity had been a little muted, with the conversion of Hwang Hee-chan’s loan into a permanent deal and the arrivals of Nathan Collins from Burnley and yet another Portuguese player in the form of Gonçalo Guedes, who arrived from Valencia for an undisclosed fee having scored 11 goals in La Liga last season. In terms of selling, they didn’t lose any of the players that they might have feared losing the most, with the only real high-profile departure being that of Conor Coady to Everton on loan and considerable relief when João Moutinho signed a new contract with the club at the start of July.

And so it has proved in their two Premier League games so far. Daniel Podence opened their season in style with a sixth-minute opener against Leeds United at Elland Road on the opening weekend, but since then things have started to run dry again. Leeds came back to win that game 2-1, and their second game ended in a 0-0 draw with newly promoted Fulham which might have…