Inside Lopetegui’s Wolves reign: Deteriorating relationships and the battle for power and control

It should have been a match made in heaven.

Julen Lopetegui had been Fosun’s preferred choice to be the manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers for many years, stretching back the best part of a decade, predating when the Chinese conglomerate purchased the club in July 2016.

So why, five days before they kick off their 2023-24 season, are Wolves content to lose Lopetegui, the top-level manager they had courted for so many years? And why is he seemingly equally as content to leave both Wolves and the Premier League, a competition he had dreamed of working in?

This relationship, which on the face of it should have worked hand in glove, deteriorated to the extent that The Athletic can today reveal:

“Since the very beginning, Julen has been our No 1 choice,” Jeff Shi, the club’s executive chairman, said when appointing Lopetegui last November.

Lopetegui was Wolves’ first choice, but they weren’t his. He had turned them down in 2016 when his country came calling, having initially worked “hand in hand” with Fosun in the lead-up to them taking ownership of the club. He was supposed to be their first manager, but his abrupt withdrawal (which contributed to a season of undiluted carnage at Wolves with three managers sacked, 16 players signed and a flirt with relegation to League One) didn’t damage the relationship.

Wolves went one way, hiring Nuno Espirito Santo a year later and embarking on a journey which led to successive seventh-placed finishes and a run to the Europa League quarter-finals, while Lopetegui went another, managing Spain, Real Madrid and then Sevilla, where he won the Europa League in 2020, knocking Nuno’s Wolves out en route.

When they attempted to couple up again in 2022, when Wolves ditched Nuno’s successor Bruno Lage, it felt very much on Lopetegui’s terms, a recurring theme.

Lopetegui was extremely keen to work in the Premier League, but with Wolves in the relegation zone, it wasn’t an easy sell. In fact, for a second time, he initially turned down the job. There was the issue of his father’s health, with Lopetegui choosing to stay with him, feeling it wasn’t the right moment to move to England, but the offer he would finally accept some weeks later (after Wolves tried and failed to lure Michael Beale to Molineux) was believed to be considerably better than the one he had turned down, both in terms of salary but also with promises of spending commitments in January and, crucially, it was more favourable in terms of control.

That’s what has been so important for Lopetegui and so, ultimately, at the heart of this divorce isn’t results, tactics or man management… it isn’t even necessarily about football. It comes down to money and power. And, in its dying embers, saving face and protecting reputations.

This summer began with Lopetegui leaving Wolves in the dark as to his intentions after airing the club’s dirty linen in public.

“I have had that meeting (with Shi) and there are some financial fair play problems I didn’t know before,” Lopetegui said.

“Despite the club investing this year, it has been a very hard year, so we have to learn the lesson and do our homework to try to improve the team.

“I hope we’ll be able to improve to compete next season.”

That financial position has required the club to make a huge profit in the current transfer window following last season’s unexpected splurge of around £175million ($223m), which was designed to propel the team towards the European places, then save them from relegation when things went pear-shaped under Lage.

Lopetegui made it clear in January that they needed to add significantly to the squad and identified Matheus Cunha as the player he really wanted. Wolves went all out to get him signed up before the window even opened and there was an acknowledgement at senior levels that they had overpaid for Cunha, but they did it to demonstrate to Lopetegui and fans that they were backing him. He also drove the pursuit of Pablo Sarabia, although that was a much cheaper deal.

Fosun, who have long expressed a desire for the club to be self-sustainable and have ventured into things like eSports and even music (with mixed results) in a bid to boost the coffers, also wrote off a loan of £126.5million in 2020/21.

FFP has been an issue, but there is a bigger picture here. Outside investors haven’t come forward as Fosun hoped and plans to revamp the stadium have been put on hold.

The team, rather than infrastructure, remains the priority. Still, spending has had to be drastically reined in, while at the same time trying to refresh a tired squad and rejuvenate it with players of Lopetegui’s liking. If that sounds like an impossible task, well, that’s how it’s proved.

Out have gone crown jewel Ruben Neves (£47m); promising defender Nathan Collins (£23m), who was sold to Brentford despite sporting director Matt Hobbs stating he’ll be a defender for a top six club in the future; plus club captain Conor Coady (£7.5m); striker Raul Jimenez (£5.5m); and Ryan Giles, he of chart-topping 11 Championship assists for Middlesbrough on loan last season, to Luton for £5m.

High-earner Joao Moutinho has also departed on a free, as has Adama Traore.

In their place have come, well, former right-back Matt Doherty on a free transfer. And that’s pretty much it, other than Matheus Cunha and Boubacar Traore’s loan moves being made permanent in pre-agreed deals.

It was an incredibly frustrating situation for Lopetegui, who had grown increasingly concerned at Wolves’ plight.

Ever since he first, very deliberately, raised his concerns in public, there was the sense of a man trying to get out on his own terms.

It’s believed he assessed potential job options elsewhere at the end of last season, something which was at odds with a public demand that his players didn’t do the same.

There was an acknowledgement at Wolves when he seemingly committed his future in June that he did so in part due to a lack of better options.

At around the same time, it’s thought he wanted Shi to explicitly outline to supporters the rather desperate financial plight the club found itself in.

Lopetegui considered waiting until his first press conference of the campaign, before Monday’s season-opener against Manchester United, to summarise that position himself.

Instead, he grew impatient and gave an unsanctioned, rogue interview with Spanish journalist Guillem Balague, to the dismay of senior figures at the club.

In it he reiterated his stance from the end of last season, then threw another couple of grenades into the mix, saying that not only had the summer’s Plan A been abandoned, but Plan B wasn’t getting started either. He also suggested Jimenez had been sold without his knowledge.

His words only made an increasingly strained and fragmented relationship with Shi even more strained. It’s believed the relationship had essentially broken down, compounded by the (as yet) failed pursuit of Bristol City midfielder Alex Scott, a top priority target for Lopetegui this summer.

The Spaniard had liked Scott from the first time he watched clips of him, believing he could be a centrepiece in Wolves’ revamped, Neves-less midfield this season and, for most of the summer, he believed Wolves had enough flexibility in their budget to sign him (a price tag of £25million has been suggested).

Missing out on Scott – and seemingly not even being able to afford players in a similar price bracket – was the final straw for Lopetegui, who wanted a centre-back, a left-back, a midfielder and a striker to be brought in to get Wolves’ squad to the level he wanted.

If that’s Lopetegui’s standpoint, then what about Shi and Fosun? Why the lack of urgency to try to placate a man who guided Wolves from four points adrift of Premier League safety at Christmas to seven points clear of relegation in May, with a run of seven wins (and clean sheets) in nine home matches? A man who has the top-level experience and winning pedigree that Wolves need? Who had the team in the top 10 of the Premier League form table throughout the majority of his five months in charge?

It’s not just Lopetegui’s public attitude that hasn’t impressed Wolves.

Behind the scenes, he was described by one staff member as being an unapproachable, prickly figure. There was a feeling among non-Lopetegui staff of a them-and-us culture. Lopetegui and his lieutenants would often shut themselves away from everyone else, especially after defeats when Lopetegui was known to stay in his office all week.

The intensity he displayed on the sidelines during matches – shouting at referees, yelling at players after mistakes – could sometimes be reflected in how he conducted himself around the training ground.

Before matches he was said to become incredibly wound up, described by one source as a “nervous wreck”, becoming so stressed and frenzied that people thought it was bad for his health.

His inner circle was tight and he could be paranoid to the extent that other long-serving club staff had to email for permission to watch training.

In that sense, he had more in common with Nuno than his immediate predecessor Lage. And like with Nuno, Lopetegui generally got on with the players, most of whom liked him and the majority of whom will be disappointed to see him leave.

Yes, he could be prickly, an alpha male, even blunt and forthright, but people still had time for him, certainly the players.

However, at the very top, his relationship with Shi became progressively worse and, eventually, beyond repair. Shi will freely admit his background is not football. His ideas can be left-field and his views on players can wildly differ from the opinions of professional football staff.

But there was also a trust element here. Lopetegui felt miscommunication on finances and how much money was available to spend broke a bond that couldn’t be fixed.

If he had got the signings he wanted this summer, if Wolves had signed Scott and brought in a prolific striker and an experienced defender, maybe he could have been placated, but there is a difference in opinion between Lopetegui and others about the quality of the squad that remains at Molineux. Senior club figures think it’s better than he gives it credit for and there was a feeling that Lopetegui publicly admonishing its quality would damage team spirit and morale.

Overall, perhaps in a similar vein to Antonio Conte at Spurs earlier this year, there was the nagging feeling that Lopetegui felt he was doing Wolves a favour by being there. After a career path of Porto, Spain, Real Madrid and Sevilla, Wolves were a step down.

With he and Shi unable to compromise on their differences, it’s been acknowledged for some time now that a parting of ways was inevitable. Lopetegui told Hobbs around the time of the Celtic game on July 29 that they should start discussing the terms of his exit and Hobbs has since been tasked with identifying Lopetegui’s successor, who is almost certain to be former Bournemouth boss Gary O’Neil, with his appointment expected imminently.

Lopetegui agreed to stay on to manage the squad while his successor was found and while the financial terms of his mutual consent departure were finalised.

He also put his name to a joint statement announcing his departure last night, wishing the club luck and thanking them for the “opportunity granted at the time to take charge of this wonderful club”. He thanked Hobbs, other staff and players, but there was no mention of Shi or Fosun in the statement, which just about sums it up.

The timing couldn’t be much worse on the eve of the season and there is no other way to describe this than an almighty mess.

Wolves hope, unlike the example of Leicester last season, who barely made a summer addition and then waited until April to part company with their manager, that they haven’t ruined their season before it’s even started.

(Top photo: Jack Thomas – WWFC/Wolves via Getty Images)