Wolves news: Opinion – Mike Taylor on Fabio Silva’s future

This week, we start at The Hawthorns, of all places, where Fabio Silva scored for Portugal Under-21s against England on Monday. Quirks like that make you wonder if football really does follow a mischievous cosmic script.

Wolves’ strategy these days depends on long-term bets, to some extent, signing players early in their careers in the hope that they will make the club a fortune when they mature.

If their investment in Silva, whose eight La Liga goals this season have helped maintain Las Palmas’ hopes of avoiding relegation, does one day result in Wolves turning a profit, then Molineux’s food kiosks could serve humble pie with every order.

But good for him – before Wolves started loaning him out, he often seemed an innocent abroad and he was put in an impossible position, which he was by no means ready for.

“I cannot answer that because my focus now is to be in Las Palmas,” he told the Express and Star on Monday night when asked about his future.

His Wolves contract has one more year to run, and it would be a new height of irony if his talent finally flourishes just as his contract ends.

“I always try to go where I feel happy. I think that is the most important thing – to play football and be happy. It is what I love to do,” he added.

On the same dismal day Wolves conceded three penalties against Bournemouth, Silva was scoring Las Palmas’ winner away to Barcelona – so no wonder he felt good.

However it ends, the Wolves-Silva story demonstrates just what a tricky policy this is – and yet the logic remains impeccable.

Silva’s cost made his an extreme case, and the outlays on individual young players – Rodrigo Gomes and Pedro Lima last summer, for example – have since been more modest.

In the long run, it would only need one in every few of these bets to develop into a £50m-plus rated property to cover the costs, and you would have the benefit of their talent while they improved.

It seems the only realistic way to reach the overall aim of financial self-sustainability. But, outside the boardroom, football has never judged success in the long run. Managers are judged on their most recent game and they often only want to talk about the next one.

However, once safety is assured, another challenging summer lies ahead. The club will be searching for long-term returns while remaining strong enough to cope with the perils of the present.

Who knows what will happen between now and the long run – as the four managers who have left Wolves since the club signed Silva could probably attest?

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