Has Nuno Santo Just Struck Gold With This Portuguese’ Imminent Arrival At Wolves?

Why Wolves Have Struck Gold With The Signing Of Ruben Neves

Oh, the power of having a Portuguese manager at the helm!

In what may be one of the most surprising and eye-catching transfers of the whole summer window, Wolverhampton Wanderers look set to beat Premier League title challengers Liverpool to the £14million signing of Porto midfielder Ruben Neves.

Wolves are winning the race to capture the 20-year-old defensive midfield player despite the fact that Jurgen Klopp has been interested in him too, with Merseyside seeming to be his destination as recently as a week ago.

Usually when a move like this happens, it could be because of the Premier League side passing up the opportunity to sign the player. But in this case, the Reds may end up regretting not getting their hands on the young Portugal international ahead of the Championship club.

The West Midlands outfit’s advantage of course, other than their Portuguese manager, is that they are owned by Fosun International, which is a Chinese group which also has an association with Jorge Mendes – none other than Ruben Neves’ agent.

The trick has worked wonders in the past, with Premier League bound (one day) Helder Costa and Ivan Cavaleiro also at Wolves currently. But the capture of those two may be blown out of the water with this latest coup, if it is indeed finalised before someone else can sneak in.

Since breaking into Porto’s team back in 2014 as a 17-year-old, Neves has been regarded as one of Portugal’s brightest talents and future stars, and has settled into first team Primeira Liga football with no issues at all. Despite his tender age, Neves has already racked up 93 appearances for the club and has already been capped twice by Portugal.

Just as was the case with Moussa Dembele and his Celtic move twelve months ago, a few Premier League clubs (Liverpool mostly) will be made to look stupid of Wolves can pull this off. Portugal’s national set-up will not stop picking Neves once he’s a Championship player and his stock is sure to rise in plenty over the next year or so.

It would not surprise me one bit for Neves to help Wolves to promotion this season or be the subject of an enormous bid next summer from a top level club. Either way, he’ll be a player who is much to the betterment of Wolverhampton Wanderers.