2009/10 to 2017/18

Wolverhampton Wanderers spent three of the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18 in the Premier League and five in the Championship, with one lower down. Their best finish was 15th, in 2009/10. They didn’t win a major trophy. Over those nine summers they paid £51.4m in transfer fees and took in £26.4m, a net spend of £25m. In 115.football they get City’s £900m instead.

Wolverhampton Wanderers did the full round trip in this period. Three Premier League seasons ended with bottom place and 25 points in 2011/12. Twenty-third in the Championship followed a year later, two relegations in a row, and 2013/14 was spent in League One.

The recovery started quietly, with 14th-place finishes in 2015/16 and 2016/17, before something changed. In summer 2017 Wolves paid £15.8m to bring Rúben Neves from Porto to the Championship, a statement few second-tier clubs could make. They won the league with 99 points.

The summer of 2012 is where the 115.football Wolves story turns. Steven Fletcher was sold to Sunderland for £12m and Matt Jarvis to West Ham for £7.5m, and the side that was left went down again. With £900m and hindsight both stay, the double relegation never happens, and Molineux does not have to wait until 2018 for its next Premier League ticket.