Laurie Dalrymple: Wolves could make spending 'statement' in Premier League
Wolves managing director Laurie Dalrymple says the club could make a ‘statement’ with their summer spending.
Fosun have spent more than £50million on transfer fees alone since buying the club in 2016 and that figure will rise to £67m with the impending purchase of Atletico Madrid loanee Diogo Jota at the end of the season.
Dalrymple wouldn’t be drawn on a figure, but suggested big funds could be available to head coach Nuno Espirito Santo this summer.
“If we want to make a statement that we want to go into the Premier League and be competitive with a number of other clubs then we’re going to have to make sure we’ve got some investment potential to back that up,” he told the Express & Star.
“We wouldn’t want to be massively drawn out on an inference around numbers because the priority is we finish the season.
“That’s largely a discussion for the football department, the recruitment department, the management team and the owners to then determine where we think we need to be making any investment (in the squad). But I think we’ve shown in the last two windows there has been the ability to invest. There’ll be funds available but I wouldn’t be drawn on the quantity.”
As well as Jota, Wolves have five loanees in their squad with options in place to buy all of them. That could take up a big chunk of the summer budget, but Dalrymple said no decisions had yet been made on Benik Afobe, Alfred N’Diaye, Leo Bonatini, Willy Boly or Ruben Vinagre.
“That’s a conversation for us as a management group at the end of the season,” Dalarymple added. “We’ve got options to buy all of the players and those decisions will be taken in due course.
“All recruitment decisions will have an end result in terms of the total pot at our disposal. There’s been a lot of quality in the group so we need to have a discussion around what do we need to do to be as competitive as we can be.”
