I did think this would be a tribute-intensive summer. The circumstances around this one, I don’t think many could have predicted. But one way or another, we’ve finally seen the last of Ruben Neves in a Wolves shirt. That his final act may well be leathering a ball into Jorginho’s head from point-blank range in a 5-0 defeat away at Arsenal, having come on at a half time during a calamitous performance, may not be the most befitting way for it all to have come to a conclusion. But he leaves with a place in the heart of every Wolves fan out there.
Al-Hilal. A household name within football it is not. You’d have had long odds that Neves would be playing for them when he joined the club back in 2017. But then you’d also have had long odds that Neves was still a Wolves player in 2023. Throwing it back to that summer, it’s genuinely surreal to think about. It’s probably the primary reason that every summer Wolves fans will tie in new kit announcements with new signings at every juncture. It was an incredible moment – what a lovely shirt that was as well.
The truth is none of us really knew too much about him. He was drafted into the Porto side at a tender age and was actually thrown into start the game, rather than being eased in off the bench. It spoke to the mental fortitude and natural sense of responsibility Neves has that he played (and scored) and was soon donning the captain’s armband in the Champions League.
It’s well documented that our current boss was the man who gave him that opportunity, but less well known that Nuno Espirito Santo, the man who would bring Neves to Wolves, was actually the coach that began drawing Neves’ Porto career to a close with reduced game time in what amounted to being his final season at the club. It’s a mark of Neves’ career so far that he’s often been surrounded by familiar faces, a sign of being part of the Mendes carousel.
Ruben was the first signing of the Fosun era that really took things up a notch for us. Here was a man whose velvet first touch, radar-like passing range and all-round class just didn’t belong at Championship level. Given he was only 20 at the time, it was truly remarkable how easy he made it look. There weren’t any of the giveaways of inexperience that you might come to expect – erratic decision-making, inconsistency of form, perhaps even a sense of showboating. He was just too good. It wasn’t fair. And it’s near blasphemous to think Ryan Sessegnon was voted Player of the Season that year.
As the levels went up and as the standard of players around him went up, his gravitational pull wore off slightly and he was perhaps less eyecatching, but it gave him the room to grow into a more complete player. With Joao Moutinho as his mentor and at a latter point Leander Dendoncker as a support act, Neves took on the role of midfield general. Through two consecutive 7th placed finishes, a run to the FA Cup semi-finals, an unforgettable Europa League campaign and a pandemic that robbed much of what was so good about Wolves, Neves emerged the other side as the on-pitch leader and reference point.
It’s a crying shame that as Wolves’ stock has fallen, Neves’ own has risen. A model pro, whose own value to the club now extends way beyond the football pitch, he’s been the victim of his poster boy image and perhaps even his own love and loyalty to us.
Last summer, having reached probably his best levels as an individual at Wolves, we were primed and ready to tune into the leaving montage to mark all leaving montages. But no move came. Naturally, with our Old Gold-tinted spectacles Neves is a Champions League player in all but name. But the call never arrived. Were we pricing him out? Was Neves trying to leave on terms that were kind to us, but detrimental to his career? Were the only interested clubs’ ones that we were unwilling to sell to, or Neves unwilling to play for? We may never know the full story, but the move that has transpired is telling in a number of ways.
In the week Julen Lopetegui has committed his future to the club, the week Matt Hobbs openly admitted to needing to move players on before incoming deals can be done, Wolves secure a deal at a premium for their star player, who has one year left on his contract. Not to a rival or a Champions League club, but to a Saudi Pro League team whose current best offering is the star of West Bromwich Albion’s last relegation, a former Watford loanee and Moussa Marega. It’s all rather convenient.
Without wanting to delve too far into football’s latest Sportswashing project, the relations between the Saudis and China, the latest market for Jorge Mendes to dig his claws into and the need for Wolves to move on as a football club from the way it’s been run since promotion, there’s something of the sacrificial lamb about Neves. He’ll be remunerated handsomely for the decision and there’s still plenty of time for him to return to the levels we all know he belongs at. But we owe Ruben Neves a debt of gratitude no Wolves player has been able to call on since Steve Bull.
They often say loyalty is dead in football and while this isn’t that in the bluntest sense of the word, there’s no doubt Neves sought to leave Wolves in the healthiest position he possibly could. He’s grown from a young man into a fully-fledged hero to many at Wolves. His children have grown up in the city. He’s committed some of the best years of his life, let alone his career to Wolverhampton. It’ll be a wrench having to depart that. But we all must move on.
Those that saw the spell Neves had out of the team through suspension against Chelsea, Brentford and the first half against Leicester saw a glimpse of the future. It was dynamic, aggressive and not short of quality. Neves’ introduction at the King Power Stadium took us back to a more prosaic, measured and altogether more stale approach. We lost. It’s difficult to claim we’ve seen the best of Ruben under Lopetegui, his gravitational pull too much for teammates to resist, the deference too great. Too often we have looked to him to deliver, and during that meandering time between Bruno Lage’s sacking and Lopetegui being appointed, it was Ruben who found a way to ensure points were still salvaged. They were key to our survival, but we cannot afford to be beholden to individuals in the way we play now.
The next passage of Neves’ career may not be as noteworthy as what has come. I do think the Portuguese honour the status of Cristiano Ronaldo in a way that nowhere else on the planet does. Ronaldo has become a figure of ridicule as he toils away in Saudi Arabia, unable to claim the league title this season, but the fact he has ploughed a furrow into the region will doubtless encourage other Portuguese players to do the same – clearly led by Mendes as well.
But for now, the Wolves chapter of the book is closed. It leaves only one thing to say: thank you Ruben Diogo da Silva Neves. It’s been a pleasure.
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