Jordan Graham revealed in an interview with The Athletic that his fallout with Nuno Espirito Santo spelled the end of his Wolverhampton Wanderers career and resulted in him being frozen out of the first-team.
The 25-year-old refused to operate in a wing-back role, was eventually ‘sent to train’ with Wolves U23s and would ‘never play’ for the Midlands outfit again. He’s been loaned out for the last three years and will be released next month.
Before being demoted to the reserves, Graham had returned from a failed loan spell at Fulham (August 31, 2017 – January 15, 2018) ‘for another chance to impress Nuno’ but the two couldn’t agree on his best role ‘(and) Graham would never play (… ) again’.
Graham said: “(Nuno) said ‘it’s this way or no way’. His vision was for me to play there (at wing-back) and my vision kind of wasn’t. That was it.” The 25-year-old ‘was sent to train with the under-23s’ and Wolves were promoted to the Premier League only months later, so Graham ended up being overlooked.
He joined Ipswich Town (August 28, 2018 – December 31, 2018) the following season but made only six appearances before returning midway through the campaign. Graham saw out the season at Oxford United (January 2, 2019 – May 31, 2019) and played 19 times.
The 25-year-old was loaned to Gillingham (January 31, 2020 – May 31, 2020) in January and has fared better under Steve Evans, so he should have interest from suitors as a free agent in June.
