Wolves could pay for indecisiveness on potentially record-breaking wonderkid – opinion

Wolves had a fairly quiet January transfer window by only adding Daniel Podence and Leonardo Campana for the first-team squad – but they might already regret not splashing big on one player.

It’s clear that Nuno Espirito Santo’s side have one eye on the future, as the signings of Nigel Lonwijk, Enzo Loiodice, Luke Matheson and the two mentioned in the opening paragraph suggest.

Despite Wolves having a fairly limited squad, they decided to repay the faith in the players that have got them to the position they are in, and did not even replace the departures of Patrick Cutrone or Ryan Bennett with anyone near as much experience.

They may have one eye on the future, but perhaps they needed two, as one of their reported targets in 16-year-old Jude Bellingham is allegedly on his way to Dortmund in a transfer which could see the German side smash their overall transfer record.

Reports in Sport Bild state that the central midfielder could be joining for a fee of £30.5m once the transfer window opens, which would see Wanderers, as well as other huge sides such as Manchester United and Chelsea, miss out on the wonderkid.

With the youngster seeing players such as Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho and Giovanni Reyna flourish at such a young age and high level, you can totally understand why he would see Dortmund as a suitable option for his development.

So far this season, the midfielder has played 31 games in the league, scoring four and assisting three, often putting in dominating performances in the centre of the park despite not turning 17 until June.

While there is not a lot of information on just how interested Wolves were in the midfielder, it seems like they are likely to be way behind in the race for the player now, especially if the reports about Dortmund are true.

The club clearly decided against throwing everything they had at Bellingham in the January window, and they might well live to regret that if the player goes elsewhere and onto big things.