There was natural excitement among Wolverhampton Wanderers fans when their club signed Patrick Cutrone from AC Milan in 2019 but his time at Molineux proved to be a huge disaster.

Cutrone had scored 27 goals in 90 appearances for the Rossoneri, including 18 in the 2017/18 campaign, an impressive return for such a young striker.

Even though he had managed just three goals in 34 Serie A appearances in the 2018/19 season, there were few complaints from Wolves fans when the Old Gold paid £23m to bring him to Molineux in the summer of 2019.

Unfortunately for the 21-year-old, he failed to have anywhere near the impact of fellow 2019 striker signing Raul Jimenez, and struggled for game time under Nuno Espirito Santo.

That season saw the Italian forward make just 24 appearances in all competitions, registering a paltry three goals and four assists.

Few would have predicted that they would be his only goal and assist returns in a Wolves shirt.

The following season saw Cutrone loaned to Fiorentina where he hit five goals, with the forward returning to the Artemio Franchi Stadium again in the 2020/21 campaign, only for him to fail to score in 13 appearances, the majority of which came from the bench.

Four more goalless Wolves appearances came in that season, before he joined Valencia in the second half of the 2020/21 campaign, once again failing to score or assist.

It was never going to be good for Cutrone's confidence or health for him to be loaned out to so many different clubs and never really break into the first team, especially as a young striker.

During his time at Fiorentina, his agent suggested that the former AC Milan man had gone "into oblivion" with the Serie A side, despite them being keen on his signature.

Cutrone found his feet slightly with Empoli last season, hitting three goals in 31 appearances, after which Wolves decided to cut their losses and allow him to join hometown club Como in Serie B.

His time at Wolves saw him make a total of 28 appearances, and his £63k-per-week wage combined with the transfer fee meant that they would pay nearly £1m for every appearance in an Old Gold shirt, which represents awful business.

The decision to spend such a large fee on a striker who had only enjoyed one good season was a risk that massively backfired for Wolves and it will be a transfer mistake that they are not keen to repeat.