Wolves suffered yet another defeat in pre-season on Saturday afternoon as Bruno Lage’s troublesome start to life at Molineux continued.
The Old Gold now have just a week to prepare for their opening Premier League clash and you sense they need a few more recruits.
On the chalkboard
One area Wolves have been looking at improving is their midfield.
Ruben Neves has been linked with the exit door on a regular basis while Joao Moutinho is growing older.
Tim Spiers revealed last season that he thought it would be Moutinho’s final campaign as a regular starter and thus, they need younger players to come through.
The good thing is that Wolves are no longer actively looking to sell Neves. A move to Arsenal never materialised so it looks as though he’ll stay in the Midlands.
That being said, Neves will be expendable heading into further windows so it would be wise of Bruno Lage and co to consider alternatives.
The solution
Towards the end of last week it became apparent that Wolves were interested in signing Celta Vigo midfielder Okay Yokuslu.
Wolves tasted defeat to the same opposition this weekend but Yokuslu wasn’t actually in action.
That said, the Turk was in inspirational form for West Brom last season while embarking on a loan spell at the Hawthorns.
Yokuslu wasn’t able to prevent Albion from beating the drop but he attracted plenty of admirers along the way.
He’s a tough-tackling player capable of bursting forwards much in the same way as Neves has done for Wolves.
Capped 37 times by his country, the midfielder has been described as “tenacious” by defender Kyle Bartley.
His ability to get stuck in is what sets him apart from many other players in the same position. Last term, Yokuslu won 2.4 tackles per game and made an incredibly impressive 2.2 interceptions per game.
On top of that, he produced 0.8 shots per match and successfully completed 1.2 dribbles over the same metric.
Compare that to Neves and there are clear similarities. The 24-year-old made the same number of tackles – 2.4 – and registered 1.8 interceptions per outing.
The one area where Yokuslu reigns supreme is dribbling, an area that hasn’t been a strong point in the Wolves midfield for a while now.
On that evidence, he’d be a great signing for Lage and Fosun.