Wolves said goodbye to one of their key players during the recent January transfer window after winger Adama Traore joined his former club Barcelona on loan until the end of the season with the option of making the move permanent in the summer.

Looking ahead to the next transfer market when the current season ends, it seems as though the Midlands club could be in danger of seeing another one of their important and prominent squad figures make a move away from Molineux.

What's the talk?

Speaking to GIVEMESPORT, journalist Pete O’Rourke had this to say about midfielder Ruben Neves and what the future could hold for him after he was previously linked with a move away from the club.

He said: "Wolves won’t want to hear this because they would love to keep Ruben Neves, but I think this summer, it could be a hard battle to keep hold of Neves."

Fans will be sweating

Since the Old Gold shelled out a Championship transfer record fee for the Portuguese international back in the 2017 summer window, the 24-year-old has become a seriously impressive midfield player.

He's gone on to make a total of 203 appearances across all competitions in a Wolves shirt, scoring 23 goals and providing 11 assists along the way, demonstrating how crucial he is for them and well he's progressed in the Midlands.

Having earned himself an overall performance rating of 6.88/10 from WhoScored, making him the fifth-highest rated outfield player currently in Bruno Lage's squad as well as the highest-rated midfielder, it shows just how much of a miss he would be if he were to leave Molineux this summer.

That rating is owed largely to the 2.3 tackles he makes per game, a number no other midfielder at the club can top in 2021/22.

With that in mind, O'Rourke's comments will now surely have lots of fans sweating over Neves' future and the club's ability to keep hold of him, especially if another side does indeed come in and try to sign him when the transfer window opens.

Moving forward, if Lage's men are able to secure European football by the end of this campaign, it would surely give the club a big boost in their chances of keeping hold of the star for the foreseeable future, especially after he said himself how much he would love to play in Europe with his current team.

In other news: Fosun disaster: Wolves dropped huge clanger over “exceptional” £54m-rated “monster”