Gary O’Neil admits Wolves still need to be creative in the transfer market as they look to make some late deals this summer.
After bringing in Rodrigo Gomes, Pedro Lima and Jorgen Strand Larsen early in the window, it has been a quiet few weeks for incomings.
Max Kilman and Pedro Neto have departed in big money deals and Wolves are working on direct replacements for those two players.
And O’Neil says he is enjoying working with sporting director Matt Hobbs on getting some deals over the line.
“At this moment the budget doesn’t seem too different to last season when I arrived,” O’Neil said.
“The club is still in a place where it’s not able to go and free spend on things.
“We need to be clever with how we do things and we need to try and maximise the deals we can do and what I can get out of the players once we get them here.
“That’s where we are. When I sit in front of you guys (the media) I never ever moan about anything and I answer questions honestly to try and guide you guys to as close to the truth as possible.
“I love sitting here, I love what I do and I love working with Matt Hobbs to try and maximise it.
“Would I love to be able to say ‘that centre forward over there looks fantastic and he’s £55million, so let’s get him in’ – of course.
“But what we’re doing is very different to that and we’re trying our best to maximise it.
“It makes the reward at the end when you’re successful much sweeter when you have to work this hard.
“Last season was the same. I know we fell away towards the end, but some of those highs, considering where we’d been, felt so much sweeter because of where we’d been.
“This year won’t be easy, everyone is working hard to maximise what we can do.
“But the club is still in a different spot to where it was a few years ago when it could just go and spend.”
Wolves brought in just over £90million from the sales of Kilman and Neto and are aiming to reinvest some of that money, but O’Neil says rival clubs should not see Wolves as wealthy this window after those departures.
“I would hope other clubs are not treating us as super rich and can charge what they want, because that’s definitely not what we are,” O’Neil added.
“We are working really hard on trying to do some that we think will help us.
“Me and Matt speak five or six times a day to try and make sure we’re really aligned on it.
“Hopefully the money we received from the two big outgoings can help us replenish the squad.”
Following the Euros, Copa America and Olympics the transfer window is starting to heat up with two weeks to go.
The Wolves boss is eager to bring players in but admits he is also looking forward to the window ending so he can fully focus on the Premier League season.
“It seems to be picking up,” O’Neil said.
“The majority of our part in it has been outgoings at the moment and hopefully we can start to change that.
“I don’t pay too much attention to the window, even deals that go on elsewhere I don’t take too much of a look at. I’m focused on us.
“It’s always better for me when the window shuts and we can get down to just weekend football.”
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