Why has another Gibbs-White not come out of Wolves' academy?

New York Times

31-03-2025

In mid-February, we invited requests from our subscribers for articles you might like to read on The Athletic as part of our latest Inspired By You series.
Thomas C, Guy M, Stuart E and Matt K all asked for a piece about Wolves' academy, including whether there are high hopes for any current players, why academy players aren't getting in the senior team, and what the main objective of the academy is.
So Steve Madeley found out.
At Wolverhampton Wanderers, teenage players dreaming of careers in the Premier League have a new ally.
Vitor Pereira, the first-team head coach who has led a fight against relegation in the second half of the season which looks set to end in success, is an advocate for academy football.
'I started my career in youth teams, firstly in the second division,' Pereira said in a recent press conference. 'When I went to Porto, I stayed there eight years and I had the time to analyse the players, to improve the level of this kind of player, these young players, and this is something that is in my nature now.'
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So every player in the older age groups at Wolves' academy now knows: at the top of the club is a coach ready to give them opportunities.
The problem, as always, is reaching a high enough level to be considered.
In recent years, Morgan Gibbs-White (pictured top making his Wolves debut as a 16-year-old in 2017) is the only player who was developed fully at the club's Compton Park academy and went on to become a genuine first-team player.
He joined Wolves aged eight and spent more than a decade as the jewel in the academy's crown, but left for Nottingham Forest in 2022 for a £25million ($32m) fee (which could rise to more than £40m with add-ons) and has since played for England.
Striker Nathan Fraser made appearances for the first team last season, having enjoyed a similar route to Gibbs-White from an early age with Wolves, but his Premier League appearances came amid a debilitating injury crisis that created an almost artificial opportunity.
Hugo Bueno, Leon Chiwome, Joe Hodge and Luke Cundle have had a taste of first-team action in recent seasons but all joined Wolves' academy from other clubs well into their teens.
So it is not surprising readers were wondering why Gibbs-White has become such an outlier.
To find out, we spoke to contacts with knowledge of the academy at Wolves — on condition of anonymity — about the state of play in the gold and black talent factory.
But first of all, some context: a study by Football Observatory in the 2023-24 season found that 1.2 per cent of Wolves' Premier League minutes were played by club-trained players, defined as those who spent at least three years with their club between the ages of 15 and 21.
Yet six of the 20 clubs, Everton, Fulham, Aston Villa, West Ham United, Brentford and Luton Town, all had even lower percentages while Burnley, Sheffield United, Tottenham Hotspur and Bournemouth came in at 2.5 per cent or lower.
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So the challenge of developing players for Premier League first teams is not unique to Wolves, and the obstacles are clear.
The Premier League is among the strongest domestic competitions in the world, boasting world-class international players in every squad. Producing players ready to fit in on that stage in their late teens or early 20s is a daunting task.
Add in the changing landscape created by Brexit — more of which later — and the mountain becomes even harder to climb. Wolves' West Midlands rivals have encountered similar challenges.
Birmingham City have been arguably the most successful in the region in the past decade or so, producing England internationals Jack Butland and Nathan Redmond before a generational talent in the form of Jude Bellingham.
West Bromwich Albion — Wolves' closest geographical rivals — can take credit for Premier League regulars Morgan Rogers (now at Aston Villa) and Chris Wood (a Gibbs-White team-mate at Forest).
Villa themselves have produced Jacob Ramsey for their own first team.
But the hit rate remains low, with Wolves' challenge exacerbated by the absence of any structured youth league in or near the city from which they could rely on a constant stream of players.
That, and the fierce competition locally for the best talent, makes the task a stiff one for academy recruitment chief Harry Hooman and his team.
The low-density population in the rural areas to the west of Wolverhampton means talent is spread widely, while Wolves are surrounded on the other three sides by their Midlands rivals and, to the north, Stoke City and the Liverpool and Manchester clubs within 100 miles.
But still, Wolves are making constant changes to try to ensure they can compete.
The recent departure of joint academy manager Laura Nicholls for a new job at Stoke has allowed former Wigan Athletic defender Matt Jackson, the club's head of professional football development, to take on a more hands-on role with the academy's administration.
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Jonathan Hunter-Barrett retains control of the football operations, with under-21s manager James Collins and under-18s coach Richard Walker heading a staff of around 100, some of whom also fulfil duties elsewhere in the club, helping approximately 200 young players across 12 age groups.
In the past couple of years, Wolves have invested to improve the academy's sports science and medical departments, while there has been a shift in emphasis in recruitment to recognise the physical demands of the Premier League. Hooman and his team are still targeting technical ability while paying extra attention to whether players have the potential to handle the physicality of the top flight.
And, as ever, academy recruitment is about more than simply looking for players who could star for the first team.
Jackson, Hunter-Barrett and Hooman are conscious of the need to build competitive teams at all levels, known within the club as the 'vehicles' that can carry the best players as far as possible. Wolves' best hope of producing another Gibbs-White is to give him competitive teams in which to flourish, even if those players around him ultimately fall just short.
And, while supporters traditionally judge the academy's success by the number of players who reach the first team, those inside the club take a broader view.
The transfer fee Wolves received for Gibbs-White is seen as a direct result of the academy's work. While former captain Maximilian Kilman spent much less time in the academy having joined at 21, his £40m move to West Ham also owed something to his fine-tuning in the under-23s.
The sales of Ryan Giles to Luton for £5m, Dion Sanderson to Birmingham for £2m and Theo Corbeanu and Luke Cundle to Granada and Millwall respectively for £1m each have established a regular stream of income in recent years.
And for Wolves, like every club in England, the market in academy talent below under-21s and first-team level has heated up significantly as a result of Brexit.
With the biggest clubs in the Premier League no longer able to recruit players from Europe until the age of 18, they are spending their money luring the best talent from clubs further down the football food chain.
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The trickle-down of cash creates a phenomenon that can work both for and against Wolves, who sold midfielder Alvin Ayman, then aged 16, to Liverpool in the summer of 2024 for £2m, having signed him from Bradford City for a nominal fee a couple of years earlier.
Chiwome and another striker, Mateus Mane, who made the bench for the Premier League meeting with Fulham in February, were recruited for nominal fees from AFC Wimbledon and Rochdale respectively. If the pair fail to become first-team regulars, Wolves will be confident of turning a profit on both.
Which brings us to the question of what the purpose of the academy is. To some degree academies have become businesses within businesses, but Wolves also regard it as a responsibility.
On one hand it is a responsibility to contractually abide with Premier League requirements, but they also feel they have a moral responsibility to provide sporting opportunities to youngsters from the community from which Wolves draw their fans.
The immediate future for Wolves' academy is difficult to predict.
Producing another Gibbs-White will be a challenge, for all the reasons already mentioned. But voices around academy football speak of several current players with hope that they might have the talent to carve out professional careers.
Chiwome is sidelined by a serious knee injury that will keep him out until next season and Fraser is currently taking part in a personal training programme designed to improve his physicality after a difficult loan in Belgium during the first half of the season. He is therefore not playing matches for the under-21s, with another loan expected next summer.
Northern Irish goalkeeper Josh Gracey, centre-backs Saheed Olagunju and Seb Lochhead, who signed last summer from Chelsea and Dundee respectively, midfielder-come-defender Alfie White and right-back Myles Dayman, who have been with Wolves since before they were teenagers, and midfielder Luke Rawlings are among those catching the eye of coaches at Wolves and opposition scouts, along with Mane and defender Wes Okoduwa, who has also made Premier League squads.
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Whether any of them become the next Gibbs-White, or even another Sanderson, Cundle or Giles, is impossible to say.
But that will not be the only metric by which Wolves judge the success of their academy.
And should any of them make strides in the next few months, they will have a coach in Pereira who is paying attention.
'What I like to do in every club that I work at is to give a chance to them to come in the first team, to work with us, and (for me) to understand what we have in the club,' said Pereira. 'At this moment, I'm just trying to understand how they can deal with a little bit more pressure.
'Training in the second team is not the same rhythm, intensity, and space to play and the time to decide. It's a little bit different. We need to put them on the pitch and to see what they can do. You start to look at the personality. You start to understand the personality.
'At this moment, I'm just trying to understand the talents that we have in the academy.'