The first game of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ future felt much like a step back into Wolverhampton Wanderers’ recent past.
If the Premier League’s bottom club hoped to draw a symbolic line under their season from hell with the confirmation of relegation from the Premier League, they were left sadly disappointed by events at Molineux in the first game since their fate was sealed.
Head coach Rob Edwards walked into a club in November with fans in revolt, players and coaches being booed and owners being told to leave.
Five and a half months later, he is in danger of ending the season with fans in revolt, players and coaches being booed and owners being told to leave.
The only major difference between now and then is that Edwards is now in danger of being dragged down with his ship.
Saturday’s defeat at home to Tottenham Hotspur was markedly less depressing than the losses in the previous two games.
There was more spirit, resilience and fight against Roberto De Zerbi’s side than Wolves had displayed in the second half of the 4-0 defeat at West Ham and almost the entirety of the 3-0 reverse at Leeds United.
Yet context means little in situations like Wolves’. Saturday brought another defeat, another game when Edwards’ side created little and another reminder that their eight-year stay in the Premier League is ending in ignominy.
So it was little surprise that the final few minutes of the game felt depressingly reminiscent of even grimmer days earlier in the season.
There were chants against the club’s Chinese owners — “we want Fosun Out” and, “You’ve sold the team, now sell the club”.
New chairman Nathan Shi received a largely positive response to the announcement of much-reduced season-ticket prices at the end of last week, but it will take a good deal more for Fosun to be forgiven for steering the club back to the EFL.
And when Edwards and his players approached the South Bank after the final whistle to acknowledge the fans’ support, they were met with the loudest boos they have experienced since the very early days of his reign, when the reaction was much more about the failures of the pre-Edwards era.
The current head coach has earned credit with some fans for at least making Wolves competitive from a position of abject misery.
Wolves players rallied round, but it was a disappointing day (Stuart Leggett/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
But he has still won just three of his 23 league games in charge and, barring a flying end to the season, will start his first Championship campaign in charge already under intense scrutiny.
Saturday’s defeat was Wolves’ 23rd of the league season, equalling their most ever in a 38-game top-flight campaign (also 23 in 2011-12 and 1905-06), and it would take the most optimistic of supporters to bet against them beating that record in the four games that remain.
“It’s been really challenging this week for us,” Edwards told his post-match press conference.
“We’ve been officially relegated and it’s been really tough, so for the players to give everything and match Tottenham’s intensity and levels of work rate — the lads deserve a lot of credit for that.
“In the end, we lacked a little bit of cutting edge, but we know where we’re at at the moment.
“I thought the supporters were brilliant throughout the whole game. I’ve not got a negative word to say about them at all.
“We’ve lost three in a row, we’re bottom of the league, we’ve been relegated this week, so they’re not going to be happy.
“But I need everyone to understand that everyone’s giving their all and it is going to take some time to turn this around.
“We’re not in the middle of a transfer window now. We can’t change loads. We’ve improved from last week; we looked a lot more solid, we didn’t give a lot away and we are working really, really hard to try to put things right.
“And in a few weeks’ time we’ll be able to action a lot of that stuff.”
Edwards cannot say it, but the end of this campaign cannot come soon enough, bringing with it the chance to clear out much of this season’s horribly imbalanced squad and replace it with a new group of players more in his own image.
Pulling off the kind of clear-out Wolves need will not be easy, but Edwards will be itching to get started because he has almost nothing to gain from what remains of this season and lots to lose in terms of a relationship with fans that is already becoming strained.
Wolves now know for certain where they are heading. But they discovered on Saturday that leaving behind the Premier League will be a damned sight easier than casting off the baggage of repeated failures.