It is an interesting time to start work as a Wolverhampton Wanderers correspondent.

For a club that has just finished in the top half of the Premier League for the third time in four seasons, Wolves have some incredibly anxious fans.

Tweet about a feature that doesn’t concern the transfer window and the responses can be predicted: “Who are we signing?”

Comment on another football issue: “Any Wolves news?” Post about current affairs: “What’s going on at Wolves?”

You get the picture — but this is not intended to be a whinge about the lot of a football journalist with the honour of covering a great club.

Frankly, the jumpiness among supporters is entirely understandable.

There are some very good reasons why Wolves fans are concerned right now after a season that promised so much and ended with their team looking stale. Yet there are some equally good reasons why it is a little too early to start writing petitions and designing protest banners.

Here are a few of both.

Glass half-empty — reasons to be concerned

After a largely promising season, 2021-22 ended with Wolves on the slide, prompting inevitable worries that such form will be carried over into the new campaign.

One win in their last nine games was a depressing way for Bruno Lage’s side to head into the summer and left fans understandably hoping that some new faces would arrive early in the window to provide a psychological boost ahead of pre-season.

So far, no new players have arrived, leading to inevitable fears that the mood from the end of last season will be continued into the new campaign.

Since the height of Wolves’ Premier League adventure under Fosun, when Joao Moutinho, Leander Dendoncker, Raul Jimenez and Rui Patricio arrived in a single summer, Wolves have not had a transfer window that comes close to matching it.

The £16 million spent on misfiring striker Patrick Cutrone and the £35 million splashed out on teenage forward Fabio Silva are the biggest examples of deals that have either backfired or are yet to pay dividends.

There have been notable successes, including Pedro Neto and Jose Sa, but Wolves’ record has been more hit and miss, leading to inevitable nervousness as the core group from Nuno Espirito Santo’s successful reign begin to look a little stale.

The fixture list for next season has been relatively kind to Wolves, with just one of their first five games coming against a traditional Big Six opponent.

But that makes it arguably more important to have a settled team in place to maximise Wolves’ chances of picking up valuable points before tougher spells of matches arrive.

Head coach Lage has also gone on record saying that he wanted his squad for the new season in place for the entire pre-season campaign so that they could hit the ground running in August.

With the first behind-closed-doors game against Burnley just eight days away, that will not now happen.

Glass half-full — reasons to relax a little

Yes, Lage said he wanted his squad in place by the start of pre-season, but what manager doesn’t?

In reality, things rarely happen that smoothly, especially for clubs who are not at the very top of the transfer food chain.

Wolves still have five weeks to get business done before the first game of the Premier League season and a further three and a half weeks afterwards before the window closes.

It remains more important to do the right deals than to do quick deals. And, at the risk of stating the obvious, it is still just July 1.

When Moutinho signed from Monaco in 2018, it happened on July 24. Ruben Neves and Willy Boly both signed from Porto on July 8, 2017.

Diogo Jota joined 18 days later, initially on loan from Atletico Madrid. Neto’s 2019 arrival from Lazio came on August 2 and Sa, signed from Olympiakos, did not arrive last summer until July 15.

So while some deals have been done early during previous transfer windows — Rui Patricio signed from Sporting on June 1, 2018 — most of Wolves’ best deals in recent years have happened later in the window.

One of the things holding up Wolves’ current transfer business has been uncertainty over the future of a modern-day Molineux great in Neves — what they need and how much they have to spend depends in significant part on whether the midfielder stays or goes.

It now looks increasingly likely he could remain in the Midlands for at least another year and, even though it might mean less to spend elsewhere, that has to be a good thing.

There remains optimism that Moutinho could stay too, despite negotiations snagging over the length of any new contract.

Neto and Jonny Castro Otto played only peripheral roles last season but returned at the end of campaigns blighted by injury. With a full pre-season behind them, they ought to become key figures again.

Defender Boly should also return and, while his days as an automatic first-team pick might be gone, he could still be a useful player to call on.

And, above all else, the league table rarely lies.

However it came about, Wolves claimed a top-10 finish last season. The lowest they have finished in four seasons back in the top flight is 13th.

While they cannot afford to become complacent, that is a record that suggests they at least have a solid base upon which to build.

There is little doubt that Lage’s squad needs expanding, strengthening and generally refreshing. Standing still in the Premier League is akin to going backwards.

But there remains time and scope for making the changes that are needed. Should Wolves fail to pull them off by the end of August, they will rightly stand accused of leaving Lage in the lurch.

But for now, with the window still young, the panic is premature.