Wolves: Nuno Santo transfer gamble on unknown quantity will never be forgotten at Molineux - View | OneFootball

Looking back, the 2017/18 Championship season was one full of great memories for Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Wolves are now a side that has cemented their place in the Premier League, but before that could happen, they had to get out of the second tier.

That is exactly what they did in the 2017/18 campaign, as Nuno Espirito Santo’s side dominated the division.

Wolves managed to do it with a host of new names at the club, but it was probably the addition of Barry Douglas that went under the radar.

Wolves signed Barry Douglas in 2017

Barry Douglas was a player who started his football career in the academy of Scottish side Livingston.

In 2006, he was then allowed to leave, where he joined Queens Park, and from 2006 to 2010, he worked his way through the club’s academy before joining Dundee United.

The Scotsman really excelled with Dundee United, as he produced impressive performances at both ends of the pitch.

He was an outstanding performer for the Scottish side for three years before he joined Polish side Lech Poznan on a free transfer.

He spent three years with that club before then joining Turkish side Konyaspor, but it was only a single season for him there, as in 2017, Wolves came calling and secured his signature.

The Midlands side seemingly paid a relatively low fee for the defender, and it turned out to be a masterstroke, as Douglas excelled in the club’s title-winning campaign.

In the summer of 2017, it was a very unknown time for Wolves, as the club decided to go in a different direction after three years in the Championship.

The club had new owners, and the club went in the direction of looking at more foreign players, in particular Portuguese.

Therefore, Nuno Espirito Santo was appointed the club’s manager, and he brought in several new players to the club.

They ended up having players on the books that were clearly too good for the second tier, and that was one of the reasons why they stormed the league and were crowned Championship title winners.

There were many Wolves players talked about as being the reason why they won promotion, but the addition of Barry Douglas was probably one that was forgotten, and it shouldn’t be.

That season, Douglas started 38 of the 39 league games he was available for, during which time he scored five goals, averaging a goal every 678 minutes of football, as per Sofascore.com.

Furthermore, he was very impressive in creating opportunities for his teammates, as he created 17 big chances, which led to him collecting 1.8 key passes and picking up 14 assists.

While the Scotsman also did his defensive duties, averaging 1.0 interceptions per game as well as 2.1 tackles, which were all helping him be a part of a side that kept 18 clean sheets when he was on the pitch, as per Sofascore.com.

Wolves brought Douglas to the club in that summer, and he was relatively unknown, as he spent his career in Scotland, Poland, and Turkey before moving to England. So, it would have been hard to judge what to expect from the player, but he turned out to be an excellent addition.

For the player, it was a shame that he only spent a year at Molineux, but obviously, the club and manager felt he wasn’t equipped to do the same in the Premier League and decided to sell him to Leeds United, making a profit on the defender.

Douglas has bounced around in his career since and has shown what he did in that 2017/18 Championship season was very special for him and the football club as a whole.