Wolves sporting director Matt Hobbs has said the club are ‘happy’ with the €63m sale of Pedro Neto to Chelsea and insists it is the ‘right deal at the right time’.
Neto has signed for Chelsea after five seasons at Wolves with the Portugal international officially completing his transfer to Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
The 24-year-old has been a key part of the Wolves team in recent seasons and recorded nine assists in the Premier League in 2023/24, despite fitness issues.
Neto has been hampered by injury problems during his time in the Premier League and Hobbs believes Wolves have sanctioned a sale that ‘works for everyone’.
“Everyone knows the player Pedro is – he’s a world class winger who has been so unlucky with injuries, so we’ll miss him on the pitch obviously, but also around the training ground with his energy and the relationship he had with so many people. The deal is one that works for us and Pedro, but by no means does it make it any easier,” Hobbs told the club’s official website.
“The reason we get players like Pedro is because this is our model and not everyone will love that, but we can take so much credit for the way we bring players in, the way we look after them, the love they develop for the football club, and the clubs they’re moving on to, for the fees they are.
“For the club, it’s the right deal at the right time. It’s hard when it’s someone who everyone has so much affinity for as a person to look at it as a business, but football is a business and it was the right timing and the right deal, so from that perspective, the football club are happy.
“We’ve been working on options and on targets and that work keeps going. Me and Gary have sat down several times since, but we were sitting down beforehand and talking about it because I think we thought there was a good chance this would happen this summer.”
