During 2020/21, Wolverhampton Wanderers limped through a forgettable Premier League campaign shorn of the injured Raul Jimenez, while a talented young striker who left Molineux on loan a few months earlier was banging in goals at a reliable rate away from the Black Country.
In fact, Rafa Mir was so impressive during his time at Huesca that Sevilla would end up splashing out £14 million to bring the former Wolves benchwarmer back to Spain 14 months ago.
Flash forward to October 2022 and a now-managerless Wolves find themselves in a similar situation. Jimenez is, again, unavailable. Goals are, again, proving to be increasingly hard to come by. And Leonardo Campana is doing what Rafa Mir did before him, reaching double figures across the pond at Inter Miami.
In just 20 MLS starts, Campana has ten goals. If mathematics isn’t your strong point, let us point out that the 22-year-old Ecuador international is averaging a goal every other start for a mid-table Inter Miami outfit.
The entirety of this Wolves, meanwhile, have hit the target just three times between them in eight games this term. No one in the Premier League has managed fewer goals thus far.
Wolves may regret letting ‘top player’ Leonardo Campana go
“I think he knows he’s undroppable,” former Manchester United defender and Inter coach Phil Neville said; Campana having scored a thrilling hat-trick against New England Revolution earlier this season.
“He is going to be a top player. Every team (in the MLS) seems to have a striker that is their figurehead, that is the anchor. That you can always rely on through good and bad, whether you’re playing good or whether you’re playing bad.
“And he is becoming that.”
There’s been clever headers, instinctive tap-ins, and even the kind of flick-and-finish Dennis Bergkamp himself would have been proud of. So, with Campana’s loan spell coming to an end, could Wolves’ new manager, whoever he may be, find an internal solution to the club’s goalscoring problems?
Well, perhaps not. Because Inter Miami, after negotiating a deal with Campana back in January, agreed to include an option-to-buy clause in his contract.
One that, on current form, they’d be foolish not to trigger.
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