Away fans moved at Molineux – with Nuno's approval
Away fans are to be regularly housed in the Stan Cullis stand from now on – at the request of Nuno Espirito Santo.
Barnsley supporters were housed in the upper tier of the North Bank quadrant for Wolves’ last Molineux match.
And that will the case for a number of matches during the rest of the season as Wolves look to gain maximum advantage on home turf.
Away supporters will still be situated in the Steve Bull lower tier when they take up their full allocation of tickets, such as for Villa’s visit to Molineux next Saturday.
Managing director Laurie Dalrymple told the Express & Star: “You can expect to see away fans in the North Bank quadrant more this season.
“It was a conversation when Nuno came in, we sat down and asked what he thought.
“We talked him through the process and looked at it.
“We have to give a minimum number of tickets to away fans. For example with Aston Villa the allocation they’d bring would be too great for the quadrant, so therefore we have to provide them with the 2,000 seats as a minimum in the lower Steve Bull.
“(But) if it’s 1,500, for example, away fans can take the lower and upper tier in the North Bank quadrant.
“For Barnsley, we started selling in the upper tier which is around 900 seats – similar in the lower. We were comfortable that they weren’t going to take more than the 2,000 allocation – which is our obligatory requirement – so we moved them into the quadrant.
“We started selling the upper tier first and then if they filled that we’d have started selling in the lower tier.”
When the Stan Cullis stand was rebuilt it was intended that away fans would be housed there.
Dalrymple added: “We’ve identified another nine or so games this season where realistically the quadrant will be housing away fans.
“Some games like Villa, Blues, Leeds and Derby they may fill the full allocation, which means the quadrant is too small.
“If you can contain away fans in one smaller, narrower position it’s preferable.
“Not taking away the fact that if our players go out and do our job...the away fans will only start generally getting noisy if they’ve a reason to. In an ideal world you’d have them in a place that’s controllable by us where we can manipulate how much noise and contribution they can make to the level of their team’s performance.”
n Wolves top scorer Diogo Jota has been nominated for the Championship player-of-the-month award. Villa goalkeeper Sam Johnstone has also been nominated, while Villa boss Steve Bruce is up for the manager-of-the-month gong.
