Kevin Thelwell: FC Jumilla will bring on young Wolves
Kevin Thelwell insists Wolves players will get more chance of game-time at FC Jumilla than loan spells in England.
The Wolves sporting director praised the club’s partnership with the third division Spanish outfit which sees footballers and coaches exchanged between both clubs.
Wolves sent nine players on loan to Spain to gain more experience and Thelwell believes their game will be benefited all round.
He said: “Jumilla is very different to the ‘group 3’ (we’ve had at Compton.
“The loan market is very different in England, people take players without necessarily giving them the opportunity to play.
“We wanted to find some cooperation to give our players the opportunity to evolve as players and people.
“For example Ryan Leak, who’s not had a lot of experience of being aboard, it’s a great opportunity to go for six or 12 months, be more independent, learn a language, and develop more as a person.
“His football is good enough for sure but he may come back as a different person.
“For all the lads over there it’s an opportunity to play senior football, be more independent, be enriched by the experience and come back better for it.
“They play in Segunda B in the third tier, the league is a mixture of senior and under-23 teams so it’ll be interesting to see how the lads get on.
“There’s work to do on the infrastructure but their manager Leonel Pontes has worked with the Portuguese national team in the past and he speaks good English.
“Hopefully the players will adapt to their new surroundings and cope at the level.”
The players who Wolves sent to Jumilla are Ryan Leak, Ming-Yang Yang, Sylvain Deslandes, Aaron Simpson, Jack Ruddy, Will Randall-Hurren, Boubacar Hanne, Donovan Wilson and Ben Stevenson.
In return Jumilla have sent coaches and staff to Wolves to learn from their expert coaches and backroom staff.
Alongside this, Wolves sent out nine other players on loan to different clubs last month.
Among those was Danny Batth who joined Championship outfit Middlesbrough.
The others were Joe Mason to Portsmouth, Jordan Graham to Ipswich, Connor Ronan and Connor Johnson to Walsall, Phil Ofosu-Ayeh to Hansa Rostock, Paul Gladon to Sint-Truidense and Michal Zyro to Pogon Szczecin.
