"If only they could Sim to the end of the season," suggests a younger observer.
If, like me, your experience of football management computer games dates from a decade when it was necessary to attach a cassette recorder to the machine, there is a translation. "Sim" as in "simulate" – an apparently common practice of allowing the computer to decide the result without the player having to go to the inconvenience of actually playing the game and thereby skipping forward in time.
Playing a game by avoiding the actual game-playing part seemed a slightly less weird concept after last Saturday at Molineux. Afterwards, it was hard to escape the feeling that this, and the four remaining games Wolves are required to fulfil, are matches that they and their supporters could really do without. For anyone who cares for the sport, let alone their club, this is an unnatural and queasy sensation.
Rob Edwards could hardly be expected to vocalise that thought even if it occurred to him, but even his determination to accentuate the positive through this grim season finally seemed under strain.
But it has come to this. Having mostly been remarkably stoic, fans are now expressing their impatience. "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail," read the legend on a flag unfurled in the South Bank at the end, lamenting the mistakes that have brought the club so low. It is now common to hear complaints that while the recent words from the still-new chairman Nathan Shi seem well-judged, it is time for action. Get on with it.
That emotion is entirely reasonable. It is also reasonable to accept Edwards' insistence that the club really have started the overhaul so clearly required this summer. The problem with having to keep your transfer planning quiet is that proving what you're doing is impossible until you can produce the result. Until then, fans must take your word for it at a time when trust is in short supply.
There is no way round that, nor any escaping four more weekends like this. Could we not, say irritated fans – again understandably – "take the handbrake off", at least be a bit less defensive and try to attack even a team as frail as Tottenham?
Perhaps. It would be nice to think they could. But Wolves' struggles owe less to a shortage of tactical ambition than a shortage of quality at Premier League level, apparent since last summer. The sad conclusion from last Saturday was that the sooner all concerned can get on with the future, the better.
Listen to full commentary of Wolves v Sunderland at 3pm on Saturday on BBC Radio WM [95.6FM]
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