What’s Callum Wilson, Scott Dann, Bakary Sako, Chris Wood and even Sammy Ameobi got in common?

They all glistened for their respective clubs yesterday and could have been playing for Wolves – not to mention £12.5 million man Nathaniel Clyne – but for a refusal to meet their wage demands. Allegedly.

As it is, our inferior imitation of last season’s side suffers a second successive defeat to signal the arrival of some choppy waters, following two years of joyously serene progress.

If it wasn’t so self-inflicted it wouldn’t be so damned annoying.

With a year to replace Bakary Sako and a summer to find an experienced centre-half, we turn a blind eye and hope for the best.

In the excruciating world of Wolves, faint hope supersedes hard cash with a cyclical strategy along the lines of the following:

Don’t spend on wages. Play young kids. Hope they do well. Hope we go up. Sell best player if we fail. Stick with the kids. Hope they do well. Hope we go up. Sell best player if we fail. Don’t spend on wages. Stick with young kids, repeat ad nauseam.

When a League One squad player, in the shade of Michael Jacobs for much of 2013/14, is playing in a number 10 role behind Afobe, then you know you’ve got problems.

And for the first time in an otherwise glorious tenure under Jackett, some of them have been brought about by himself.

Whilst impossible to quantify, the unflappable Ikeme might not have made that gaffe for Cardiff’s opener had he not have been treated so shoddily beforehand.

The footballing gods, awoken from a two year slumber, acknowledged the tomfoolery by setting the stage for Kenwyn Jones’ opener like only they know how.

Like Guedioura’s thunderbolt for Forest and Mark Davies’ equaliser at the South Bank under Solbakken, they rarely ever forget.

Dropping Golbourne and Dicko was also puzzling in the extreme.

So we cling to faint hope as our route to salvation.

We hope Hause, Iorfa, Ojo and Ebanks-Landell will play like seasoned pros.

We hope Dave Edwards will magically morph into a devilish number 10.

We then hope that Sammy Ameobi won’t score past us having tried to bring him to Wolverhampton, knowing full well what would eventually happen. Those pesky footballing gods again.

As we languish in 17th place in this embryonic league, the Charlton game now assumes meaty proportions, however early the season might be.

In the absence of hard cash to strengthen this side, I can only hope for a win.

The gaffer