Hobbs’ remit sees him managing the whole sporting and performance side of Wolves and the support staff around the men’s first-team, academy and women’s and girls’ programmes, including coaching, medical, analysis and recruitment.
Although the main focus during his short time as sporting director has been around providing Julen Lopetegui with the players he needs to get the men’s first-team away from the Premier League relegation zone, Hobbs – who has been at Wolves since 2015 having progressed through a variety of roles into his senior position – has still paid attention to the other areas of his role.
He can regularly be spotted at fixtures across the age ranges of the academy teams, while he experienced his first game of Wolves’ women’s first-team in their FA Cup fourth round tie with West Ham United last month. Overseeing the development of the brightest talent, both male and female, in gold and black, Hobbs admits the club still have improvements and changes to make if they are to ensure his aim of making Wolves elite across the board and all players are being given the best support possible to succeed.
On his first few months in the role
“It’s been exciting but, first of all, I’ve been really lucky. Julen and his staff coming in has really helped me and coming in at the same time and looking at it with fresh eyes – although I’ve been at the club a while now – I’ve seen the great times and more recently times when we were struggling slightly, but we were never far away.
“For me, it was just looking at the possibility to realign who we are and maybe get that feel back at the training ground that we always had, where we had unity and everyone together.
“I think I’ve been fortunate in many ways, and then the club backed us in the window and we were able to get deals done, which helps, so it’s been good. I’ve learnt a lot, it’s reaffirmed a lot of the practices we had in place would always work, given the opportunity, so I feel like we’re getting back to where we should be and the club’s in a really good spot.”
On getting back to his regular job
“During a window, with a new manager, everything gets pushed to one side. We wanted to get a few in and Matt Jackson did a great job of getting players out so they can keep developing, which is key to our model.
“But now it’s about getting to work with the academy, doing analysis of all the departments to make sure it marries up to what Julen wants them to do, boys and girls, make sure we’re supporting that and looking at how we can develop that in the future. So, basically everything apart from transfers now comes into play.
“[Bringing departments closer together] has definitely happened. I may want it to happen, but unless Julen wants it to happen and encourages it and endorses it every day, it doesn’t happen. As much as I wanted it to happen, he’s made it happen.”
On the importance of Wolves Academy
“I think it’s important two sides. There’s obviously the financial part; if you develop a player, it’s much cheaper than having to go and spend £20 million on a player and it gives you assets to sell in the future, like we saw with Morgan, but I think it’s important for the fans.
“Most clubs buy into the younger players who come though and probably give them a bit more time to ease their way in. So, it will always be a big part of our model, but from both sides because it helps us balance the squad, but I think the fanbase here really love the fact that players come through.
“And it’s testament to the work that’s being done in the academy through Jon [Hunter-Barrett] and Laura [Nicholls] in the development and the coaches there, but also Harry [Hooman] and his team with the ones who are recruiting in and have done really well. It will always be a huge part of our model, but not just from a financial perspective, but it’s also important for the fans to have players they can really buy into.”
On supporting the club’s women and girls’ teams
“[The FA Cup fourth round] was actually my first [women’s] game, just because in my last role I was always away at games and watching players, but I really enjoyed it.
“It was some spectacle, going to my first one against West Ham, and it was a real eye-opener for me, but what it made me feel was that we have to try and find a way we can help them to keep developing and keep moving forward like the rest of the club is.
“We don’t want them to be left behind, so it just reaffirmed to me that – across the football club – everyone needs to be looked after and help them develop. It just gave me more appetite to support them in any way that we can.”
On changes still to be made
“It’s important that we keep developing the whole football club. You want to keep developing all departments but it’s a gradual process and not something we can change overnight.
“Molineux is an ongoing topic and things are in the pipeline, I spoke about the women and girls and us supporting them, and the academy has grown substantially since my time at the club, and what we’re offering, we’ve probably outgrown that building. We’ve got some development to do at Compton as well, just to make sure we keep our facilities mirroring that of the first-team as we’re trying to keep everything elite – but that again takes time.
“We’ve concentrated on the window now, but I have to ensure that we don’t just look at the first-team and the scope is a bit wider than that. We need to ensure everything develops at the same rate and we support those other areas of the club.”
That support. 💛 pic.twitter.com/Vs4rBNzlwc
— Wolves Women FC (@WolvesWomen) January 29, 2023
On his aims for remainder of the season
“To support Julen – that’s my job. We’re already talking about the summer and already looking at our squad and keeping an eye on players that we’re looking at. The recruitment team are out and doing their work all over the world and looking at our potential targets to get as far ahead with that as possible.
“Then, day to day, it’s supporting Julen through the various departments he uses and I’m a bit of a sounding board for anything he needs. Again, support the academy, try and look at how we can develop that in the short term and we’re always looking to recruit good young players to have a chance to break through.
“The women and girls have got potential promotions coming up and we’ve had to put the papers forward to go forward with that and in the short term, help them towards that goal. So, long-term and short-term, my goals are the same, it’s just the short-term is the first stage of those aims.
“It’s been exciting with the manager coming in and we’ve got off to a great start. He’s changed the culture, which is what we had to do and is really important, but these are just the foundations – now we really want to kick on again from here.”
