The Athletic’s Tim Spiers has recently cast doubt over the future of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ English centre-back Max Kilman.
In Wolves’ two opening Premier League clashes and Carabao Cup defeat to Stoke City, the 23-year-old defender has yet to make an appearance and only featured on the bench on one occasion (per Transfermarkt).
Last season, Kilman made four appearances in the top flight for the Old Gold in which he earned a fairly respectable 6.87/10 average rating (per WhoScored).
The rating was enough to make the centre-back the 12th-best performer to feature for Nuno Espirito Santo’s side in the Premier League during the 2019/20 campaign.
However, in the latest episode of The Athletic’s The Molineux View podcast, Spiers aired that he had heard nothing officially – but cast doubt over the Englishman’s future.
He said: “I’ve not heard a suggestion that he’s on his way, but I guess he’s getting to the age that… I mean, he’ll want to be playing.
“I wonder if Wolves might move on without him, perhaps.
“If they’re seeing [Ki-Jana] Hoever as someone who can play centre-half immediately, then he may have moved ahead of Kilman in the pecking order.
“Also, we need to see how different – because it’s hard for me to compare – we need to see how different Hoever and [Nelson] Semedo are, in terms of their abilities at wing-back.”
TIF Thoughts…
As can be seen in what Spiers had to say, he seems to believe that the arrival of Ki-Jana Hoever from Liverpool may spell the end of Kilman’s time at Molineux depending upon where the new signing will be played.
Should Wolves be looking to sell Max Kilman?
No, I don't think so
Yes, I think we should
With Kilman having proven he can perform reasonably well at Premier League level over his four outings last season and Hoever having never made a top-flight appearance, it will be interesting to see how the issue pans out.