Sold for £16m, now worth just £7.2m: Wolves struck gold over 28 y/o "massive flop" - opinion

Player potential can be both prosperous and dangerous.

On one hand, if a player is to reach their maximum skill evolvement, their club can benefit no-end, financially speaking.

Though, if a player fails to hit the heights that their hype holds them accountable to, it can be a damaging affair for their employers.

Wolves are unique in the fact that their saga with former Portuguese and now Angolan footballer, Helder Costa leant more towards the former and more prosperous scenario, rather than the latter.

Costa emerged from the high profile Benfica youth system at the age of 18, in the same age group as Ivan Cavaleiro and Bernardo Silva.

After making his debut for the Lisbon side’s B-team in 2012, he would go onto represent them 72 times, scoring 15 goals. Ultimately, he failed to make the grade for the Benfica first-team, making just one appearance.

After a failed loan-spell at La Liga side Deportivo de La Coruna, he made the brave switch to pastures new to link-up with fellow Benfica graduates Silva and Cavaleiro at Monaco.

Despite teeing up a young Kylian Mbappe for the Frenchman’s first-ever league goal, Costa would go on to play a total of 28 games for the Ligue 1 side, scoring five goals, with Monaco loaded with depth options in Kylian Mbappe, Thomas Lemar and Bernardo Silva.

It wasn’t all bad though as Helder Costa moved on a season-long loan to Championship side at the time Wolverhampton Wanderers in what was his best season ever in terms of end product, with a total of 18 goal contributions in 35 appearances. 

Wolves made the transfer permanent, with the Old Gold side splashing out £13m for Costa’s services to break their club-record transfer fee at the time in January 2017.

Ultimately, the attacker was not able