Jeff Shi: I need to get to know Wolves fans better

Shi, responsible for the day-to-day running of the club since Fosun’s 2016 takeover, believes he is now much better equipped for the role after some “naive” moments when he first arrived at Molineux.

But in a candid Q&A session with the club’s official website, he conceded there is still room for improvement.

One of his aims is to build a stronger relationship with the fanbase, with Shi revealing he monitors social media and online forums to gauge the feeling of supporters.

He said: “Even after five years I think I still don’t know Wolves fans enough.

“At the beginning, I thought, okay, they are Wolves fans, but after five years I doubt I know them enough.

“Sometimes I feel we still need to find the chemistry between the fans and us and so that is the reason why I need to come out to say something to them because I also watched social media content, watched fans’ forums, so I know what they’re thinking about.

“But sometimes I think Wolves fans, a group of fans, are very contradicted. Sometimes they are very warm, they are very enthusiastic, sometimes they are very negative, very down.”

Shi insisted that while he might share the frustration of supporters over results, he cannot afford to let emotions dictate his decisions.

He explained: “I cannot come out to say something after a defeat or whatever.

“I was emotional for some days, but I tried my best to calm myself down after the game and tomorrow then I will still be very logical, sensible, because I cannot make mistakes because of emotional things. That’s the reason maybe they think Jeff is always very cold, very cool, not so interested, but actually in my heart I am, but if you want to steer the ship in the right direction and avoid the icebergs, you have to be calm.

“But I am trying to find the balance and trying to find the chemistry, so the effort now is a gesture as I want to show the fans that we want to speak and we want to find mutual understanding between us.”

Five years on from the takeover, Shi compared the relationship between Fosun and Wolves supporters as akin to a marriage “going steady”.

He explained: “My wife told me a good analogy, she said, it’s like your partner living with you every day. So, for example, my wife, if she asks me, ‘Jeff, do you love me?’ maybe she will ask me every day,’ do you love me, do you love me, do you love me,’ then try to be more convinced.

“I think it’s really like the fans here, so even though I live in Wolverhampton, even though I have been here for five years, they still have doubts – when will Fosun leave us? Does the management know how to run a football club even after five years? Why has someone left the club? Is that a disaster?

“I don’t know where the complaints or the negative thoughts come from, but, going back to the analogy, it’s like even if you have a good connection between you and your partner, your wife, they still ask do you love me? I understand that, but I cannot say I love you too much, because if I say it too many times then it doesn’t make sense.

“Sometimes just know that, Jeff is here and the club is running very normally, nothing special, like a normal couple, you do your job, I’ll do my job, we can have dinner together, we help our children go to school, it’s normal life.

“It’s not like a kind of very passionate love, you have to be together every day. Now we have gone through that period of our honeymoon, now we are like a normal couple. So from a club view, from my own view, I do hope we can go through life more like a normal couple. I cannot say I love you every day, but even if I don’t say that, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. We are still here and sometimes it’s like a mutual understanding.

“Go steady. When you are 70s, 80s, you’re older couples, you don’t hug every day, you don’t kiss every day right, but you are still a good couple.”