Premier League Preview: Wolves
Are Wolves in the relegation fight?
Wolves were in trouble after the first half of the season. They could not get any positive results under Gary O’Neil and were in the relegation zone as the season approached Boxing Day.
Vítor Pereira came in and did a masterful job of getting Wolves out of the relegation zone and into safety with plenty of time to spare.
However, it’s been a very difficult summer for Wolves because they lost their two best players Matheus Cunha to Manchester United and Rayan Aït-Nouri to Manchester City.
The question I want to explore today is this. Are Wolves realistically in the relegation fight and can Vítor Pereira’s tactics work for a full season?
Transfers In:
Fer Lopez - Celta Vigo (€23 million)
Jhon Arias - Fluminense (€17 million)
David Møller Wolfe - AZ Alkmaar (€12 million)
Transfers Out:
Matheus Cunha - Manchester United (€74.2 million)
Rayan Aït-Nouri - Manchester City (€36.8 million)
Gonçalo Guedes - Real Sociedad (€4 million)
Tommy Doyle - Birmingham City (Loan)
Nasser Djiga - Rangers (Loan)
Vítor Pereira’s Revolution
I’ll be honest, I was pretty skeptical when Vítor Pereira was hired by Wolves. He’s managed and had success at a number of bigger clubs throughout his career, but had never managed in one of Europe’s top five leagues.
image via transfermarkt.com
From the point that he was hired until the end of the season, Wolves picked up more points than Fulham, Manchester United, and Bournemouth. I know that doesn’t sound very impressive, but considering when he took over Wolves were only sitting with 12 points from 17 matches, it was a massive turnaround.
image via understat.com
The underlying numbers weren’t overly impressive either, but what he changed tactically made all the difference.
He switched Wolves to a 3-4-3 and turned them into a very direct team. They would consistently go long trying to target the forwards, which was a low risk approach. If Wolves lost the ball then they wouldn’t get hit quickly in transition.
What is also did was allow their best players like Matheus Cunha and Jørgen Strand Larsen to go win 1 v 1 duels with their defenders.
They still didn’t put up great offensive numbers under Pereira, but at the very least they weren’t as open and turning the ball over at a high rate, like they were under Gary O’Neil.
The switch to a 5-4-1 also made Wolves incredibly difficult to breakdown.
Losses too much to overcome?
The losses of Cunha and Aït-Nouri are about as big as it gets for any individual team in the Premier League.
Cunha scored 15 goals for Wolves, but more important than anything else it’s what he did off the ball.
He was really the only player dropping into receive the ball from the back line and progressing it forward.
You can see from his heatmap he didn’t just sit in the final third all season, he spent a lot of time in Wolves’ own third of the pitch.
Matheus Cunha Heatmap 2024/25 at Wolves
image via SofaScore
Taking him away from Wolves leaves a massive gap in their ability to progress the ball up the pitch because they don’t have a replacement like him who can play this role, but also provide any type of goal scoring threat.
Aït-Nouri is a massive loss as well because he was the one Wolves were targeting more often than not with the long balls up the pitch.
By Cunha dropping in it created space for Wolves to play into Aït-Nouri advancing up the wing to eventually try and send in a cross to the box for Strand Larsen.
As you can see, Cunha and Aït-Nouri led Wolves by a pretty large margin in progressive passes received.
image via fbref.com
Nelson Semedo has also left for Fenerbahce, so Wolves are putting a lot of faith in their new left back signing David Møller Wolfe and 22 year old Rodrigo Gomes at right back.
