Calm at Wolves despite five straight league defeats

Despite having the worst league season in their history, Wolves’ results have a calm under the chaos.

Following recent struggles to overcome the drop, the anxiety levels had increased. Supporters were now worried about the worst.

After Wolves lost an early lead three times in 14 first-half minutes, a fifth loss, Saturday’s 3-1 loss to Leeds, only heightened those worries.

Bottom, pointless, and winless: these are troubling times for Wolves fans. Only two Premier League teams have won after losing their first five games.

After a busy week for Vitor Pereira and Jorgen Strand Larsen, which shows the club’s methodical approach behind the scenes, there is still a determination at the club.

Although negotiations had been ongoing throughout the summer, Pereira’s new three-year contract comes at a difficult time.

If it were revealed after a win, Wolves would realize the optics might appear strange coming off the back of a subpar run. Few situations are perfect.

The Portuguese manager had 12 clubs on his resume when he first took over in December. He claimed that he had made some poor decisions while moving between jobs for three years with Shanghai SIPG in China.

However, they were all meant to help him reach the Premier League, and Pereira has shown that in his first ten months in charge, he can handle it in a division he struggled so much to achieve.

There is no desire for history to repeat itself, despite Wolves’ announcement to give Gary O’Neil a new four-year deal on the eve of the previous season and his subsequent firing four months into the campaign.

After Matt Hobbs’ departure as sporting director, Domineco Teti’s appointment as director of professional football strengthened Pereira’s position. The pair previously collaborated at Saudi side Al Shabab.

Teti is very visible, helping to facilitate Pereira and the hierarchy’s communication, and prefers to be seen as a club appointment rather than an official arrival.

With the typical mechanisms in place at Wolves still in place, executive chairman Jeff Shi and Teti had initial discussions regarding Strand Larsen’s new contract at the start of the five-year contract.

In the early summer, the duo left for a combined sum of just over $90 million, giving the club the opportunity to begin a squad rebuild.

Everyone agreed that Cunha should step down and that his £62.5 million release clause had rendered Wolves powerless, but he had also left an undeniable gap.

Last season, Cunha scored 26.98% of Wolves’ 63 goals overall, with Strand Larsen’s 14 coming in at 22%.

Strand Larsen, who has signed a new deal following Newcastle’s summer bids, has scored twice in the EFL Cup against West Ham, but he hasn’t yet found the net in the league.

He started the second half of the match against Leeds, but his Achilles injury prevented him from playing for two games.

The striker claimed that “we are currently in a really tough spot.” “I’m really disappointed in everyone,” she said. Nobody wants to be in this situation, but only we can express our disapproval.

It also kills those who want to enter the game, and it kills both of us. We need to improve, and it’s about the players’ mindset.

In their three of their five league games, Wolves failed to score despite scoring twice against Everton and twice in the first half against Leeds.

Since the start of the current season, Pereira has lost the source of just over half of the goals scored last year, which appears to have been unfilled.

Both Tolu Arokodare and Fer Lopez, who cost £20 million, need time, both from Genk and Celta Vigo.

In the summer, Pereira pushed for Jhon Arias after seeing him extensively in Brazil, signing winger from Fluminense for an initial sum of £15 million. Defenders David Moller Wolfe and Jackson Tchatchoua also signed.

Although the strategy focused on foreign players, it wasn’t always planned, it was believed that players were valuable outside of the Premier League and at a high cost.

With varying degrees of success, Wolves have successfully navigated the foreign market, with the likes of Pedro Neto, Ruben Neves, Ait-Nouri, and Cunha as examples.

However, it is acknowledged internally that there are many things the new hires must prove and that some items could have been brought in earlier to aid in their adaptation to Pereira’s methods.

They will have time, but sources say the timing of their arrival could have been better, with priority positions being targeted sooner to aid in the settling-in process and, in turn, boosting performances.

Character-wise, they have adapted to the group, with only Arias needing to learn the language. However, Wolves have exceeded their international quota, and there will be a future focus on bringing in new talent.

The need for experience is crucial as three of the club’s five players with the most minutes last year, Ait-Nouri, Cunha, and Nelson Semedo, all left with the latter becoming the club’s fourth captain in a row, respectively.

Wolves start slowly historically, finishing fifth after five games in a row.

Since resuming play in the Premier League in 2018, they have only won one league game, including one against Nuno Espirito Santo, Bruno Lage, Julen Lopetegui, O’Neil, and Pereira.

They have lost 14 of their 23 matches, including a single victory at Everton in 2023, which indicates that they have always been playing catch-up, especially in the last two.

Things quickly started to unravel after O’Neil was fired in December after a troubling defeat to Ipswich, and it wasn’t until their 11th game of the year came to an important 2-0 victory over Southampton.

Pereira replaced him and put an early end to relegation worries on Wolves, who finished 16th overall.

The issue is now that that run has ended; on April 29, Leicester won the league with a score of 3-0.

After Pereira blended them so well last year, which was highlighted by centre-back Emmanuel Agbadou, a January signing who significantly contributed to Wolves’ success despite being shaky and prone to errors, it is a worrying loss of form.

Prior to the Leeds game, their expected goals (xG) were 2.63, which was lower than Aston Villa’s goalless start in four games.

They finished 19th out of their first five games last season, but each of their five rivals finished in the top seven, which highlights the difficulty of the task.

That was in contrast to their best start in 2020/21, where they won three of their first five and advanced to sixth place after finishing 13th overall.