Fan anger, rock bottom – what next for Pereira and Wolves?

The Wolves fans chanted, “You’ve sold the team, now sell the club.”

They addressed manager Vitor Pereira, who they sung “Sacked in the morning”.

A flat Molineux threatened to become toxic as soon as Zian Flemming opened the scoring for Burnley. It did, and it did after Lyle Foster’s 95th-minute winner made the Clarets 3-2 winners.

As players and Pereira engaged in heated discussions with fans in the South Bank, Pereira particularly animated, the scenes that have been surfacing for a while have developed.

For the first time in a while, Portuguese fans criticized them for staying safe and drinking in a nearby pub with them last season.

However, with Wolves having their fourth permanent manager in three years, supporters are frequently targets for executive chairman Jeff Shi and owners Fosun.

In addition to losing their best players, who haven’t been effectively replaced, due to the summer sales of Matheus Cunha and Rayan Ait-Nouri.

However, the anger and apathy were mixed. Fans looking resigned to the status of the team, who have suffered a slow decline since Nuno Espirito Santo, who made them reach the Europa League quarter-final, left in 2021.

Wolves are bottom of the league and have won just nine of their opening nine games. They are now in a time warp after winning 11 matches last season.

Pereira has only signed a new three-year contract for 38 days, and sources have informed BBC Sport that he is not currently in danger.

After rescuing them from second place last season, Shi and the people in charge still believe his experience will be crucial to the survival struggle. O’Neil’s four-year contract expired on the eve of the previous season, but it only lasted for four more months.

The addition of Domenico Teti as Al-Shabab’s director of professional football this summer is a testament to Pereira’s leadership, which the pair shared at the end of last season.

Given the number of managers the club has recently undergone, and how negative fan feedback will not affect Shi, there is a reluctance to make a change.

Even though it has been six months since Wolves’ last Premier League victory, the fact that they stayed up after failing to win any of the opening ten games in 2024 and 2025 demonstrates that it can be done again.

In his post-game press conference, Pereira stated, “Everything changes, even if we win two or three games in a row.

They sung my name two months ago because of the work we did last season, which indicates that we are Premier League players rather than Championship players. They may scream my name to sack me right now.

It’s not about me, I’m not concerned about his job. The players, the team, are at play. My goal is to encourage them to return and become mentally prepared for the following conflict.

Pereira also made an effort to quell any unfavorable fans by disclosing what he had previously said to the angry supporters.

We work a lot, he said, and we need to fight together, he said.

I get it, I get it. I understand the frustration when you try to help the team for 90 minutes and they give it everything to win but ultimately concede a goal.

“We can win games if we fight with them, united,” I must say to them. Without them, it would be impossible if not.

If Pereira loses the players’ faith and confidence, which he has not done, then the game would be at a tipping point.

Molineux’s performance on Sunday, when they came back from 2-0 down, reinforced the players’ continued support for the manager. It is acknowledged that their results have not been good enough, but the players have remained so.

Jorgen Strand Larsen, a striker, said, “Yes, of course, all of us are.”

“We are aware of what we did last season.” No one is to blame here; we’re not. It’s obvious that a team will face many changes over the summer.

Wolves faced players who had finished in the top eight in their first ten games before the start of the season.

Their first victory came on November 9 with a 2-0 victory over Southampton, which was followed by a 4-1 victory over Fulham.

O’Neil’s job was tempered by the run’s performance and the difficulty of the run, which led to a run that ended in a late-night home loss to Ipswich in December.

After claiming six straight victories in March and April, Pereira tipped them to 16th place and move 17 points clear of the bottom three.

Cunha and Ait-Nouri were then combinedly sold to Manchester United and Manchester City for a combined sum of $ 93.5 million, and Wolves reinvested close to $ 100 million in the summer, bringing in five players from Europe, six of whom had not had any Premier League experience, on loan until Strand Larsen’s loan became a permanent move.

The squad is missing the spark that Cunha and Ait-Nouri delivered, despite the perception that value is present on the continent.

The squad is lacking the extra talent to turn draws into victories, conceding to Brighton in the 86th minute and to Tottenham in injury time to draw both games 1-1.

With Pereira aware of the importance of learning quickly from their defeat at Burnley, they have lost to all three promoted clubs this season. They were last defeated at home by Leeds and Sunderland last week.

When asked if there was a deeper issue at Wolves following another winless start, Pereira responded, “I was not here the last season in the first games of the season.

We must “learn from the experience,” especially the in-person market and the pre-season, as well as the way we organize these things.