Dave Porter shares some lessons learnt following Wolves draw with Newcastle
1. Survival? The maths don’t math
Wolves are in reasonable form, exactly the sort of form you’d expect from a midtable side. Six points from a four game stretch is perfectly normal, and over a full season that level of return lands you roughly 57 points. That’s the kind of total that has you glancing up towards Europe rather than down towards the trapdoor.
But if anyone thinks that means Wolves are on the verge of achieving the impossible, this is where the maths stops being your friend.
If Wolves simply maintain their current run rate until the end of the season, they’ll pick up another 24 points. Add that to the 8 they’ve accumulated from the first 22 games, and they finish on 32 points. That total has been enough to survive in some previous seasons, but only just, and only with help from others collapsing.
And that’s the real problem: the other teams aren’t collapsing.
Take Forest. They already have 22 points. To finish below 32, they’d need to drop to a run rate of fewer than 0.625 points per game over their remaining fixtures, a dramatic fall from the steady 1 point per game they’ve delivered so far. Realistically, you’d expect them to more or less maintain that level, even if it’s underwhelming.
Which means Wolves can’t aim for 32. They likely need around 39 points to be safe.
They currently have 8.
So to reach 39, Wolves need 31 points from their final 16 games, a demand of almost exactly 2 points per game.
That isn’t mid table form.
That’s Champions League form.
2. The Road Back
Relegation now feels almost inevitable, but for some time now this season was never solely about clinging to Premier League status. Wolves have spent months recovering from an illness that looked terminal. The priority has been to rebuild confidence, rediscover competitiveness, and create a platform from which an immediate return to the top flight becomes realistic.
Over recent games, they’ve taken meaningful steps in that direction. This team has fought its way back from the brink. The Derby challenge, something that looked unthinkably distant not long ago, now feels achievable sooner rather than later, and attention is already beginning to shift towards closing the gap to 19th.
These might seem like small milestones, but they were mountains only a few weeks ago. Crucially, Wolves now resemble a side that believes again. They look like a team that has stopped expecting defeat, stopped feeling hunted by it, and started to trust that results are within their grasp.
3. Boring Is Better Than Losing
It wasn’t a classic yesterday. A neutral’s neck wouldn’t have twitched even once from doomscrolling posture, because genuine goalmouth action was in painfully short supply. But boring, right now, feels like a meaningful step forward, and almost certainly a phase Wolves have to pass through.
Teams don’t flick a switch and go from taking two points in half a season to suddenly winning games with style. There’s always a middle stage: becoming organised, competitive, and difficult to beat. It’s not glamorous, but it’s essential.
Wolves are in that stage. And for the moment, boredom is a perfectly reasonable price to pay for points, stability, and the steady removal of that losing habit that had taken hold.
The neutral be damned.
4. Effort, but Lacking in Quality
Did we learn this today? Of course not. Effort hasn’t been the issue all season, that part has been consistent. It’s quality that has been missing from the very start, and today was no different.
Wolves have good players, but there are moments in games where the absence of genuine topflight quality becomes painfully obvious. Take Jackson, for instance. He was fine yesterday. The basics of his role were carried out well enough, the bread and butter stuff wasn’t the problem.
But then came that moment.
Wolves turned the ball over high up the pitch and, briefly, had a 4v2. A split second delay allowed a partial defensive recovery, but even then Wolves still had a 3v2 overload when Jackson delivered the cross. And the cross? Easily intercepted. Comfortably dealt with. Chance gone.
This is the Premier League. There are standards. Situations like that have to result in something, a shot, a save, a scramble, at the very least a dangerous opportunity being created. When they don’t, it exposes exactly why Wolves struggle. The structure, the effort, the work rate… they’re all there. What’s missing is the decisive moment of quality that turns promising positions into goals.
5. André and Gomes
Whether André and João Gomes can play together, or whether they’re too similar, is a recurring question. You can see why it gets asked, but it might actually be a dilemma created by the rest of the team rather than a flaw in the partnership itself.
Wolves won the midfield battle against Newcastle yesterday. That hasn’t been a common occurrence. In previous meetings, Newcastle’s powerful midfield has often run straight through Wolves. But yesterday, André and João were everywhere. They pressed, they tackled, they disrupted, and they gained the upper hand across the middle of the pitch.
Does playing them together leave Wolves a bit short offensively? Yes, but that may be because of deficiencies elsewhere.
A defensive two man pivot in front of a back three should release the wingbacks to operate almost as out and out wingers. Add three forward thinking players on top of that structure and there should be more than enough creativity in the side. The pivot only becomes a “problem” when the creative burden is supposed to fall on the midfield two because other areas simply aren’t delivering.
Mané has helped solve part of that issue with his creativity and willingness to take risks and Bueno is also adding threat, but beyond them, there’s very little coming from anywhere else.
The truth is simple: André and João Gomes are comfortably Wolves’ best players. They have to be on the pitch. The idea they “can’t play together” is less a reflection of them and more an indictment of the lack of quality and creativity around them. Fix the issues in the forward and wingback positions, and suddenly the partnership stops looking like a headache and starts looking like an asset.
6. Back-to-Back Home Clean Sheets
Credit where it’s due: Wolves have kept consecutive home league clean sheets. That’s progress, and everyone involved should feel proud of the turnaround. If Wolves had shown anything close to this level of defensive stability earlier in the season, they’d have given themselves a fighting chance of survival on that alone. It’s late, painfully late, but it finally seems to be here.
And this isn’t luck.
Sa, previously out of the side, has been reinstated and is now wearing the captain’s armband. Yerson Mosquera certainly wasn’t striding out with 50yard runs earlier in the campaign. Santi Bueno, restored in part due to AFCON reshuffling, now partners with Krejčí to bring a sense of control and composure to the back line. The structure looks firmer, calmer, and more assured.
It’s a huge improvement, and Wolves should take real pride in how they’ve stopped the rot, especially in becoming competitive and difficult to beat again. It might not sound like a major achievement to the outside world, but given where Wolves have been this season, it’s massive.
ARTICLE BY DAVE PORTER
Wolverhampton born, East Sussex based supporter. Old enough to have seen the descent to the bottom, young enough to not have experienced the days my friend. Not many Wolves fans to celebrate or commiserate with round these parts, so had to find an outlet to discuss the enormous highs, crushing lows and share the frustrations that only come with following Wolves.