DAVE PORTER EXAMINES WOLVES PERFORMANCE AGAINST LEEDS AND SHARES THE LESSONS LEARNT
1. Vitor is not the man
Let’s put Fosun to one side for a minute. Vítor Pereira is a firefighter, not an architect. His whole managerial history screams short-term fix, not long-term vision. Last season, he lifted the mood and kept us up—job done, handshake, goodbye. Instead, we’ve handed him the keys to rebuild the house he only just stopped from burning down.
The warning signs were there. Vítor was the comic relief, not the mastermind. He won the games we should have won, but never got this squad playing anywhere near its potential. Pre-season was a shambles, and yet somehow, he’s just landed a new contract while we’re on a horrific run of form stretching back months.
This isn’t just a blip. There’s no style, no identity, no plan A, never mind B or C. We can’t even scrape a point. The team looks lost, the players look confused, and the decisions—like playing Krejčí in midfield instead of defence are baffling. If your defence is a mess, maybe play your £30 million defender in defence?
But it’s deeper than just tactics. Wolves have gone all in on a manager whose player needs are so irrationally specific that the squad now looks like a Frankenstein’s monster built for one man’s whims. Vítor isn’t making the team greater than the sum of its parts—he’s making the parts look worse. And now we’re stuck, not just with him, but with a squad built for his scattergun approach. It’s going to get much, much worse before it gets better
2. Fosun do not know what they are doing
I’ll be upfront: I’ve never really been on board with the “Fosun out” narrative. They’ve given me the best years of my Wolves-supporting life, and generally, I think they had the best of intentions when they took the club over. There is nuance regarding the world changing and their shifting ambitions—pandemics, economic crises, wars, and totally unprecedented political shifts. I kind of understand that Fosun have put the club into a holding position, waiting for the world to sort itself out before ramping up their ambitions or selling. It’s frustrating, and I understand that, but nothing is ever quite as simple as it looks.
Fosun, however, have by their own admission taken their eye off the ball. They’ve put Wolves into a kind of hibernation, with the only real need being to stay in the league. What they haven’t appreciated is not just the long-term impact of their lack of ambition, but also that other clubs in similar holding patterns have been far less dormant. Wolves’ recruitment was difficult because they had no project to sell. In what can only be classed as complete panic, they’ve abandoned almost all of their critical and long-term thinking.
It’s not just about this summer window, though—the love seems to have gone. The stadium is falling down, the academy is about to be downgraded, and it just has the feeling of a dead weight to the Fosun group that they can’t sell, because from a financial perspective, this is not the right time. They’ve got away with doing it on the cheap for so long that failure has become inevitable. The decisions they’re making now, in terms of managerial contracts etc., feel like absolute panic.
Relegation will not only impact revenue, but the asset will devalue substantially. They are in a mess. The club reeks of it. The only thing that gives any hope for a future with Fosun in it is that this club must be in the Premier League to maintain its value, and given the investment, they’re unlikely to write that off. Next season, you would expect financial backing to secure promotion solely because it makes economic sense to do so. History tells us, though, that returning to this league is not as simple as it looks.
3. Don’t believe the xG.
Wolves won the xG game by a distance—1.8 to 0.5, according to FBref. Do not let this fool you into thinking Wolves were the better team; they were well beaten by a very average Leeds United. This wasn’t close. Wolves’ xG was more about the goal itself, which was well worked, but the rest came from frequent small chances that followed a Jurassic tactical approach of lumping the ball into the box.
This was the easiest game Leeds will play all season (until the return fixture, at least). If anything, the scoreline flattered Wolves. Sometimes xG can tell a story and give cause for hope—this is not one of those times.
4. Fer López cannot defend
Sometimes you don’t understand why a player isn’t playing—until you see the player playing. This is one of those times. Yes, he gave the ball away a lot, caught in possession a lot, but by and large I think most fans and managers would forgive that if he was trying to create, and Wolves desperately need creativity. What we probably all didn’t expect was that he is completely unwilling to run back towards his own goal.
The left-hand side in the first half was criminally exposed as average Leeds players constantly broke through, whilst López ambled lethargically backwards. It doesn’t matter what you can do with a ball, or even try to do with a ball, if you can’t be bothered to track back. This was a horror show of a performance—one that would force any manager, even substandard ones like Vítor, not to trust him. We all wanted it, we got it, and sometimes what you want just isn’t what you need.
5. No Wolves players can defend
There isn’t much point talking about the drop-off in form of Agbadou. Whatever player we thought he was, he currently isn’t. All of the credit he put in the bank last season has gone. He’s not alone, though—Mosquera looks hopelessly out of his depth, and Toti is just Toti: a player who was, in the main, okay, but probably someone most would have replaced in the starting eleven.
Leeds hadn’t scored a goal in open play all season, and Wolves gifted them three. Teams aren’t even having to work hard to score; the goals are just handed to them, already gift-wrapped. Wolves play like a team that knows they are going to concede, they know that mistakes will be punished—and they are. All confidence has gone.
5. José Sá. Time to move on
I have always been a fan of Sá. I think he is over-criticised, blamed too often for goals that have very little to do with poor goalkeeping. His distribution is horrible to watch and there will be a moment of panic in most games, but by and large, José Sá has been a very good goalkeeper for Wolves, capable of saves in the category of magnificent.
That’s no longer the case. Sá is being routinely beaten by shots that should be saved. Whether it is age or that the desire is not there, Sá looks a diminished figure and has developed a really bad problem on his left side. Multiple goals this season—and two more yesterday—have gone past him to his left. The free-kick was well struck, of course, but Sá is almost by the post. The goal hit across him is one of several copy-and-paste goals already this season. Something is wrong.
6. Back to basics
Wolves need to reset. Go back to what works. Play players who have shown reliability in the positions they actually play. Play Krejčí as a defender. Doherty has his shortcomings, but winning back-post headers is not one of them, and I simply cannot watch another back-post header from a long, hopeful cross go in again and again.
Play your two best players in midfield together. Play people in their strongest positions. Just go back to basics. At least try to be difficult to beat. Wolves have got to find a way of turning this around.
7. There will be no January salvation this year
Wolves have a recent pattern of breaking into the emergency funds in the winter transfer window—the get-out-of-jail response to the usual calamitous first half of the season. This only works, though, if you are within touching distance of the rest. There is no point spending a huge war chest on players in January if you are so far behind the pack that there is simply no chance to make up the difference.
Wolves look like a team who have come adrift from the others, and the gap looks like it is going to widen significantly before the opportunity comes to send for the cavalry. When it does arrive, who would want to join a team already all but relegated? The sensible choice will become a view of next season and the needs of the Championship. Only five games gone, but without a miraculous turn of fortunes, the focus may quite quickly turn from “how do we stay up?” to “how do we get promoted next season?” Times are indeed bleak.
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.
2 Comments
by Jace
Good article Dave,sums the situation up perfectly.As a supporter for 63 years yesterday was one of the worst and I’ve seen a few bad ones.Defence is rubbish, goalkeeper is lacking,why leave André out ,why do we play Bellegarde.? Lots of questions to which Victor has no answers.No leader of the pack.Toti is no leader .We need a Conor Cody or a Mike Bailey no one stands out . Relegation is staring is in the face I’m sorry to say.
by Mike Westwood
That sums up my thoughts, a miracle worker last season has become as Eric Morecambe put “I know all of the notes, just not in the right order” . He needs to play all his players in the right positions. I must admit I thought we bought Lopez as a number 10.