VITOR PEREIRA’S PRESS CONFERENCE: WOLVES VS ASTON VILLA

Vitor, good to see you. Can we get a quick update on injury news? I know Jorgen Strand-Larsen was injured at the weekend against Arsenal.

Yes, he has a muscle injury and will be out for the next game. For the other one, I don’t know.

It’s obviously the last few days of the transfer window now, and there’s a lot of talk externally about who you might bring in. Are you close to getting a centre-back?

You know our priorities, and they are still the same: a midfielder and a centre-back. The club is working on it. I hope that by the end of the window, we can bring someone in.

If you couldn’t, would you be comfortable with what you have here?

I don’t know. If I stay like this, I will do my best for sure. But the club knows that we need to raise the level.

One player who is here, of course, is Matheus Cunha. The longer this goes on, the more pleased the supporters will be. Are you confident you can hold on to him?

He’s doing good work, trying to come back to his potential. I’m happy with his progress. I hope he can help us in the next game.

Away from transfer news, it was a big week in terms of refereeing because Michael Oliver, who sent off Lewis Kelly in the game last weekend, has come under a lot of criticism, even receiving death threats for that decision. What are your thoughts on the referees and the pressure they’re under, as well as the abuse they face?

What I can say about this is that under this pressure, we cannot perform well. Understand this is my opinion.

You mentioned Strand-Larsen’s injury. There have been a lot of managers this season who stick to their principles. Given his injury, are you tempted to change your system? Is that something you’ve considered in preparation this week?

No, I cannot change my system. If we build a system or a style of play around one player, it will be a disaster. For us, what I think is that we must improve our qualities, our dynamic in our game model, and the way we start to work from the first day. This is something we need to focus on in our game and improve every day. It’s not about when I have an injury. We can play with another striker, with different qualities, different connections with other players, and different movements, but still trying to do the same.

Let’s look forward to the game itself. It’s always a big fixture in the calendar for both Wolves and Aston Villa fans. Can you give us some insight into your experience of derbies?

I know you beat Galatasaray with Fenerbahçe in 2021, which had incredible atmospheres. What was that like, and what do you expect from the derby this weekend?

I’ve played in many derbies throughout my career. Every time I go to a country, they tell me it’s the most incredible derby in the world. Of course, I understand. It’s important for us to play with our supporters, to have them with us. This is crucial. It will be a good game. A good game because we try to play, and they try to play, and in the end, it will be a good match. I hope we get a good result.

I want to make our supporters proud.

They’ve had a big result midweek, and you can tell it took a lot out of them with those late goals. They have struggled after Champions League games in midweek. Plus, they’ve used the second least amount of players in the league this season and have a few injuries. Is that something you have to take advantage of? Can we expect a quick start from you?

More than looking at Aston Villa, we should focus on ourselves. We need to think about what we can improve from the last game to this one. This is the way to be consistent. This is how we create something solid. We need an identity, something we know is our foundation, and we must build on it.

If I look at the last games, in every match, we try to play our game. If you take away the game against Chelsea, we didn’t play at our best level. We didn’t show the work we put in on the pitch every day. For me, that was strange. If you exclude that game, every time we compete, of course, it’s difficult against Newcastle, 3-0, but we had chances to score, more than two or three. Against Nottingham, we had four or five chances. We competed well. Against Arsenal, okay, 1-0, but if you look at the game, we created a situation to score, and they took their chance. This is something we need to improve. These are the small details. We need to keep working on our game. I respect Aston Villa. They have a very good team, but if I focus too much on other teams, I can’t do my job. I need to build something strong, and it’s important to concentrate on us, not the other teams.

In your previous experience as a manager, do you tell your players anything different going into a derby?

We know that passion and emotion can increase. My experience with derbies is that the emotion will be there for sure. My speech cannot be emotional because the emotion is already there. My message must focus on intelligence and how to be organised tactically. These games are often decided in a moment, in a detail. If we focus too much on emotion, we forget the details.

This is my experience. We need to do our work, stay focused, be confident, and calm. The emotion will be there for sure. We need to be smart in managing the different moments of the game.

I know you weren’t in charge for the last game against Aston Villa, but have you watched it back, and what have you learned?

We learn every time. Each game is different. I watched the game, and I know that we will face a strong team. But honestly, I’m looking for my team. I want to see my team play at their best. That’s what I’m aiming for.

Hello, Vitor. I know you want a midfielder who can play in a two, as you’ve explained before. You don’t have João Gomes tomorrow, so how do you see your options for midfield now with André?

We’ll play with another player, and we will try to do our best to help the team. I think we need someone for these moments when we are short. The experience we’ve had is that when we lost André in that game, we felt we needed another midfielder. Now we’ve lost João, and we feel the same need. This is not new.

Why? Because if I look at our options, I keep talking about Tommy Doyle. I spoke with him a couple of days ago. He’s a very good player with great technical quality and decision-making. He likes to have the ball. But in the end, he looks more like an 8 to 10 than a 6 or a 6 to 8 because making that change takes time. If I look at Bellegarde, in France, he plays in a different system, with three in the middle. Sometimes he plays behind the striker, sometimes as a winger. This means he can play in different roles. But he has never played with two in the middle. It’s a very different role because you can’t lose your position. You can’t drift to the sides or get too far forward. When you have two midfielders, you must understand the balance of the team in every moment of the game. This is something that takes time to develop.

And then we have Boubacar, who is coming back from injury. This week he had the flu, which is another problem. This is what we are dealing with now.