Football Season Guide

When Gary O'Neil departed the team in December, Wolves sat second-bottom. Enter Vitor Pereira, who helped them bounce back, securing safety with five games to go. The Portuguese coach improved Wolves defensively and inspired them to a six-game winning run in the top flight for the first time since 1970. Wolves lost two of the team’s key components, as Matheus Cunha and Rayan Aït-Nouri departed to Man Utd and Man City, respectively. They’ve been replaced by a 27-year-old forward in Jhon Arias, who has impressed but hasn’t featured in Europe before, and a promising David Møller Wolfe, who will fill in at left-back. Starting right-back Nélson Semedo also left, but he is expected to be replaced by prodigious winger Rodrigo Gomes, who showed glimpses of his talent last term. Pereira looks poised to maintain a back-three formation, with new signing Fer López featuring alongside Jørgen Strand Larsen upfront. Their main strength does lie in the midfield where the Brazilian duo of Joao Gomes and Andre can be complemented by a more attacking-minded Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, forming a complete trident with the potential to control the flow of the game in the middle third. Although Pereira improved the team’s defensive performance, consistency remains a concern. The aforementioned six-game winning streak was followed by a four-game winless slide in which they conceded eight goals to end the season.