SHOOTS OF RECOVERY RAISE WOLVES’ HOPES

Is a familiar model the route forward at Molineux?

Two home defeats, but that is where the similarity ends. The context was entirely different on this latest occasion. When Wolves succumbed to Nottingham Forest on Monday night there was none of the rancour that accompanied their previous Molineux loss, against Ipswich Town on the second Saturday of December.

Change in management is usually accompanied by short-term restorative traits but the direction Wolves have chosen feels like a genetic shift, harnessing the familiarity of the strengths that have underpinned success in recent years. A page has been turned on the Gary O’Neil chapter. The Vitor Pereira era will require far more than this tiny sample size to pass meaningful judgment, but there has been a cultural shift that could serve the club well for the remainder of the season and beyond.

He was down to the bare bones for the Forest match, and the 3-0 defeat that followed was not unpredictable. Nuno Espirito Santo has a settled team that has grown in stature during his time at the City Ground; a finely-tuned unit playing to their qualites. Pereira is at the start of this journey and, as Nuno found last season, taking charge of an underperforming squad mid-season is one of football’s most difficult endeavours.

In a few short weeks, Pereira has embraced the challenge in front of him. It has been music to the ears of the owners to hear a head coach respond so positively to this opportunity. It had been a torrid season for chairman Jeff Shi until then. The relationship with supporters fractured after the season-ticket price hike and accompanying messaging surrounding that. There was further concern over the reticence to replace O’Neil before that decision was eventually reached. But Shi deserves credit for steering Wolves in the direction of Pereira. It represents an acknowledgement of the path the club is best equipped to travel for success, in its current guise.

Wolves is, in certain respects, a Portuguese outfit. Eleven of the first team squad speak Portuguese as a first language and the imprint left by Nuno and his coaching staff still lingers to this day. A small, elite football nation’s influence across European football has been considerable in recent years and it was the basis for the revolution at Wolves.

Pereira, who like Nuno spent several years working at Porto, has strong relationships with many of the country’s players and coaches. A veteran manager who has worked towards this moment for many years, Pereira has been quick to identify what is needed in the short-term. He has been unequivocal about this, referencing a lack of “balance” on more than one occasion. “It’s a short squad, we don’t have a lot of solutions in some positions. We must be clinical in the market.”

Recruitment is the key to any success. It makes perfect sense to shore up the bond with Gestifute – a relationship that never went away, with no less than six of this squad solely represented by the agency – while allowing sporting director Matt Hobbs to maximise his own strengths, particularly in the South American market.

Pereira was first proposed as one of several options for Wolves back in 2016 shortly after the Fosun takeover, when Jorge Mendes was tasked with overhauling the coaching and playing squad. While the 56-year-old does not have the same close ties with the agent as Nuno, it should not be underestimated how important a working association between the two will be. It increases the club’s effectiveness in the transfer market.

The closing weeks of O’Neil’s tenure were punctuated with regular complaints from the head coach about the deficiencies of his squad and its unsuitability for the Premier League. Such remarks hinted at significant tensions, suggesting that several elements of the club were not pulling in the same direction.

“The entire club will be united in supporting him [Pereira] to achieve success,” said Hobbs, on the new manager’s arrival. “I’m looking forward to working closely with Vitor and his team on a daily basis, supporting them in every way possible as we work together to strengthen the squad and achieve our collective goals.”

They were carefully chosen words which were needed after such a damaging period. Results and performances since the Ipswich debacle have shown how quickly things change in football. Building relationships is a prerequisite for any sporting director and the way Pereira has settled into the role with such optimism and positivity suggests that the right environment can be found here for success.

The players, too, have had their say. “The change was probably needed near the end,” Tommy Doyle concluded. “You can see how a lot of lads are kind of revitalised.”

Nelson Semedo went one step further: “The main thing we needed was a change. Vitor arrived with his staff and after three days we looked a different team. A better team. A better version of us. We all knew we had that. But we could not reach that level before.”

It would not be fair on O’Neil to pile in with further criticism now. It was not a case of losing the dressing room. He never entirely had a grip on it in the first place. His tenure also deserves remembering for the many good moments of the previous season. But the limitations of the head coach and his staff were undeniably exposed this campaign. Pereira’s arrival has brought the calmness and authority a more senior coaching set-up offers.

He references Johann Cruyff’s Barcelona, Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan and Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona as the teams who have inspired him on his coaching journey. “I like good football,” is his minimalist take on what success involves.

Pereira is also a progressive coach, whose adaptability will be important at Molineux over the coming months, particularly as he looks to solve the issues of a defence that is wanting for numbers and solidity.

His comments to Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football programme were revealing. “It’s a hybrid system,” he said, when asked what his defensive structure would look like. “I don’t want to play with three centre-backs. I want to play with three defenders.” The difference being that his defenders are not wedded to the central positions.

There are echoes of the flexibility of Nuno’s defensive shape during his time at Wolves. During that era the five at the back was referred to as a “net.” The three defenders would regularly shuffle across the pitch allowing one wing-back to become an attacker while on the opposite side the other wide player would drop in to make a defensive four if required.

Pereira’s style is slightly different. His three defenders stretch across the pitch allowing wing-backs to become inverted, supplementing midfield and attacking centrally in possession. But any system is dependent on having the right personnel to successfully undertake the roles being asked of it. Against Forest, the problems were clear: Wolves simply ran out of defensive players to select and were clinically picked off. Despite this, they had enough chances of their own to merit a less painful score, with Jorgen Strand Larsen especially profligate on the night. It was a great first half, though, and had Matheus Cunha been available then the overall outcome may even have been different.

But nothing should mask the areas that need rectifying in this crucial transfer window, particularly given the limited impact of the substitutes against Forest. It was a depleted squad all-round on Monday night, but it perhaps illustrated where the problems lie. There were plenty of players who can have effective, short cameos but how many can Pereira trust to impact a whole game?

Concerns from supporters about the recruitment direction have been tempered with the arrival of defender Emmanuel Agbadou; decisive action in the transfer market now accompanying the overhaul of the coaching staff. And of course, with Cunha agreeing a new deal in principle, Wolves is a more attractive place for further recruits. It may have been left late, but the club is working to redress the shortcomings of the squad in time to salvage the season. Fans will wait until the end of the month before making a judgement on how successful the window has been.

“Winning was always based on my own attitude to failure,” Sir Alex Ferguson once said. “You have to treat losing as part of the progress.”

Wolves endured plenty of criticism in the weeks leading up to O’Neil’s departure. But any club of strong foundations and progressive aims should be robust enough to respond to setbacks positively and take such criticism as part and parcel of development. What has happened in the intervening weeks has reframed the season. It appears that Wolves are returning to the DNA of the early success of the Fosun years and that can only be a good thing.

On a wider level, supporters will always understand the importance of developing the club away from the pitch – something that is crucial for Fosun to meet their investment ambitions - so long as the primary focus remains the first team. The inertia that accompanied those early December defeats damaged the team’s prospects and caused unnecessary angst amongst the fan base. Since then there has been genuine cause for optimism, with eye-catching performances in Pereira’s opening two games shining a light on the talent already here.

With fixtures against Newcastle United, Chelsea and Arsenal lying in wait this month, Wolves are far from out of the woods. Pereira knows the magnitude of the battle and was blunt in his assessment of what went wrong against Forest. This is a club with plenty of challenges ahead but one which has clearly been reinvigorated. If a week is a long time in football, then a month feels like a lifetime ago.