Wolves’ poor luck against Brighton extended as the Old Gold lost at home to Fabian Hurzeler’s side.
You’d have to rewind to 2021 to reflect on the last time Wolves beat Brighton in the Premier League.
On matchday 36, Brighton beat Wolves 2-0 at Molineux, as the visitors took advantage of the Old Gold’s uninspired display.
Vitor Pereira will have several complaints about his squad’s performance, and fans didn’t have to wait until full-time to realise the manager’s frustrations.
Vitor Pereira sent his squad a message with quadruple Wolves substitution
Pereira gave an opportunity to Goncalo Guedes, who failed his audition in the starting XI against Brighton.
The Portuguese forward’s afternoon only lasted 59 minutes, as the 28-year-old was one of four substitutions the Wolves manager made before the hour mark.
Molineux was stunned as Pereira made a quadruple change early into the second half, replacing Guedes, Matt Doherty, Matheus Cunha and Joao Gomes.
The substitutions were a talking point for journalists Liam Keen and Nathan Judah post-match, as the duo shared their suspicions behind the mass change.
“Don’t see too many times a quadruple substitution by Wolves, but it probably just showed what Vitor Pereira thought of his starting XI,” Judah said in Express and Star’s post-match reaction.
Keen responded with his belief that the substitutions were a message from the boss.
“I think that’s definitely a message, it has to be,” he said.
Judah then predicted that Pereira would be ‘visibly frustrated’ by what he saw from the Wolves squad against the Seagulls.
“I think he’ll be visibly frustrated by what he saw today because the last thing he wanted to do was see his team be on the beach, and I felt like this was very much an end-of-season performance today.”
Though the end of the season is in sight, there’s no time for Wolves to take their foot off the gas, with as high a finish as possible in the Premier League desired.
Even Matheus Cunha isn’t safe from Pereira
It was only after the defeat to Man City that Doherty called for Wolves to end the season on a high.
The Old Gold went against the Irishman’s wishes against Brighton, as plenty of players on the pitch were below their usual standard.
One of them was Cunha, who was lucky not to have been sent off, as the Brazilian conceded a penalty in the first half.
Cunha apologised for his performance and became a topic of post-match chat between Keen and Judah, as the former noted that Pereira isn’t the type to shy away from big decisions.
“Taking Cunha off after 59 minutes, based purely on the game, he deserved to come off. Based on what he is as a player and what he offers, it’s still a big decision to make.
“It’s still a really big decision to take him off, but Vitor, I don’t think he’s afraid of the big decisions, and Wolves just weren’t good enough.”
Despite being a player with 21 Premier League goal contributions this season, Pereira showed he won’t hesitate to substitute Cunha, who had an afternoon to forget at Molineux.