Vitor Pereira’s honeymoon period at Wolves came to abrupt end in midweek thanks to a thumping 3-0 defeat at St. James’ Park.
The new Wolves boss, who signed an 18-month deal at the club after replacing Gary O’Neil at the helm, started off well in his new role. Pereira oversaw a run of three wins and a draw in all competitions – a run which included a famous win over Manchester United on Boxing Day – in his first five games in charge.
However, in midweek Pereira faced arguably his toughest Premier League test yet when Wolves travelled to the north east to face Newcastle United. Wolves ended up being well beaten by the Magpies at St. James’ Park, with star striker Alexander Isak netting a brace in a 3-0 win for the home side.
The result leaves Wolves sitting precariously in 17th in the league table – above Ipswich Town on goal difference – heading into a run of fixtures which includes clashes with Liverpool, Arsenal, Aston Villa, and Chelsea on Monday evening.
Vitor Pereira insists Wolves need to make better decisions in the final third vs Chelsea
Speaking to the press ahead of Monday night’s game, when asked how Wolves need to improve in order to secure their Premier League survival, Pereira replied by pinpointed the team’s decision-making issues in the final third:
“When we are attacking, almost every time it’s the decision,” said Pereira. “It’s the last run, the last pass, the last shot, the angle to shoot, the positions that we need to appear in because when I have the ball and I go to the line, I must know that in all these positions, there will be someone there to score.
“This is something that we need to improve together.”
Pereira was also keen to insist that the players and staff are keen to analyse their mistakes after each game, and work on improving their performance levels:
“I don’t want a team that after we lose a game, we don’t look at the game. We need to look at what we did well, what we must correct and we go through the corrections. This is the way to improve – correcting, correcting, correcting.”
Stats suggest Wolves are one of the most clinical teams in the Premier League
Despite Pereira’s suggestion that Wolves need to make better decisions in the final third, the stats suggest that his team are actually one of the most effective offensive sides in the Premier League.
According to Transfermarkt, the Old Gold have the joint second best shot conversion rate in the top flight, finding the back of the net with 10.8% of their efforts on goal – a tally only better by Brentford’s 13.7%.
Wolves are also outperforming their xG of 23.55 by a very impressive 7.45 goals by bagging 31 in 21 games.
| Wolves Attacking Stats | |
| Shot conversion rate | 10.8% |
| xG over-performance | +7.4 |
Where Wolves have really struggled is the other end of the park. The Molineux club have conceded a joint-league high of 48 goals thus far in 2024/25, including 15 from set pieces alone – four more than any other team.