Wolves had a poor summer transfer window, and light has now been shed on how things work between the recruitment team, Vitor Pereira and Domenico Teti.
At the moment, Wanderers sit bottom of the Premier League table with just two points from 10 games.
Wolves still haven’t won and on Sunday, we saw another horrible performance from the team as they fell to a 3-0 defeat against Fulham.
This proved to be the final straw for Vitor Pereira, who was sacked by Wolves on Sunday morning.
Fosun had wanted so badly for him to turn things around. But Pereira was simply out of his depth and his position became untenable.
Pereira is said to have regretted not walking away from Wolves before the start of the season, a bit like Julen Lopetegui, over fears about the quality of the squad.
But he stayed, having been convinced by the manner in which Wolves finished last season.
But the lack of quality in the Wolves squad has proven very costly so far, and the recruitment setup makes the club’s struggles understandable.
Vitor Pereira and Domenico Teti had alternative targets to Wolves’ recruitment team
The general feeling is that Wolves are really struggling due to how bad the summer window was.
Wolves lost so many players, including game-changers like Matheus Cunha and Rayan Ait-Nouri, as well as experienced heads such as Nelson Semedo and Pablo Sarabia.
Wolves brought in six new faces, and none of them had any previous experience of playing in the Premier League.
As such, the new recruits are taking their time to adapt, but Wolves need them to be impactful now, having lost top players.
Wolves’ approach to recruitment in the summer was disjointed to say the least.
The Athletic have reported about Vitor Pereira’s sacking and Wolves’ struggles this season, and there is word about a disconnect between the club’s recruitment team and Pereira and Domenico Teti, who is Wolves’ director of professional football.
It’s stated that the recruitment team ‘will have done preparatory work ahead of the window, sounding out agents to establish the cost and feasibility of possible deals’. But ultimately, Wolves pursued different targets that were more in line with Pereira and Teti’s wishes.
This meant that ‘many of the many negotiations began from a standing start’, which explains why a lot of Wolves’ business happened late.
Wolves’ transfer business looks like it will cost them
From The Athletic’s report, it sounds as though there was a clear disconnect between the recruitment team, and Pereira and Teti.
Pereira was given more power over transfers than previous managers at the club, and the players that came in were all green-lighted by him. He therefore has to accept a lot of the blame for how Wolves have started the season.
Fans worried at the time that there wasn’t a great deal happening on the transfers front.
And now we know that it was because the club were effectively having to start late on targets with Pereira and Teti preferring alternatives.
The disconnect and chaos is something that could genuinely now cost Wolves their Premier League status, and one wonders just how much Jeff Shi regrets the recruitment restructure that took place at Molineux in mid-June.