Wolves Target Survival After Worst Premier League Finish Since Promotion | OneFootball

Wolverhampton Wanderers have established themselves as a permanent fixture in the Premier League since earning promotion in the 2018/19 season.

However, their top-flight ambitions have gradually waned.

Once pursuing European qualification, the club has spent the last few seasons battling to stave off relegation.

Three consecutive seasons in the Premier League’s lower reaches highlight years of stagnation and the urgent need for revitalisation to avoid slipping into a relegation battle.

They finished 16th in the league table last season, posting their worst top-flight placing since returning to the elite division six years ago.

If it’s any consolation, they never had to fear dropping to the Championship, largely thanks to the newcomers’ inability to handle new challenges.

Former boss Gary O’Neil paid the price for Wolves’ abysmal form midway through the campaign, with Vitor Pereira steadying the ship since taking over in mid-December.

Read on as we preview Wolves’ season for 2025/26.

Wolverhampton Wanderers Fixtures

Everyone around the Molineux camp craves a promising start, yet Manchester City’s visit to the Midlands on the opening weekend hardly makes for optimistic reading.

Wolves would likely have to seek their first points of the 2025/26 season in the matches against Bournemouth (A) and Everton (H) before September’s international break.

September brings tasty-looking encounters against Newcastle United (A) and Tottenham Hotspur (H).

Wolves will renew their long-standing rivalry against Manchester United at the start of December, which promises to be a chaotic month for Pereira’s side.

In addition to facing Arsenal (A) and Brentford (H), they take on Liverpool (A) on Boxing Day and conclude the calendar year at Old Trafford against Ruben Amorim’s charges.

Wolves will hope to secure survival by the start of May, even though two of their final four league fixtures pit them against newcomers Sunderland (H) and Burnley (A).

Manager

Pereira fared well in his debut season in the Premier League.

Consistency often eluded Wolves, but they still pulled off several upsets, including a 2-0 home win over Man Utd in his first home game in charge.

They confirmed survival poetically, securing their first league double over the Red Devils since the 1979/80 season in a highlight of an otherwise disappointing campaign.

The team looked up the creek without a paddle and headed for doom before O’Neil’s sacking. However, Pereira turned Wolves’ fortunes around in style.

Unlike his conservative-minded predecessors, Pereira has been encouraging attacking-minded football since day one, turning the Wanderers into one of the most entertaining sides in the league.

The results didn’t always follow, but a remarkable six-game winning streak from mid-March to late April underscored the team’s true potential.

Let’s see if he can build on that platform this season, although the club’s transfer dealings in the summer may have complicated his task.

Transfers

Matheus Cunha was the heart and soul of this team last season, but he is no longer part of the Molineux family after Man Utd snatched him away in a £62.5 million deal.

Cunha’s scoring prowess and playmaking skills were Wolves’ driving force in the final third and will be missed in the upcoming campaign.

Wolves have partially invested the money from the 26-year-old’s transfer to Old Trafford to sign Colombian winger Jhon Arias from Fluminense for a reported fee of £25.5m.

After a superb season-long loan, Jorgen Strand Larsen has completed his permanent move from Celta Vigo as a marquee summer signing.

Celta and Wolves have also brokered Fer Lopez’s switch to England, intended to increase competition on the wing following Goncalo Guedes’ move to Real Sociedad.

Rayan Ait-Nouri has joined Manchester City, with Davide Moller Wolfe coming in from AZ Alkmaar to fill the vacancy at left-back.

Other outgoing deals include the departures of Craig Dawson, Nelson Semedo, Pablo Sarabia and Chiquinho on free transfers as well as Nasser Djiga’s loan move to Rangers.

Starting XI

Pereira has swapped O’Neil’s 4-2-3-1 formation for a 3-4-2-1 system and has been stubbornly sticking with that set-up ever since.

Despite Sam Johnstone’s decent performances, Jose Sa, who kept only seven clean sheets in 29 league games, remains the starting goalkeeper.

The back three has regularly featured Toti and Emmanuel Agbadou, with Matt Doherty often getting the nod ahead of Hugo Bueno for the last remaining place in defence.

With Ait-Nouri gone, Moller Wolfe will operate on the left flank, while Lopez could take Semedo’s place on the right.

Joao Gomes and Andre have cemented their spots in the middle of the park, providing both additional defensive cover and, more often than not, a much-needed creative spark.

Without Cunha’s neat touch, Wolverhampton will likely turn to Jean-Ricner Bellegarde’s burst of pace to make up for a lack of finesse, with Jhon Arias likely to slot next to him.

Strand Larsen has become the leading centre-forward, leaving Sasa Kalajdzic and Rodrigo Gomes behind him in the pecking order.

(3-4-2-1): Sa; Toti, Agbadou, Doherty; Moller Wolfe, Andre, Gomes, Lopez; Bellegarde, Arias; Strand Larsen.

Star Player

Now that Cunha is gone, there’s room for a new hero to emerge.

Strand Larsen will likely have to soak up the limelight as the new spearhead of Wolves’ attack. Even with Cunha on the team, he was a highly influential figure.

The Norwegian striker enjoyed an impressive maiden season in the Premier League, bagging 15 goals and four assists in 35 matches.

His robust physique and towering presence inside the box will probably be the focal point of Wolves’ attack this season.

Prediction

Avoiding another relegation scrap is probably a realistic objective for Wolves.

Anything beyond a mid-table finish could be overly ambitious given the squad upheaval and loss of key players.

Given the strength of other top-flight clubs, they don’t fall into the top-half category.

There’s a saving grace, though. The three newly promoted clubs face an uphill task of defying the ominous trend, as all newcomers have suffered the drop in the past two years.

However, another bottom-half finish seems like a virtual certainty, and they may even do one worse than last season.

Predicted finish: 17th.

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Read Next: Our full Premier League 2025/26 preview (with links to all individual Premier League team previews).