Guardian writers’ predicted position: 9th (NB: this is not necessarily Paul Doyle’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Last season’s position: seventh
Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker): 200-1
Wolves are on a journey, metaphorically and literally. Their advance in the last two years from Championship drek to a Premier League force has been a thrill ride but the steps that follow from that bring challenges to which they must rise. On Sunday they begin their domestic season by jousting with a reinforced Leicester three days after a 6,000-mile round trip to Armenia for a Europa League tie against Pyunik. There was no such carry-on last season.
Not that Wolves are whining. The club are proud of a trailblazing tradition dating back to the 1950s, when they were England’s first representatives in a European competition they helped to inspire. The idea of setting off on such adventures again was outlandish just two years ago after the club muddled along to 15th place in the Championship before appointing Nuno Espírito Santo as their fourth manager in 10 months. Nuno, making the most of investment from the Chinese owners who took over the club in 2016 and the influence of the agent Jorge Mendes, has overseen extraordinary progress. But can he continue to do so?
After Sunday’s trip to Leicester, Wolves will host the second leg against Pyunik before taking on Manchester United four days later. By then they may have a keener insight into why Burnley did not win a domestic match last season until after their elimination from the Europa League. On the other hand, flip that. Wolves are better than Burnley. And a club that have got most things right in the last couple of years is unlikely to be taken by surprise by the consequences of their success. They are cutting things fine but that is how they like it.
Wolves made sure not to overwork themselves in pre-season, playing just two warm-up matches before engaging in competitive games (those warm-ups could hardly have gone better, bringing a big win over Newcastle and a victory on penalties over Manchester City). Nor, more intriguingly, did they go wild on the recruitment front. There must have been a temptation to launch into a spending spree in advance of the expanded new campaign but Nuno has always believed in keeping his squad size lean so as to protect morale and give existing players room to improve. He believes in his players and his coaching.
The biggest deal Wolves made this summer was for a player who was already there, as they forked out £30m to complete the permanent transfer of Raúl Jiménez, the striker who excelled while on loan at Molineux last season. They also paid £12m to keep another successful loanee, the midfielder Leander Dendoncker. Beyond that pair there have been only a few additions, each of them promising.
Patrick Cutrone, a 21-year-old signed from Milan, has not been prolific in his short career but brings qualities – intelligence, dynamism and power – that suggest he could fit right in at Wolves, offering an alternative to Jiménez or Diogo Jota and meaning Ivan Cavaleiro may not be missed after being sold to Fulham. Jesús Vallejo, hired on loan from Real Madrid after leading Spain to victory at the Under-21 European Championship, is a centre-back of vast potential. The two new young midfielders, 19-year-old Pedro Neto and 20-year-old Bruno Jordão, are also gifted, though neither is expected to make an immediate impact. Meanwhile, two youngsters who broke through last season, Morgan Gibbs-White and Rúben Vinagre, are expected to be ripe enough to contribute even more this term.
But to a large extent Nuno is counting on the players who did so well last season to do so again. Wolves have kept them all. They know the formula and they apply it well. They are solid and fluent, a serious team. It was, incompetence elsewhere notwithstanding, a heck of an achievement for Wolves to go into the Premier League last season and wind up conceding fewer goals than Manchester United and Arsenal.
Rui Patrico is fine goalkeeper protected by a trio of centre-backs who form a solid shield: Conor Coady orchestrates them well while Wily Boly and Ryan Bennett were both in the top 10 last season for headers and tackles won by centre-backs (and only one defender in the league – Cardiff ’s Bruno Ecuelé Manga – made more interceptions than Boly). The wing-backs, Matt Doherty and Jonny Castro Otto, defended stoutly and raided forward to swashbuckling effect. The central midfielders, Dendoncker, Ruben Neves and João Moutinho, won and used the ball well , ensuring Wolves tended to have plenty of possession. The whole team were in synch, with Jota and Jimenez as involved in the play as much as anyone.
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Wolves were brilliant at coiling up and then springing forward to cut open opponents. Where they need to get better, though, is in opening up teams who defend en masse. They won more points last season against the top six than the bottom six. Teams who set out solely to frustrate them often succeeded: in two games against Brighton Wolves had 47 shots without scoring.
They ended the season having struck fewer goals than Bournemouth or Crystal Palace. One remedy might have been to buy a more creative midfielder but Wolves have eschewed that, partly because of the hope Gibbs-White will develop into one and mostly, one suspects, because Nuno reckons he and his growing team will generate solutions collectively. “We have to look for better solutions, trying to anticipate, I will not give you clues but football is going to change,’ he said, keeping the details in-house.
If they work that out, if the handful of recruits raise the calibre of the squad and if, like last season, they are spared injuries to key players despite the strain of European competition, then Wolves’ are likely to continue moving in the right direction. If not they will stall but they are too good to fall.
