Wolves fans crave progress for their club, but in recent years, they have only seen decline under Fosun’s ownership.
Meanwhile, former manager Nuno Espirito Santo is leading Nottingham Forest toward Champions League football, serving as a reminder of Wolves’ past success.
During his tenure, Nuno guided the Old Gold to Europa League qualification twice, following consecutive seventh-place finishes in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons.
However, since that golden era at Molineux, Wolves have struggled, slipping further down the Premier League table.
| Position | Team | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | For | Against | Diff | Points |
| 15 | Everton | 27 | 7 | 11 | 9 | 30 | 34 | -4 | 32 |
| 16 | West Ham | 26 | 8 | 6 | 12 | 30 | 47 | -17 | 30 |
| 17 | Wolves | 27 | 6 | 4 | 17 | 37 | 56 | -19 | 22 |
| 18 | Ipswich | 27 | 3 | 8 | 16 | 26 | 57 | -31 | 17 |
| 19 | Leicester | 26 | 4 | 5 | 17 | 25 | 59 | -34 | 17 |
Vítor Pereira’s side sits 17th in the table, five points clear of 18th-placed Ipswich Town but trailing West Ham by eight points despite being just one spot below them.
At best, the Wanderers can only hope to narrowly avoid relegation this season, and Pereira has pointed to a key issue contributing to their struggles.
After the high of their 1-0 win over Bournemouth on Saturday, Wolves were quickly brought back down to reality with a 2-1 defeat to Fulham.
While fans warmly welcomed Raul Jiménez and former winger Adama Traoré, the night proved disappointing for the home side.
The thousands of empty seats at Molineux reflected the club’s rapid decline, and Pereira was quick to highlight a lack of squad depth as a major factor in their latest setback.
“This is a problem against a team that when they started to do the subs, they came with a lot of players with high quality, because they have these solutions in the squad. At this moment with the injuries for us, it’s difficult,” he said via Wolves official.
The Portuguese manager believed his counterpart, Marco Silva, had the luxury of bringing game-changers off the bench, whereas he had far fewer options at his disposal.
With key players like Gonçalo Guedes and Hwang Hee-chan sidelined due to injury, his concerns were understandable. However, squad depth has been a long-standing issue for the club.
Gary O’Neil once sent a warning to Fosun over squad depth
Fosun has repeatedly failed to provide Wolves managers with the necessary resources for success, forcing several, including Gary O’Neil, to operate with limited backing.
In April 2024, during an injury crisis, O’Neil warned the owners that key players were being overworked due to the squad’s lack of depth.
“We warned the club that we were overloading players,” O’Neil said via BBC Sport. “It was a small group and we were using them an awful lot, and there was a risk of our injury record getting worse in the second half of the season.
“On top of that, if we lost a couple of attackers, I explained to the club that we would be in a real difficult situation.
“From my point of view, an understanding of what my squad were giving and where we might end up, and [Sporting Director] Matt Hobbs was on board with that as well – a real clear message that we were overloading the players and we could have done with a bit more depth.”
Despite Wolves being the Premier League’s second-highest spenders in January and securing three new signings, Pereira is still facing the same challenges O’Neil did.
For the club to climb the table, substantial investment will be required in the summer—otherwise, relegation seems inevitable.
