Wolverhampton Wanderers can already start to prepare their plans for the Championship season, despite the fact that they are not officially relegated yet.
With seven matches left to play in the Premier League, the Old Gold are a whopping 13 points adrift of 17th place and are on course to be sent down to the second tier.
Rob Edwards has led the team to two wins in the last three top-flight matches, but it seems like too little too late for them to avoid the drop this season.
It was always going to be a difficult campaign for Wolves after they had to cash in on two of the best players from the 2024/25 campaign in the last summer transfer window.
They sold Rayan Ait-Nouri to Manchester City for a fee of £31m and Manchester United swooped to sign Matheus Cunha for a fee of £62.5m.
Where Wolves went wrong after Cunha was sold
In the 2024/25 campaign, Cunha scored 15 goals, created 13 ‘big chances’, and registered six assists in 33 appearances in the Premier League for the Old Gold.
The Brazil international carried the team on his back at times, as the main source of goals and creativity in the number ten role, which meant that Wolves were dealt a huge blow when he opted to leave for Old Trafford.
After losing so many goals and assists from the team, the club needed to splash the cash on some proven talent to replace the final third output that they lost with Cunha.
However, the only player they signed who scored more than four league goals in the 2024/25 campaign was centre-forward Tolu Arokodare, who scored 21 goals in the Belgian Pro League.
He was behind Jorgen Strand Larsen for the first half of this season, though, and has only scored three goals in the Premier League to date, far from the 15 goals that Cunha scored last term.
Wolves thought they had found their next Cunha
Instead of going for proven talent who could come in and hit the ground running at the Molineux, Wolves opted to invest in young players with potential, and thought they had found their next Cunha in one signing in particular.
The club splashed out a fee of £19m to sign attacking midfielder Fer Lopez from Celta Vigo as an almost direct replacement for Cunha in the number ten position.
In the 2024/25 campaign, the Spanish playmaker produced eight goals and two assists in all competitions as a 20-year-old talent, showing great promise for the future as a scorer and a creator of goals.
Wolves may have hoped that he would make the same leap in form that Cunha did after his move to the club from LaLiga, to become a superstar at the Molineux by producing goals and assists on a regular basis.
He showed some promise early on in his time at the club, assisting Ladislav Krejčí’s goal against Leeds in his first Premier League start for the club in September.
Unfortunately, Lopez was unable to kick on after that assist, only starting one more game in the first half of the league campaign, and did not get too many more opportunities to shine on the pitch in a struggling team.
25/26 Premier League
Fer Lopez
Appearances
9
Starts
2
Unused substitute
11x
Goals
0
Big chances created
1
Assists
1
He was an unused substitute more times than he got on the pitch for the Old Gold before they decided to send him back to Celta Vigo on loan for the second half of the season, despite Championship interest from teams like Norwich City.
Since returning to his former club on loan, Lopez has scored two goals in 13 appearances across LaLiga and the Europa League, scoring a stunning goal against Red Star Belgrade in Europe.
It was a Cunha-esque goal in technique and imagination from the Spanish whiz, but he did not get enough chances to show off his quality during his time in the Premier League.
Now, given that he is currently playing at a higher level than Wolves will likely be playing next season and the fact that Rob Edwards sent him out on loan in January, Lopez already looks finished at the Molineux.
He has gone from looking destined to be the heir to Cunha’s throne last summer to potentially leaving the club after just 12 months in the summer transfer window.
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