16 games, two points, minus 26 goals – that sounds more like a league position for a young amateur side who are a little too early for promotion to the next division. A professional team can’t be that far behind its opponents, right?
Well, think again. This horrendous record belongs to a Premier League side who are currently having a forgettable season – and we’re not talking about a newly promoted side.
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The Wolves are currently breaking one negative record after another. Each symbolizes the historically slow season, even before the winter break.
After only 14 match days, the Wolves have already won their first record. Since losing 1-0 to Nottingham Forest, they are joint-worst on points with Sheffield United after 14 league games.
The longest winless start is in sight
Particularly worrying: Since then, they have lost a point to Manchester United and Arsenal. As a result, Wolves remain at the bottom of the table with two points. They are now eight points (!) behind second-to-last promoted Burnley. If they don’t win today’s game against Brentford, they will face Sheffield United at the next milestone: their longest winless start to a Premier League season.
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The Wolves have suffered nine consecutive losses and their confidence is at rock bottom. Their only two points so far came in rounds 6 and 7 against Tottenham Hotspur and Brighton. That was in early October. Do players remember what it felt like to get something out of a game? We doubt it.
The coaching change card has been played, but to no avail. After Vito Pereira was sacked, his replacement Rob Edwards is yet to score a point.
What went wrong?
Yes, it’s always an afterthought.
In short, Wolves lost their most important player this summer. Key figures such as Matheus Cunha and Rayan Aït-Nouri left for rivals, as did Pablo Sarabia and Nelson Semedo. Particularly with Cunha, it’s becoming increasingly clear how much the club relies on his 15 goals last season.
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This season, they have only scored a total of nine goals, which is about half of their average number of goals per game. New signings Jürgen Strand Larsen (transfer fee: 27 million euros) and Tolu Arokodare (26 million euros) only scored twice in total.
So fans are still waiting for adequate replacements to fill the void left, and they are growing increasingly angry.
Even before the game against Manchester United earlier this month, Wolves fans made their displeasure known. They protested against the club’s owner, a Chinese investment group, and entered the stadium long after kick-off.
Chairman Shi Xinfeng has resigned from his post but remains as boss of investment group Fosun Sports Group. His position as club president has been taken over on an interim basis by Nathan Shi, who is not related to him and has been working for Fosun since 2016.
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Even after the club owner leaves, the sentiment is unlikely to improve much if you look at the calculations for “Opta”. According to them, the club has almost no realistic chance of avoiding relegation and the probability of finishing in the bottom three at the end of the season is over 98%. Judging from the standings, this is not surprising: they are already 14 points away from safety. This is a difficult challenge.
Season goal: Damage control? !
The goal can almost only be to prevent at least some negative records. The current record for the fewest points scored in a Premier League season is eleven. There’s also room for improvement in terms of minimum wins: The Wolves need at least two more wins to surpass their all-time low of just one win. You might think this is doable until you remember what it was like for Premier League teams at the start of the season.
Suddenly, they could even lose 30 or more of their 38 Premier League games. In this case, they will face Southampton, who lost almost all but eight of their games last season.
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The Wolves have also lost all but two of their games so far. They have a chance to finally get their first win, or at least another point, today – at home against 15th-placed Brentford.
This was important, for example, to avoid the earliest confirmed relegation in the league’s history. The record is currently held by Derby County, whose relegation in the 2000s was confirmed on 29 March.
This article was translated into English by artificial intelligence. You can read the original version of 🇩🇪 here.
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