Wolves manager Nuno Espirito Santo has a strong team on the rise

Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Nuno Espirito Santo. Picture: Clive Brunskill/NMC Pool/PA Wire.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s star has risen steadily in the three years since he was charged with overseeing the transformation of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The manager’s public profile, however, remains defiantly low-key as he attempts to build on the club’s impressive progress of recent seasons.

The Portuguese is not the kind of manager who trades in attention-grabbing soundsbites and his media appearances could never be described as box office.

His work is articulated best on the pitch and his success in steering Wolves to successive top seven finishes after guiding the club to promotion from the Championship means his work has gained no shortage of admirers.

Underpinning that work has been impressive team building and a tactical dexterity that has allowed Nuno’s evolving squad to adapt effectively to the different challenges that confront promotion favourites and Premier League newcomers.

Now, having established Wolves as a team of substance in the top-flight, the former goalkeeper is charged with creating a team capable of pushing on and breaking into the familiar group of clubs who regularly share out the Champions League places.

Had fatigue not caught up with his side —Wolves’s season ran for an exhausting 13 months — Nuno may well have achieved that aim last season. As it was, a dip in form in the final weeks of the domestic campaign meant they were able to summon just two wins from their final six league games before falling to Sevilla in the Europa League at the quarter-final stage.

As disappointing as the final weeks may have been, there was a strong sense that further progress had been made. Having finished 14 points adrift of the top four two seasons ago, that gap had been halved last time around. And without the demands of European competition this season, Nuno is entitled to believe his squad is capable of sustaining their challenge and further closing the gap.

Key to Wolves’s prospects of upsetting the order at the top of the division will be the manager’s ability to once again draw the best from his existing players while adding to the group with the right recruits will be. And once again, the club’s recruitment policy this summer has so far leant towards Portugal.

Picture: Tim Goode/PA Wire.

The success of manager and club in identifying and integrating talent from that country bears comparison with Arsene Wenger’s work with French players at Arsenal in the late nineties when the manager’s ability to recruit outstanding young talents including Nicolas Anelka, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry amongst others gave the Gunners a competitive advantage over their Premier League rivals for a period.

There have been no shortage of outstanding Portuguese players in English football in the Premier League era with Manchester United Bruno Fernandes just the latest to have a transformative effect on a side.

Nuno, though, has drawn together a group of players that have helped provide the core of a team on the rise.

This summer has shown the supply line remains in tact and while the £35 million fee Wolves paid Porto for Fabio Silva, the 18-year-old forward, this summer may have raised eyebrows, the fact the west midlands club had recruited one of Portugal’s most highly rated youngsters came as no surprise at all.

Silva’s arrival, meanwhile, was quickly followed by that of Vitinha, a 20-year-old midfielder who has joined on a season-long loan from Porto.

The Portuguese presence at Molineux has been evident for several years with the arrival of Helder Costa and Ivan Cavaleiro paving the way before Ruben Neves and Diogo Jota came in at the start of the promotion season and owes much to the close links between high-profile agent Jorge Mendes and Fosun, the club’s Chinese owners.

Silva’s arrival is believed to be the latest product of that relationship. The forward’s fee was larger than many Wolves have paid out in recent years and is certainly substantial for a teenager who has made just 12 league appearances, scoring one goal. A buy-out clause of more than £100m, though, confirmed the status with which the teenager was held by his former club but with Porto facing financial difficulties this summer, reports in Portugal suggest Mendes helped facilitate the eventual deal.

The foward’s age clearly indicates he is one for the future but Nuno will hope Silva develops quickly enough to provide competition for Raul Jimenez, the Mexico striker who has attracted interest this summer, in the central striker role.

“We’ve been following Fábio’s development for a long time. He’s a player that you only need several minutes to see his natural football talent,” said Jeff Shi, the club’s chairman. 

“Our head coach’s requirement for quality is very high, but he thinks Fabio is an important signing who will help the team immediately this season. The timing of this deal is similar to the timing of when we bought Rúben Neves; we’ve waited for the right time to get a high-quality player at the right price.”

That is a reflection of Wolves’s approach in recent years and they have undoubtedly done well in the transfer market. Nuno, meanwhile, has also demonstrated his ability to improve his existing players as Matt Doherty, who moved to Tottenham Hotspur this summer, and Connor Coady, an England debutant in Denmark this week, will confirm.

Whether that will be enough to take Wolves higher up the division this season remains to be seen. Few would argue, though, they have the right manager in place to lead the challenge.