Wolves facing 'a dangerous moment'

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What does it say about Wolves that the two head coaches they have dismissed in the past 18 months, Gary O'Neil and Vitor Pereira, are both leading their new sides in European semi-finals? Maybe the managers aren't the problem after all.

Perhaps that is an over-simplified view given both seemed to reach an untenable position by the time they left, having lost the hearts of supporters in a dramatically quick fall from a position of broad popularity.

Pereira was present to oversee the recruitment choices last summer that proved so lamentable. But, aside from the bump in form last spring when Pereira led Wolves in a sprint to safety, changing the coaches did nothing to arrest the longer-term drift towards the Championship.

Neither did anyone argue that all the club's ills could be blamed on the coach alone.

After Saturday, though, we can certainly say a vocal section of Wolves supporters – perhaps not a majority, but more than a few – would now like to see Rob Edwards replaced too.

It is not hard to construct cases for and against another change of coach. Some listless performances since the last, elongated international break have dissipated the good feeling that was building before it.

If we're truly having a reset, say advocates of another firing, let's cut all connections with a failed season and have fresh thinking at the top. After so many embarrassments, Wolves fans can hardly be criticised for feeling so disillusioned.

But there were not many fans and pundits tipping Wolves to stay up at the time Edwards arrived, on the basis that a squad steadily stripped of its leading members over time was no longer adequate, whoever was in charge.

If everyone thought Wolves were going down anyway, say his defenders, it would be perverse to sack a man before he has started the task he was mainly hired to do - to lead the way back up - and then have to find another coach who may have a different vision of the squad, wasting the planning to date.

There is no suggestion so far that Wolves are anything other than committed to Edwards leading them into next season. But when the atmosphere becomes as toxic as it did on Saturday, clubs can quickly find themselves pressured into making decisions, and it can be easier to give in to demands than to stick to the plan.

There will be quite enough hard decisions to get right this summer as it is, so this is a dangerous moment.

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