Steve Madeley, The Athletic: Wolves' remarkable turnaround under Vítor Pereira | OneFootball

Wolverhampton Wanderers’ 1-0 victory at Manchester United last month secured their Premier League survival with five fixtures left to play.

But when Vítor Pereira replaced Gary O'Neil as head coach in December, few expected such a comfortable end to the season.

Steve Madeley, Wolves reporter for The Athletic, explains how Pereira has overseen a remarkable turnaround at Molineux.

Ahead of the final game of the 2024/25 season, how would you summarise Wolves' campaign overall?

It has been a weird one. The start was fairly horrific. As soon as we saw the fixtures come out, we all feared it was going to be difficult; Wolves did not end last season in particularly good form and the opening fixtures they were given were brutal.

Every home game was against a top-six, top-eight team, and away games in the Premier League are always difficult.

It was always going to be tricky, but I am not sure any of us anticipated it being as horrible as it was.

There was a change in manager in December, and since then it has been pretty good, a pretty remarkable turnaround, in that they have beaten every one of the teams who are now below them.

Wolves have not really taken any scalps of the teams near the top, but they have basically won every crunch game they have had against teams down and around them, which says something about the mindset that Vítor Pereira has brought into the club.

Further to that, how much of a relief is it that such a terrible start hasn't come back to bite them?

It's a massive relief. When Wolves changed manager in December, it is no secret that Pereira was not their first choice.

They reached the point where they had to make a change and Pereira was someone they could get, more than being the first choice.

But he has turned out to be the perfect choice, with the way he has embraced the city and embraced the job. Before that, there was real fear.

I think a lot of Wolves fans thought this was the season they were going down, so it is a massive relief.

Officially, they got it done with five games to go, but effectively it was done a fair bit before that, with the bottom three being so far adrift.

Even in December, I always felt Wolves would just about stay up because the bottom three were so poor, but I thought if they did, it would still go down to the last couple of games.

I did not see any way it would not do that. So to not just stay safe, but to stay safe with some ease, is pretty surprising and a massive relief.

Is there hope it will be much better after Pereira has had the summer to shape his squad and go from the start?

I think there is some hope because of the way it has gone and because of the performances he has managed to get out of some players who were not performing before he came in.

But I think that hope is tempered for Wolves fans by what has gone on in previous summers.

It is fairly obvious Wolves are probably going to lose at least one or two of their big hitters and the record of the past two or three summers is that they have not particularly reinvested in the right areas.

They have actually brought in some good players, but they have not necessarily brought in the right players in the right areas at the right times.

The ownership are telling people they have learnt their lessons from last season, but I think Wolves fans will not have much hope until they actually see that with their own eyes by the end of the summer transfer window.

Which player should Brentford fans keep an eye on?

The player who has been the key to the second half of the season is André, in midfield.

He starts pretty much every game for Brazil, so it is no surprise he is a good player.

Last summer, when Wolves went out and signed a central midfielder, there were a lot of eyebrows raised because they did not really need a central midfielder at that point.

With the way Gary O'Neil was playing, he had four who he was happy with and he needed, so André was an eyebrow-raising signing.

Many wondered why they were doing that when they desperately need a centre-half and they didn't go and get one.

But in the second half of the season, with Mario Lemina leaving, Tommy Doyle falling out of favour and Boubacar Traoré not really cementing a place in the squad or the first team, André has stepped in and looked like a Rolls-Royce of a player.

He sits in front of the back four and takes the ball in basically any situation - even when he is surrounded by opposition players.

André quietly and effectively breaks things up as well. He has become the real fulcrum of the team.

What should Brentford expect in terms of shape and style?

One of the things Pereira did when he came in for O'Neil was just to simplify everything.

I think in his desperate and understandable attempt to find a way out of the spiral that they were in, O'Neil tried all kinds of different things tactically and technically to put it right.

It became a bit of a muddle by the end. Now Pereira has come in, you know what you are going to get every week.

It is 3-4-2-1; one up front, two inside forwards just off the striker, wing-backs providing the width and then the three centre-backs spreading quite wide in possession and trying to play out from the back.

They do, where they can, try to play from the goalkeeper, but are not a real, extreme high-pressed team.

They play a medium block, so they will probably let Brentford have the ball in their own defensive third, but once they get into that middle area, Wolves will be quite tenacious in the press.

Not many would have predicted a 5-3 Brentford win last time out! How do you see this one going?

I will go 1-0 Wolves. They have been pretty strong at home, with a couple of exceptions.