Vitor Pereira made enormous prediction about £19m Wolves star | OneFootball

Before Fer Lopez had played for Wolves, then-manager Vitor Pereira was making big claims for him. More than a year, his ex-boss is being proved right.

Vitor Pereira might not have been the Wolverhampton Wanderers manager for very long, but his very first signing of last summer's transfer window is now starting to come good at Molineux.

With six people having passed through it in the last five years, the door to the manager's office at Molineux has become a revolving one since the departure of Nuno Espirito Santo in 2021. Rob Edwards was the latest to be dismissed from the position of Wolverhampton Wanderers manager, sacked in June and replaced by Cesar Peixoto as Wolves to regain their place in the Premier League.

And a prediction made by one of those managers in the summer of 2025 could be set to come true, even though just about everything that happened throughout the 2025-26 season seemed to indicate that this couldn't happen.

The role of Vitor Pereira was short-lived but eventful. Brought into the club in December 2024 to replace Gary O'Neil with the club deep in relegation trouble, Pereira managed to steer the team clear of the bottom three, with them eventually finishing 16th in the Premier League.

A poor start to the 2025-26 season left Pereira out of a job by November, but his very first signing of that summer 2025 transfer window might now be set to fulfil the predictions made by his former boss when he first arrived at the club.

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Fer Lopez became Wolves' first signing of the summer 2025 transfer window when he arrived at the club from the Spanish club Celta Vigo for a reported fee of £19 million. Lopez looked like a gamble. The previous season had been his first as a senior professional, and he'd only scored twice in 17 games for his club.

His new manager was confident in his abilities. As reported in August of that year by the Shropshire Star, Pereira spoke to Sky Sports and was gushing about his first signing, telling them that he had "magic" in his left foot and that Lopez could eventually play for “one of the top clubs in England”.

But the goals didn't flow. Indeed, Lopez couldn't even get in the Wolves starting eleven, and by the time that Pereira was sacked by the club at the start of November, the forward had only made five Premier League appearances for them, all from the bench, and without scoring a single goal.

At the end of January he was sent back to Vigo on loan, but the goals didn't flow any easier there. He did manage to get into the first eleven there, but it took until the 5th April for him to score what turned out to be his only goal of the season in a 3-2 win away to Valencia, and at the end of the season he returned to the Black Country, quite likely wondering what on earth his next career move might be.

What's being said about Fer Lopez on social media

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Wolves fans are starting to get excited about Fer Lopez following his performance at Preston on Saturday, so here's a selection of what's being said about their forward.

This fan woke up on Monday morning still thinking about him:

This Wolves

But this fan is concerned that other clubs will be trying to prise him away from Molineux if his performances continue like they have this season:

Fer Lopez has had the start to 2026-27 that Vitor Pereira believed him to be capable of

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Given how disappointing his first half-season was at Molineux last season, Fer Lopez could have been forgiven dreading the start of this season, back at Wolves, but now in the Championship. But instead, Lopez has found his feet, and his performance against Preston might just have been the individual performance of the season so far.

Now that he's returned to the club, he looks completely different to the out-of-sorts player who returned to Celta Vigo in January. Against Preston, he scored two excellent goals and put in a commanding performance from an attacking position. He also scored their third goal in their 3-0 win against Port Vale in the EFL Cup two weeks earlier.

And Lopez is plenty aware of the change that's come about. Speaking after the Preston game and as reported by the Express & Star, he described being back at the club as being, "Like a breath of fresh air", adding that, "We’re playing the type of football the coach wants from us, so it’s about continuing to build on that and getting better."

This all adds up to a pleasant surprise for Wolves fans. Their summer attacking excitement was all about the return of Raul Jimenez from Fulham. Lopez was half-forgotten, and it might have been expected that, at 22-years-old, he might have been put back out on loan or sold to recoup at least some of the money spent on him.

But instead, Cesar Peixoto has seen something in him, given him the opportunity, and is now reaping the rewards. It turned out that Vitor Pereira might have been right about Fer Lopez all along.