What Wolves Worst League Start in History is Telling Us

Wolverhampton Wanderers have endured their worst-ever start to a league campaign after a 1-0 loss to Newcastle. Wolves have lost the opening four league games for the first time in the club’s history and find themselves rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table. The West Midlands side looks bereft of rhythm, belief, and increasingly without answers. The opening weeks of the season have offered little but frustration for Wolves fans. The grim reality is that this is not just a poor run of form but a wider pattern that the club has failed to break for years.

A Disastrous Opening Exposes the Cycle Holding the Club Back

A History of Slow Starts

Since gaining promotion to the Premier League in 2018, Wolves have developed an unwanted habit of starting seasons slowly. In fact, they have only won one game in August since promotion. In 17 games, they have lost ten, won one and drawn six, giving Wolves just nine points in August since 2018.

Every season has started with dropped points, missed chances, and a side searching for rhythm. This pattern has left the club constantly chasing momentum from the start, and the 2025/26 season has been no different. What could once be brushed off as early-season rust has now become a defining weakness, a recurring theme that drags Wolves down the table as soon as the season begins.

Cracks Showing in Tactical System

When Vítor Pereira arrived, he promised to implement a clear structure

“I try to play with quality. I like to see the teams with the ball, creating things, being protagonists. And this is what I want to create here, something with identity.”

His preferred 3-4-2-1 formation started off well enough, giving the side more defensive solidity, providing attacking width and support for the lone striker; however, after a summer of selling most of the players that made this system work, the cracks are beginning to show. Instead, Wolves now look like a side stuck between identities.

Wolves tend to press without intensity, but when they drop back, they still leave space in dangerous areas. Going forward, they remain painfully predictable. Jørgen Strand Larsen, however talented, often cuts a frustrated figure with a lack of service coming in, which has left Wolves struggling to carve out chances with only two goals scored in the opening four matches. Pereira’s ideas have worked with proven Premier League players such as Pedro Neto, Matheus Cunha, and Nélson Semedo, but after a summer of subpar replacements, the execution has been weak, and the team’s balance remains unresolved.

Defensive Weaknesses Costing Points

If Wolves’ attack has been blunt, then the defence has been brittle. Nine goals conceded in four games. Goals conceded from set pieces and lapses in concentration have become an all-too-familiar theme. The backline does not look settled, and individual errors continue to undermine the collective. Emmanuel Agbadou appears to be a shadow of the player he was last season, at fault for many of the goals they have conceded, including the one against Newcastle. Toti Gomes has also not helped matters, getting himself sent off against Bournemouth in a game where it looked as though they could have got something out of it.

The Molineux club has been repeatedly punished at decisive moments, surrendering points in games where they were otherwise competitive. This is not a side that is being pulled apart by brilliant teams. It is a side that leaks goals because of fragility at the back.  This lack of reliability leaves the team with a mountain to climb every week.

A Cycle of Poor Recruitment and Disruption

The root of the problem goes beyond tactics and defensive concentration. The Wanderers are trapped in a cycle of poor planning. Every summer seems to bring upheaval, with key players being sold and squad depth stripped away. Every January, it becomes a scramble to bring in quick fixes, a desperate attempt to plug gaps left unaddressed. This is not progress; this is survival by firefighting, and eventually, the luck will run out.

The departure of key players and the failure to replace them properly has left the squad unbalanced. Strand Larsen’s injury has added further disruption, but the underlying issue is that Wolves are not building season by season. They are starting over, again and again. Until that cycle is broken, results like this will continue to define the club.

Moral on the Floor

The effect of these struggles is clear to see. Post-match, after the Newcastle game, Pereira was particularly downcast in the press conference; the players look burdened by the pressure, and the fans are starting to lose patience with the ownership. Supporters have endured this cycle too many times before, and online discourse predicted the way things would go months before the season started.

Wolves’ identity as the fearless, aggressive side that returned to the Premier League and Europe under Nuno Espírito Santo feels like a distant memory. What remains is a club drifting, trying to rediscover direction while staring down the barrel of relegation.

Wolves’ worst-ever start to a league campaign is more than just a statistic. It is a stark warning about the direction the club is heading. This is not simply a patch of poor form, but the result of years of short-term decision-making, reactive transfer windows, and an inability to build stability. Unless the club can break out of this cycle, no tactical tweak or January signing will be enough to turn things around. Pereira is facing an immense challenge, but the bigger question is whether Fosun are willing to change. Without a change in direction from the ownership, the Wanderers risk repeating the same story year after year – and this season could well end as one of their most painful chapters yet.