Cunha staying 'best news Wolves fans had all month'
"I'm a bit tired," said Vitor Pereira on Saturday, although he didn't look it. "But this is the energy of a win. When we win, I can pass all night without sleeping, no problem. Just drink a beer!"
That's the spirit.
After four games and no points, Wolves' "dry January", as my Radio WM colleague Daz Hale had described it, was over in more ways than one. Wolves beat Villa and deserved to, even though they showed understandable nerves in the second half until Matheus Cunha's late flourish.
The news that his celebration – appearing to sign his autograph in the air – actually meant what it looked like, was the best news Wolves fans had heard for at least a month. Wolves posted Cunha's picture with the number 2029, but what mattered for now was the certainty that he would be staying at least until May 2025.
Had he left, most Wolves fans seemed to think their chances of avoiding relegation would have gone with him.
It was not all about Cunha, though.
Pereira had said in plain terms before the game that he did not think he had a suitable replacement in midfield to cover Joao Gomes. Some callers to WM wondered afterwards if it had all been a brilliant ploy to fire up Jean-Ricner Bellegarde.
If so, it had worked wonderfully, but the increasingly quotable Pereira did not claim that. He just got poetic. "
I tell you, he's not a big player, but today he was a giant on the pitch," he said. "Belle played in a high level, and showed me that he's a player that I must look at with other eyes. I spoke with him [and said] I don't know his position in this system. Today he proved to me that he can play with two in the middle without problems, and with high quality."
All the same, Wolves pressed ahead with finding the midfielder and defender that Pereira had deemed essential throughout January. How high Marshall Munetsi and Nasser Djiga were on the list of targets matters less than how quickly they tune in to their new surroundings. Emmanuel Agbadou, a team-mate of Munetsi at Reims just four weeks ago, may pass on some tips. But the coach now has options.
"To sleep well, we need two or three players," Pereira confirmed to me again on Saturday night. He wouldn't be sleeping until Monday, then? "But when I win, I don't need to sleep. The problem is, when we lose, I don't want to wake up."
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