Vitor Pereira is finally set to land Wolves' 'quality' £15m star after 2023 disappointment
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The last time the Wolverhampton Wanderers-bound Vitor Pereira took over a club at the dawn of a transfer window, disappointment was only a few days away.
Imagine, for instance, that Vitor Pereira arrives at Molineux just a fortnight out from January. Imagine that, weeks into the New Year, Wolves were to lose, say, a Matheus Cunha, a Rayan Ait-Nouri or a Joao Gomes.
Hardly the ideal start for a new boss, shorn of such an important piece of his jigsaw before he has even made sense of the picture in front of him. But a predicament the 56-Iberian – Vitor Pereira is set to leave Al-Shabab for Wolves imminently – knows only too well.
Pereira, upon taking over at Flamengo two years ago next month, had only been in the job 30 days before one of the key players in his newly-inherited squad was saying his goodbyes.
There is a delicious sense of irony, though, in the fact that Pereira could now be arriving in England to take over the very same club who snatched the aforementioned Joao Gomes from Flamengo back in January 2023.
Vitor Pereira could finally work with Joao Gomes at Wolves
Pereira, as luck would have it, never got the chance to coach Gomes outside of Flamengo’s training pitch.
The tough-tackling midfielder sealed a £15 million move to Wolves on the penultimate day of the winter transfer window, scoring a debut goal in a 2-1 win at Southampton two weeks later.
Pereira, a somewhat ‘explosive’ and ‘intense’ character to quote The Athletic, was oddly accepting when it became apparent that Gomes would be sold so early into his reign. Perhaps he accepted that, with French giants Lyon also chasing the then-21-year-old, this was simply the football food chain in action.
After over 100 Flamengo appearances, perhaps Joao Gomes had outgrown the Brazilian pond.
His evolution into one of the most complete midfielders in the Premier League – albeit an evolution that has been checked in a miserable 2024/25 campaign – would certainly suggest that Gomes crossed the Atlantic at the right time.
Joao Gomes has earned no shortage of admirers since arriving in English football. Pep Guardiola hailed Wolves’ number eight not so long ago – the Man City boss labelled him a ‘quality’ operator – while rumours of a £60 million transfer to one of Europe’s big-boys emerged over the summer.
"A coach is a person who has to find solutions. I will try to find them,” Vitor Pereira said while Gomes was finalising the final details of his Molineux contract, per UOL.
“The issue is up to the board. Our strategy is thought out internally and cannot be made public. It will be dealt with within the club.”
Gomes integral to Pereira’s hopes of solving Wolves’ defensive issues
Unfortunately for Pereira, without a like-for-like replacement arriving to step into Joao Gomes’ shoes, the loss of Flamengo’s all-action ankle-biter certainly contributed to the manager’s departure only three months later.
Pereira lost seven of his 18 games in charge, including three in a row in Brazil’s Serie A. Had Gomes stuck around for a few more months, maybe Pereira’s ill-fated spell – a 4-3 defeat to Palmeiras in the Brazilian Supercup a sign of things to come – would have gone a little differently.
At least, with Pereira parachuted in at a Wolves side with two wins from 16 games and the worst defensive-record in the division, he will have something he did not have at Flamengo; the formidable energy and well-rounded skillset of Joao Gomes.
A man who, if he can rediscover the form of 2023/24, could yet become Wolves’ best hope of shoring up that vulnerable backline.
Only Fulham colossus Joao Palhinha averaged more successful tackles per game in the Premier League last season, after all, than Joao Gomes.
"In my opinion, [Gomes] is one of the players who puts his foot on the ball the most. He is the player who really tackles, who tries to steal the ball, tries to tackle,” his former coach Mauricio Souza told Premier League Brasil back in March.
“He is among the best in the world at disarming the opponent."
