Vitor Pereira was left rueing Wolves' missed chances against Bournemouth as his men fell to a 1-0 defeat away from home. It's a second consecutive defeat in what has been a tough start to the 25/26 Premier League campaign for Wolves.
The head coach spoke to the media following the conclusion of the match as the Midlands outfit remain on zero points.
"Football is like this," - Pereira reviews his side's performance against the Cherries.
It was a frantic start to the match with both sides having chances to take the lead in the opening three minutes through Brooks and Munetsi, respectively. However, Tavenier did give the Cherries a lead in the 4th minute of the match, leaving Vitor Pereira unhappy.
The head coach felt that the game plan had been neglected less than five minutes into the game. He also went on to acknowledge that the red card received by captain Toti Gomes in the second half did not help their chances in the slightest:
“Looking at the game, we started the first half creating a big chance to score, but we didn’t, and after we concede a goal which was out of our plan, because the plan was not to build the play inside, but to go to the sides, because we know that this is a team playing here who are very aggressive in the middle.
“We worked it in the plan to play outside, and after inside or in the space, but we conceded a goal and we tried to compete with a strong team."
“After, the red card. Playing against this team is not easy when it’s 11 against 11, let alone 10 against 11, but we tried to keep our organisation. We tried to arrive on the box, creating something, we tried and I think we have been united, organised and we didn’t concede any goal [after the red card] but in the end, it’s difficult to score, and they win the game.”
"I believe in this team" - Pereira looks at erasing mistakes in the future
It is fair to say that the early concession of a goal completely unravelled Wolves' plans, but Pereira has stated that he believes his squad need the time to adapt and that they will work hard to correct mistakes:
“The only way that I know how to correct mistakes is we need to work. We need to give time for the new players to adapt in this league, because it’s different when you come from different leagues, and you arrive here and you feel the intensity and the pressing, and we need some time to create and to build strong behaviours and to build the team.
“But I believe in this group, they work very hard and we’ll see in the end of the market, what is our position, but we are in beginning of the season with two defeats. They are not what we are expecting, but this is the way, we’ll keep our work, we know what we want and we will try to improve our game.”
The Wolves head coach also expressed his feeling that with the changes made at halftime, his side could have got back in the game had it not been for the red card:
“We tried to refresh the team, especially the wing-backs, because the wing-backs in our team, they must run a lot. It means that we need to have players with fresh legs to run in the sides, to go and come back, to have this power.
“I think we changed something in the middle, and, in my opinion, if we kept going like this, maybe we would have had our chance to play better football and to create our chance.
“But after a few minutes, red card, and against this kind of team, if you lose your organisation, you know what happens. It could be one, two, three or four goals and in the end, the damage will be a mental damage.”