𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

At the end of a hard-fought 1-1 draw at Old Trafford, Wolverhampton Wanderers’ players approached their travelling supporters with an element of trepidation. They need not have worried.

The applause flowed from the pitch to the stands and back again. When the players shaped to head back to the tunnel, head coach Rob Edwards insisted they move closer to the fans to share in the show of mutual appreciation a little longer.

This had been Wolves’ most impressive performance of a wretched season — an incredibly low bar, cleared with some ease — and Edwards seemed determined to make it count for something.

Starting on Saturday, when West Ham United and former head coach Nuno Espirito Santo visit Molineux, Wolves have half a season to manage — half of a campaign that everyone involved already knows is doomed.

And while there are many tricks they can try to ensure the next five months are vaguely bearable — from transfers to a cup run to clear, honest messaging — nothing will help prevent a complete unravelling quite like performances, and Old Trafford was an almost perfect blueprint.

“We’ve had those (post-match) scenes four times in all four away games,” said Edwards in his post-match press conference.

“I’ve gone over to the fans and 3,000 of them have been right with us every single time because they’ve seen a level of performance. Now we need to go and produce that at home.”

The point Wolves claimed in Manchester — Edwards’ first in his eighth game at the helm — makes, in truth, not an iota of difference to their hopes of staying in the Premier League.

But while Edwards cannot admit as much, staying in the Premier League is no longer the objective at Molineux.

Those hopes died when the slight improvements in his opening game at home to Crystal Palace and more noticeable advances at Aston Villa and Arsenal in his first couple of away games failed to deliver points.

The rewards at stake are less tangible but no less important. Edwards is looking to build bridges with supporters that were burned by previous regimes, while overseeing enough of an improvement that fans will buy into him as the man to lead the efforts to escape the Championship at the first time of asking next season.

Just seven games into his reign, both those goals looked far off after a combination of spirited near-misses and borderline embarrassing no-shows from his team.

After adding some footballing substance at Old Trafford to the commitment Wolves had displayed at Villa Park and the Emirates Stadium, there is a chink of light at the end of a long tunnel.

Just six weeks into his reign, Edwards needed to quieten the first murmurs of discontent and did so in a moment of extreme adversity.

With confidence on the floor and injuries and suspensions leaving his squad down to the bones, Edwards had to formulate a tactical plan with just one recognised central midfielder at his disposal.

Initially, he plumped for the obvious tactic of shifting Ladislav Krejci from centre-back to the middle alongside Joao Gomes. But the late loss of Santiago Bueno to a dead leg meant Krejci was needed in defence. Something out of the ordinary was needed in midfield.

Edwards was unable to work on his alternative plan on the training field, with Bueno not ruled out until Tuesday lunchtime, so the details had to be explained in a lengthy team meeting.

Joao Gomes, known for his relentless pressing, had to be guided through the requirements of a holding role while 18-year-old Mateus Mane and misfiring summer signing Jhon Arias — both more accustomed to wide forward or No.10 responsibilities — sat through a crash course in playing either side of Gomes as disciplined No.8s.

That all three executed their roles to a tee was testament both to their discipline and Edwards’ powers of communication.

Against Manchester United, there was all of the organisation and fight they had shown in previous away games but with more attacking threat, so much so that they ended the evening as ‘victors’ on expected goals for the first time since the defeat by Nottingham Forest earlier in the month, underlining that it was more than a backs-to-the-wall slog.

The result will count for little, Edwards acknowledged, unless Wolves can back it up with similar displays at home, and a solitary point to end a run of 11 successive league defeats does nothing to mask their dire situation at the bottom of the table.

Wolves are the first Premier League side to go 23 matches without a win since Derby County went 32 games in the 2007-08 campaign on their way to an all-time low 11 points — they had four more points after 19 games than Wolves’ current three.

Wolves are only the second side in top-flight history to go 19 matches from the start of a season without winning, along with Bolton Wanderers in 1902-03. They are the first Premier League side in history to concede 40 goals or more by the halfway point of consecutive seasons.

And their 29 points in 38 Premier League games in 2025 gives them the worst points-per-games ratio (0.76) in a full calendar year of Premier League football since Huddersfield Town in 2018 (23 in 37 games at 0.62).

The overall outlook remains incredibly bleak. But for the first time in months, Wolves have something to build from that amounts to more than just warm words.

It is a tiny, potentially insignificant crumb of comfort. But as they contemplate half a season of managing a doomed campaign, it is a crumb that Edwards will treasure like a diamond.