Vítor Pereira had to be escorted away from the touchline after an angry post-match exchange with the supporters with whom he was sharing pints and fist bumps when steering Wolves away from relegation with six successive wins last season.
Six months to the day since they last won in the Premier League, 3-0 against Leicester, the Wolves manager’s frustrations appeared to boil over after his team’s fightback from 2-0 down was ended with Lyle Foster’s 95th-minute winner.
As Burnley moved five points clear of the relegation zone, Wolves remain rock bottom, the last team in the top four divisions still seeking a league win.
Fans in the South Bank, who had chanted vociferously against the Molineux board as Burnley appeared to take control with two first‑half goals from Zian Flemming, reacted to Pereira’s bravery in fronting them by singing: “You’re getting sacked in the morning.”
The Wolves manager explained: “What I said to them is we work a lot and we need to fight together. I understand the frustration, when you are there in 90 minutes trying to help the team and the team gave everything on the pitch to win, but in the end you concede a goal.
“What I must say to them is if we fight with them, united, we can win games. We can compete and achieve our targets. If not, without them, it’s impossible. It’s normal in football: if we win two or three games in a row, everything changes. Two months ago they sing my name because of the work we did last season [that meant] we are competing in the Premier League and not in the Championship. Now without results – it’s football – now they sing my name maybe to sack me.
“At the end of this game, if I am a supporter, I feel proud of my team. The players showed a mentality, the ambition, the spirit to win the game. Even losing 2-0 we scored two goals, and in the second half we deserved to score more goals.”
In 2013 there was a pitch invasion of home supporters here, calling for the then owner Steve Morgan to leave, when defeat by Burnley sent Wolves tumbling towards the third tier of English football. This time, it was Burnley staff and substitutes sprinting on to the pitch to celebrate Foster’s last-gasp goal, after a fine pass from his fellow substitute Hannibal Mejri invited a winner that looked unlikely as Wolves dominated the second half.
Burnley set up this second successive victory, their first away win of the season, with two goals from Zian Flemming in the opening half‑hour. Scott Parker had done his homework and got in behind Wolves with diagonal passes: the first, from Quilindschy Hartman on the halfway line, invited Flemming to volley from the edge of the penalty area. The second, after Josh Cullen spread the ball wide left, came when Hartman volleyed across for the Dutchman, who scored 14 times for Burnley last season, to tap in.
“I thought he was brilliant today,” Parker said. “His first was incredible. The second was exactly what we worked on this week in terms of how to exploit their back line, and he executed it really well.”
It is hard to see where Wolves turn from here. Few doubt the qualities of Pereira, the manager who saved them from relegation after arriving last December, but the club starting a season with another winless run of nine games leaves the owners between a rock and a hard place, even if it is of their own making. They have sold the team’s best players year on year, so is it any surprise when the team start to circle down the plughole? Is that always the manager’s fault?
Wolves forced their way back into the game by half-time. Cullen fouled Santi Bueno, and Jørgen Strand Larsen, Wolves’ fourth captain of the season, converted the penalty. Then Jean-Ricner Bellegarde crossed for Ladislav Krejci to volley for Marshall Munetsi to head the equaliser.
After the break, Jhon Arias curled a free-kick against the crossbar and Kyle Walker denied Wolves a two‑on‑one breakaway. Martin Dubravka saved from Bellegarde’s belter, before Foster’s goal, and then, spectacularly, at the death, from Santi Bueno.
With two games against Chelsea, first in the EFL Cup on Wednesday, either side of a visit to Fulham, Wolves’ future needs to be about more than just the manager’s.
