‘To say we will be fighting for top 10 would be a big mistake’

Wolves manager Nuno is cooling expectations after promotion to top flight, writes John Percy

Nuno Espirito Santo has just stepped off the open-top bus and is battling to put the brakes on rising expectations in the Black Country. It is a few hours after the promotion party in Wolverhampton’s city centre, where more than 80,000 supporters came to celebrate the club’s return to the Premier League for the first time since 2012.

The Nuno revolution has delivered a glorious season of entertainment, with Wolves playing a brand of stylish football that has seen them described as the Championship’s Manchester City.

They have been installed as joint-seventh favourites for the title next season and Nuno is shifting a little uncomfortably as he reflects on what happens next.

“What I feel is that expectations are high and I am the only one that my expectations aren’t so high. I am cautious. The summer is important, to have decisions on the squad and then we will see,” he said. “We have to improve and work hard but we cannot say we are going to fight for the top 10. That will be a big mistake.

“We are one year ahead of schedule. I am not obsessed about making an impression on the Premier League. I want to build a team who can play home and away the same. It is not my job to restrain expectations, but be realistic. If we can achieve what we want sooner, we will go for it.”

Nuno will be backed with significant funds by Wolves’s ambitious owners, Fosun, and the ultimate aim is to bring Champions League football to Molineux. It may sound all too familiar, and perhaps even a cautionary tale, but Nuno’s impact in the Black Country has been so remarkable that it seems anything is possible.

To navigate a route out of the Championship in his first season in English football is an achievement.

“It is the toughest league in the world,” he said. “There were a lot