WOLVES HOPEFUL LOPETEGUI CAN SAVE FORTUNES

WOLVES yesterday appointed former Spain and Sevilla manager Julen Lopetegui as their new manager, just weeks after he had initially turned them down.

The Spaniard was the club’s first choice to succeed the sacked Bruno Lage but opted to remain at home to be near his elderly father.

Lopetegui (pictured) should be in attendance for Wolves’ next Premier League game against Arsenal as they look to pick up just their third league win of the season after yesterday afternoon’s home loss to Brighton.

After the match, captain Ruben Neves said of

Lopetegui: ‘I’m 100-per-cent sure he’s a great coach and he’ll help us a lot but we need to focus on our next two games we have in front of us.

‘Of course we know he’s a great manager, he’s done a lot of big things in football, he’s coached a lot of big teams.

But the next two games are the most important things for us.

‘He is special because he gave me my professional debut at 17 years old. At that time in Portugal nobody does that.

He’s a special person for me. Because of him I started to play professional football at Porto.’

They got off to the worst possible start in the game as Adam Lallana put the visitors ahead after 10 minutes.

Wolves hit back immediately, though, as Goncalo Guedes found the net after skipping past Kaoru Mitoma before slotting the ball home.

The hosts then went ahead in the 35th minute after Neves fired his penalty into the roof of the net following Lewis Dunk’s handball.

The lead didn’t last long, however, as Lallana played in Mitoma on the stroke of halftime. The Japanese winger used his pace to race clear and then coolly finished into the bottom corner.

Wolves kept battling after the break and saw several chances go begging, most notably from Guedes, who was denied by Seagulls goalkeeper Robert Sanchez.

They were eventually made to pay for their profligacy in front of goal and Mitoma was once again at the heart of things. After finding space out wide, he looked up and pulled the ball back to Pascal Gross, who slipped as he hit his shot but found the net nonetheless.

Gross said afterwards: ‘It was going quicker and quicker so I had to slide-tackle it in. A great goal for us.’