Wolves head coach ready to utilise attacking duo
Vitor Pereira is ready to unleash Jhon Arias and Fer Lopez following their positive impact off the bench during Wolves' opening day defeat to Manchester City.
Jean-Ricner Bellegarde and Marshall Munetsi were preferred ahead of the two summer signings supporting Jorgen Strand Larsen in a three-pronged attack.
Munetsi should have opened the scoring for Wolves, but failed to stay onside when heading home a pinpoint cross from Matt Doherty.
But City's quality proved too much for the hosts who struggled to cope until Arias and Lopez were introduced with 20 minutes left giving Pereira's men a renewed attacking threat
"Do you know why I left them (Arias and Lopez) out? Because of this opponent, this was my decision," said the Wolves head coach.
"It was a game that we knew City would have more possession and we needed to run without the ball.
"And this is not the best quality of Fer (Lopez). Fer needs the ball on the foot to create something.
"I spoke with him and I spoke to Aris trying to explain, to say you are both important for us, but this is a match that we needed to run.
"In my opinion, they (City) have more solutions and a better team this season."
Lopez arrived at Wolves in a £19.5m deal from Celta Vigo in June, while Arias was brought in from Brazilian side Fluminense for an initial £14.7m.
"We tried more energy bringing them on. In the pressing, they went there to help.
"They went there to try to press them and to force the mistake.
"But in the end, another mistake from us and they score a fourth goal - this is football.
And despite the severity of the scoreline, Pereira refused to be to be too downhearted following the heavy defeat and preferred to look at the positives.
"For me, this is not a moment to be depressive. I'm not this kind of manager.
"I look at the game and I can see a lot of good things, good spirit, sometimes aggressiveness , sometimes quality to create chances.
"Sometimes we arrive in the box with conditions to score or miss the last pass, the last finish. These things against this kind of team are not easy."
Wolves will be hoping for a response next weekend as they travel to the Vitality Stadium to face Bournemouth who also conceded four goals at Liverpool.
Pereira's men won the corresponding fixture last season as Matheus Cunha's solo strike was enough for all three points.
