Former boss backs influential attacker to fire Wolves back to the Premier League

Former boss Dean Saunders has backed attacking star Fer Lopez to fire Wolves to an immediate Premier League return.

The Spaniard has lit up the early weeks of life back in the Championship with four league goals already, including the winner in Sunday’s Black Country derby against Albion.

Saunders, in charge at Molineux when Wolves slipped to relegation to League One in 2013, believes Lopez is the influential goalscoring midfielder that will spark a successful promotion push under Cesar Peixoto.

Lopez was a £19million signing from Celta Viga in the summer of 2025 but struggled to make his mark in the first half of last season and was allowed back to La Liga side Vigo on loan in the second half of the campaign.

“The team are playing really well under Cesar Peixoto, they’ve rescued a few games late on already, which is great to see because you need to do that if you want to get promoted,” Saunders told Betpack.

“They’ve also got Fer Lopez. He looks every bit the part of being the standout player in the Championship this season.”

Former Villa and Wales frontman Saunders reckons Lopez has a natural ability to arrive in the box and can ‘smell an opportunity’ in the penalty area.

He added: “He gets in the box and it’s right place, right time, and he’s already scored a handful of goals this season.

“To get promoted from the Championship you can’t just rely on the strikers to score goals. You need a midfielder to score you 12 to 15 goals in a season, and he certainly looks capable of that.”

Pundit Saunders said: “What a brilliant win that was for Wolves in the Black Country derby. I didn’t get the chance to manage in one of those games while I was there, but I would have loved to. They needed the win as well, just to allow them to keep up with the teams around them.

“Fourth with a game in hand is a brilliant position to be in, you can’t really ask for much more so early in the season. The fans and the players all get the local bragging rights, and winning a derby is one of the best feelings in football, what a way to enter the international break.

“Wolves need to make sure they bounce back to the Premier League this season, and I imagine they will. Their squad is plenty strong enough to get promoted, and parachute payments soon run out if you don’t return to the top flight.”