Nuno Espirito Santo: Building new on-field partnerships will make Wolves better

Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo has stressed the importance of building partnerships on the pitch as Wanderers look to get their season back on track.

It has been a summer of change at Molineux with players like Matt Doherty and Diogo Jota, mainstays of what the club has achieved recently, leaving, while a handful of new signings have arrived.

Wolves appeared to handle the transition well as they began the new campaign with victory at Sheffield United. However, a 3-1 defeat to Manchester City and 4-0 loss to West Ham – widely described as the worst display of Nuno’s reign – followed a Carabao Cup exit to Championship Stoke.

Wanderers host Fulham on Sunday and ahead of the match Nuno was asked if the new partnerships being forged in the team are the reason for his side’s indifferent start to the campaign.

“It is one of the aspects,” said the Portuguese. “I think at the beginning of the season players have been away and the players haven’t had much time together.

“But at the same time, the players that were here, for example I can tell you Raul (Jimenez) and Daniel (Podence) started working together for quite some time and I think you could see how good the understanding was in Sheffield. We haven’t been able to repeat but it is about building new partnerships with the players that have arrived.

“It is about partnerships, partnerships is what I believe can make our team better and stronger. That takes time but we have to go fast and things that we have before we have to insist on them so that they can work out.

“We are changing, trying to do new things that we require while at the same time playing with some risk in our game.

“It is how we believe we can evolve, by changing some things in our dynamics. We have confidence in the players to do that on the pitch. We are trying, trying this process no matter what the results – that is not what we focus on. We focus on what we want to achieve and sustain.”

The transfer window for Premier League clubs closes on Monday and while Nuno does not plan to do any more business, he said: “As long as the transfer window is open, you have to know anything can happen.

“We need to react and we know on the last day things move, but we’re not anticipating anything, but always knowing anything can happen.

“I am happy with what we’ve done. We’ve been able to react well and we’ve been able to bring players in that we think can bring us different things.

“At the same time, we’re still in the process. It’s not finished. When it’s finished, then we can do a proper analysis.”

Wolves hope to have Podence back against Fulham. The Portuguese attacker missed the heavy defeat at West Ham due to a shoulder problem.

Marcal was also absent against the Hammers after suffering a calf injury on his debut against Manchester City on September 21 and the left-back will be assessed.