Nuno Espirito Santo has signed a new three-year deal as head coach of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Wolves finished seventh in the Premier League last season and reached the Europa League quarter-finals – a performance for which the Portuguese has been rewarded with a new contract at Molineux until 2023.
“Nuno really is the special one to Wolves. He’s brought us a clear identity,” chairman Jeff Shi said.
“All the work we have done to build our first team over the past three years started from the identity created in Nuno’s head.”
Nuno’s men begin their new season against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane on this week’s Monday Night Football (6pm kick-off), and the coach is relishing the prospect of challenging the top six after a busy close season of recruitment which saw the club break their transfer record to sign Fabio Silva from Porto for £35m.null
“It’s something normal in football,” he said. “It happens in all the seasons. It happened since we arrived from the Championship. The players that started with us, Danny Batth was the captain of the club. He was with us in the beginning, we don’t forget about all the people involved in these three seasons of hard work and success, especially the way the fans have enjoyed it.
If Wolves’ epic season, one that lasted well over a year, feels like it only just finished, that is because it did. They resume away to Sheffield United on September 14 less than five weeks after their Europa League adventure finally came to an end against Sevilla.
The expectation was that a repeat of Wolves’ seventh-place finish would prove too much for Nuno Espirito Santo’s small squad given their European commitments but the players managed to conjure up that repeat as well as reaching the quarter-finals of the competition.
In fact, a point on the final day of the Premier League would have been enough for sixth and European qualification once more. Instead, Arsenal’s FA Cup win has left them out of Europe altogether, with question marks over whether momentum can be maintained.
