Wolves Sack Rob Edwards as Cesar Peixoto Set to Replace

Wolverhampton Wanderers have sacked Rob Edwards in a brutal twist just weeks before the new season, with Portuguese coach Cesar Peixoto poised to step into the dugout.

Edwards was informed of the decision by the Wolves hierarchy despite having been central to one of the club’s most optimistic summers in years, helping drive the arrivals of Kieran Trippier and Raúl Jiménez. His fingerprints are all over the rebuild that now looks set to proceed without him.

This is a club still reeling from finishing bottom of the Premier League last season. Vitor Pereira was dismissed in November, Edwards was brought in with eyes wide open: relegation was likely, the Championship rebuild would be his job. That was the understanding. That was the sell.

Wolves even paid a premium to get him. Middlesbrough, top of the Championship at the time, received £4 million to release Edwards for the Molineux project. It was a statement that Wolves were serious about a reset, about a long-term vision.

Now that vision has been torn up.

The timing is stark. The mood around Molineux had lifted. Two established signings, a sense of direction, a manager who had started to reshape the culture. Inside the club, the word was that Edwards and technical director Matt Jackson had struck up a strong working relationship, pushing hard to bring in British talent and strengthen the home-grown core of the squad.

Those efforts were not cosmetic. They were strategic, aimed at balancing a squad long associated with the Portuguese market and the influence of super-agent Jorge Mendes. Edwards, in that sense, represented a subtle shift.

Yet the old ties at Wolves remain powerful. Peixoto, the man set to replace him, is represented by Gestifute, the agency owned by Mendes. The 43-year-old has only managed in Portugal, most notably as head coach of Gil Vicente, and has never worked in English football. His name, though, has circulated in the corridors of power at Molineux for weeks.

While Edwards was front and centre in the club’s public messaging, another game was unfolding in the background. Mendes and his associate Valdir Cardoso, who have maintained close links with Wolves’ owners Fosun since the 2016 takeover, were quietly piecing together a deal for Peixoto to come in before the new campaign kicks off.

The contrast could hardly be sharper. Two days ago, Edwards appeared in Jiménez’s “Welcome Home” video on the club’s social media channels, smiling alongside the Mexican striker as Wolves trumpeted a marquee return. Trippier, in his first interview released on Wednesday, spoke openly about how Edwards had been a major factor in his decision to join, praising the manager’s influence and the changing environment at the training ground.

Now both players wake up to a different reality.

The shock decision threatens to puncture the fragile optimism that had begun to build around the squad. Fans who had started to buy into a new identity must now process another reset, another coach, another philosophy.

Wolves wanted a rebuild. They are getting one. The question is whose vision will define it: the one Edwards began to shape, or the one Peixoto is about to inherit.