Wolves finally secured a first Premier League win of the season at the 20th attempt as they made light work of fellow strugglers West Ham at Molineux.
This was Rob Edwards’ first win as Wolves head coach and the team’s first league victory since beating Leicester City on April 26, 2025.
At a stroke, the league’s bottom side doubled their points tally for the season to six, thanks to first-half goals from Jhon Arias, Hwang Hee-chan and Mateus Mane.
A sorry West Ham side failed to muster a response after the break and remain 18th with 14 points – four fewer than Nottingham Forest above them.
With two of the league’s worst defences in action, goals were always likely and it only took the hosts four minutes to make a breakthrough.
Hwang darted into the box and glided past Konstantinos Mavropanos before cutting back for an unmarked Arias to tap home from six yards – the Colombian’s first goal in a Wolves shirt.
The early breakthrough injected belief into the home side, who were awarded a penalty when Mane was clattered by the high boot of Soungoutou Magassa.
Hwang sent the spot-kick straight down the middle to make it 2-0 in the 31st minute before Mane added a third 10 minutes later.
With no Hammers defender closing him down, the 18-year-old Mane sent a powerful low drive from outside the box that beat Alphonse Areola at the near post, giving the youngster a first goal of his senior career.
The second half was more evenly contested but the early damage was beyond repair for West Ham, whose winless run has now reached nine matches.
Including the final weeks of last season, Wolves’ winless run in the Premier League had stretched to 23 games.
No wonder there was such relief around Molineux at full-time on Saturday, with this victory recorded in convincing fashion.
A 1-1 draw against Manchester United on Tuesday had ended an 11-game losing streak in the league.
That gave Edwards – appointed on 12 November – his first point in charge of Wolves and offered a flicker of hope for the struggling club.
The optimism was further boosted on Saturday as Wolves backed up the fighting display at Old Trafford with this priceless result.
Heading into the West Ham game, Wolves were the first side in English top-flight history since Bolton Wanderers in 1902-03 to go 19 matches from the start of a season without winning.
For months, they have looked likely to endure a fate as dismal as Derby County in the 2007-08 campaign, when the Rams went 32 games without a victory following an early win against Newcastle.
But Wolves snapped out of their nightmare run with a thoroughly deserved victory, registering eight shots on target to West Ham’s zero and giving a long-suffering home crowd something to finally cheer.
However, even the most optimistic of Wolves supporters will know survival remains a monumental challenge, given they sit six points behind 19th-placed Burnley and 12 adrift of 17th-placed Forest.
Nonetheless, Wolves have taken a big step towards avoiding the unwanted tag of being the worst Premier League team ever.
Derby had seven points at this stage and finished with a record low of 11 points during their dire 2007-08 season.
If Edwards’ side can now consistently deliver the energy and ruthlessness they showed against the Hammers, the story of their campaign could yet take a dramatic turn. However, they will not be facing opponents as blunt as West Ham every week.
While there was joy for Wolves, West Ham are reeling after a damaging defeat.
They would have looked at this fixture as a clear three-point opportunity against the league’s weakest side, yet somehow they managed to make Wolves look like the better team in every department.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side were second best throughout the afternoon – yet again undone by defensive lapses and sorely missing their injured influential playmaker Lucas Paqueta.
Despite Nottingham Forest losing to Aston Villa earlier in the day, the Hammers remain four points behind Sean Dyche’s side and, more worryingly, their confidence will have taken another big hit.
Forest visit West Ham on Tuesday, for a match between two sides who have apparently forgotten how to win.
Apart from two penalty shouts – first when Freddie Potts was clipped and then when Crysencio Summerville tangled with Yerson Mosquera – the visitors were indecisive in attack in a first half where they only attempted a single shot.
They matched up to the hosts in the second half, moving to a 3-5-2 system, but still failed to create serious problems for Wolves, whose fans aimed digs at their former manager Nuno, singing “He’s one of our own” from the stands.
For Nuno and his West Ham players, pressure is mounting, the threat of relegation growing week by week.
Wolves travel to Everton for their next Premier League game on Wednesday, 7 January (19:30 GMT).
Meanwhile, West Ham welcome Nottingham Forest to London Stadium on Tuesday, 6 January (20:00).
