The Athletic’s Wolverhampton Wanderers correspondent Tim Spiers has called for Nuno Espirito Santo to give Portuguese midfielder Vitinha more minutes.
During the summer transfer window, the Old Gold sealed the arrival of 20-year-old middleman from FC Porto on a season-long loan with the option to make the move permanent (per Wolves).
When Vitinha arrived at the club, Wolves’ announcement branded the midfielder as a ‘highly-rated youngster‘.
However, since moving to Molineux, the 20-year-old has barely seen any game time for Nuno Santo’s side as he has made just four substitute appearances in the league for Wolves (per WhoScored).
In the latest episode of The Athletic’s The Molineux View podcast, Spiers called to see more of the young midfielder going forward. (29:40)
He said: “[Joao] Moutinho and [Ruben] Neves don’t really [read the game well] from a defensive point of view, they get taken on so often – Moutinho is the most dribbled past player in the Premier League in the last two season by a distance.
“They need to come up with something different and I’d also like to see Vitinha given a few more minutes as well going forward.
“We talk about this creative midfielder who can unlock defences, and I know he’s young as most of them are.
“Let’s see what he can do because that midfield just didn’t really work very well [against Liverpool].”
TIF Thoughts on what Tim Spiers said about Vitinha…
As can be seen in what the journalist had to say, he believes that Nuno Santo should give Vitinha a run in the team to “see what he can do”.
Would you like to see Nuno Espirito Santo playing Vitinha more often?
No, he's not that good
Yes, he's a solid player
In the midfielder’s four performances in the Premier League, he earned a weak 6.14/10 average rating, making him the third-worst player for Wolves this season in the league (per WhoScored).
However, the four substitute appearances only amounted to 37 minutes of football, so, it would not be fair to judge the player off of such a short showing.
With Wolves having to make the decision whether they would like to sign Vitinha permanently at some point, due to their option to purchase him, the Old Gold will have to see what he can do sooner or later.