Wolves chief Jeff Shi is in Julen Lopetegui’s native Spain to try to persuade the coach to finally come to Molineux.
Lopetegui was sacked by Sevilla last week after a poor start to the season, despite helping the Spanish club to three top-four finishes and a Europa League title since arriving in 2019. Wolves owners Fosun are admirers of Lopetegui and the Spaniard almost became their first Wolves boss in 2016 after the Chinese group bought the club and sacked Kenny Jackett.
Now executive chairman Shi has personally flown to Spain to hold talks with the 56-year-old after Wolves made him their top target to replace Bruno Lage, who was sacked last week.
Wolves, who are in the drop zone after scoring just three goals this term, need to assess whether the former Real Madrid boss is ready to jump straight into a new job.
But Lopetegui is keen to manage in the Premier League and his agent Jorge Mendes has close ties to Wolves. Interim bosses Steve Davis and James Collins are taking training this week in preparation for the upcoming Nottingham Forest game after overseeing the weekend’s 3-0 loss at Chelsea.
Wolves fans, is Lopetegui your choice to become manager? Comment here
If Wolves are unable to persuade Lopetegui again they could turn to ex-Olympiakos coach Pedro Martins after he turned down Hull.
When Lopetegui turned down Wolves, to take over as Spain manager six years ago, he explained: "I was waiting to hear about an agreement that I had in place about what was an incredibly attractive and exciting project at Wolves.
"Certainly if the Spanish job hadn't come up, I know I would now be coach at Wolverhampton. I was very keen to come to England. There were so many positives. Wolves are a great, historic club, with fantastic fans, with an infrastructure to become [one] of the great clubs."
