The £52m forward who could save Wolves from relegation doom - if Arsenal & Chelsea don't get there first
Wolves have been linked with a transfer bid for a rising star of Spanish football - could he save their Premier League status?
Wolverhampton Wanderers are a team in need of a pick-me-up. Having ended the 2024/25 season in fine form under Vitor Pereira, the summer break seems to have sapped them of all momentum. They are rock bottom of the table, and sorely in need of some inspiration.
Their once rigid defence suddenly looks soft and a relatively free-flowing attack lacks creativity, with the loss of Matheus Cunha looking like a bigger deal by the game. Wolves simply don’t have a player who can find gaps in opposing defences and exploit them, and that may be a defect that they have to address in the January transfer window.
They may already have a plan. A new story from Spain, which has been reported on by BirminghamWorld, suggests that Wolves are targeting a rising star whose goal-scoring and dribbling talent could be precisely what they need – Deportivo de la Coruña’s Yeremay Hernández. But will they really be able to get their hands on a player supposedly wanted by Arsenal and Chelsea as well?
Who is Yeremay Hernández – and could he replace Matheus Cunha for Wolves?
The 22-year-old Yeremay was already an increasingly regular presence in the Deportivo line-up, but it was in the 2024/25 season that he really came into his own and started to set scouts’ tongues wagging across the continent.
Having helped Deportivo to make it back to the Spanish second tier for the first time since they were forcibly relegated from La Liga over financial problems, Yeremay scored 15 goals in La Segunda last season, many of them quite brilliant, and added five assists on top.
A two-footed forward who is notionally a left winger but who spends as much time cutting inside to look for the ball as he does near the byline, Yeremay’s astonishingly fluid ball carrying and lightning fast feet allowed him to repeatedly carve second-tier defences apart.
Most of his goals came either from racing through gaps between defenders from deep positions or from beating one or two men in tight spaces before unleashing a precise finish. He was composed in front of goal, accurate with his shots, and always seemed to know precisely where the ball was in relation to his feet, no matter how quickly he was sprinting.
While Yeremay hasn’t quite hit the same goal-scoring heights early in the 2025/26 season just yet – he has only scored once, from the penalty spot, despite his team taking the early lead in the league – he still looks dangerous, creative and in many ways like the kind of player that Wolves sorely need, a forward who can play between the lines and break defences apart on his own.
He has, of course, not had the chance to prove that he would be as lethal against first-rate defenders and watching through his goals from last season there are moments when one wonders if a Premier League centre-back wouldn’t have been able to intervene. Still, there is no doubt that he moves the ball remarkably well and with the kind of grace and purpose that Wolves don’t seem to have since Cunha left for Manchester United. But are they really going to sign him in January?
Will Wolves sign Yeremay this winter?
It isn’t clear what kind of valuation Deportivo would put on their star player, but if they are still contending for promotion after Christmas it may be hard to persuade them to part with him. After all, a return to La Liga after six years away would be worth more than any transfer fee they could receive.
He does, however, have a release clause which would allow Wolves to skip negotiations altogether – but it stands at €60m (£52m), a substantial sum given that signing the winger would certainly be something of a gamble. It’s not at all clear that Jeff Shi would be prepared to part with quite so much cash.
Nor is it necessarily clear that Wolves will even be in the bidding. The original source for the story is Spanish gossip site Fichajes, who we do not generally consider to be a reliable source, and no other media outlets have yet corroborated the claims.
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That doesn’t, of course, mean that the story is necessarily wrong, merely that it deserves a fair degree of scepticism as it stands, especially considering the finances that may be involved – and the likely interest of other teams.
Both Chelsea and Arsenal were heavily linked with a move for Yeremay in April and May, while Como manager Cesc Fàbregas admitted that his own team was “following” the Deportivo man ahead of the summer. A move didn’t materialise, of course, but there is little question that several sides are keeping at least a watching brief.
In short, the odds that Wolves make this particular move still seem relatively long – but it’s not difficult to watch Yeremay and see so many of the qualities that Wolves will need to start scoring enough goals to survive this season. If their scouts are indeed watching him, they are likely salivating.