“Seems a really natural fit” – Wolves eyeing move for Reading FC talisman: The verdict

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘The Verdict‘ series, which provides personal opinions from the FLW writers regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers are monitoring Lucas Joao’s situation at Championship club Reading ahead of a potential summer approach, Football League World revealed yesterday.

The 28-year-old has been the Royals’ main man up top in the past couple of years, recording 19 goals in 39 league appearances last term as he nearly guided his side to a top-six finish in what would have been a remarkable achievement considering their lowly finishes in recent years prior to last term.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to replicate this sort of record this season with a hip injury heavily disrupting his 2021/22 campaign at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.

However, he has still been in reasonably impressive goalscoring form recently, managing to get on the scoresheet six times in his last eight games and recapturing the form that made him one of the division’s top scorers last season.

Does he have the ability to make the step up from the second tier to the top flight in the summer though? And would Wolves be wise in recruiting the Portuguese forward?

We asked three of our writers at FLW for their verdicts on these two talking points.

Ned Holmes

Wolves and Lucas Joao together seems a really natural fit to me.

I can understand if Bruno Lage wants to add a more natural goalscorer to his forward line because though the likes of Daniel Podence and Pedro Neto are fantastic players, they’re not that.

Injury issues are the key worry here but when he’s been fit, Joao has regularly proven too much for Championship