As he prepares to join up with his Wolves teammates for a warm weather training out in Portugal, Matt Doherty insists a good pre-season could make all the difference in getting off to a positive start in the Premier League.
The experienced Irishman played a pivotal role in Wolves’ top flight resurgence under Vitor Pereira last season after being switched into a central defensive position from the first day of training under the head coach – a decision which has proved to be a masterstroke.
And as he enters his first professional pre-season as a centre-back, Doherty reveals why he enjoys this time of year so much and why he feels so at home in his new position.
On last season reflections
“It was a tough first half of the season for everybody, really. I don’t know why and I’m not sure what we were doing wrong or where we were going to end up, but we managed to just knuckle down, turn it around and make sure that we were playing Premier League football next year, which is obviously the most important thing and what we all wanted to do.
“Once you do that, you want to try and climb up the table, which we managed to do, and then over the last few weeks of the season it was important we didn’t just fall off a cliff completely.”
— Matt Doherty (@mattdoherty20) May 26, 2025
On making the move to centre-back
“At the start of last season, I would never have predicted I would’ve moved to centre-back. Towards the end of your career, you do look at positions further back and more inside, but I absolutely love playing in that position.
“You get loads of touches in the ball, you have to defend more, but it's like the old saying goes, ‘You’ll play wherever the manager wants you to play’. But I don't even see it as out of position for me, really.
“I’m 33 now, so if I was to go to wing-back again, I think I’d feel more out of position there, so now I’m happy to play this role for the rest of my career.”
On adapting to his new position
“I think everybody will know me as a wing-back, just because of everything that I’ve managed to do in that position before, so I think people will always be like, ‘How do you find the new position?’ But I always wanted to finish in that centre-back position.
“I was a centre-back growing up and then just got shifted to right-back because I had a bit of an attacking mentality, so centre-back was always in my plan and in my head anyway, it was just actually getting a manager to see it in me and do it. It’s just worked out now and it’s something that I’m grateful the manager had the vision to see straight away.
“He did it immediately after coming in. I haven’t even trained in the wing-back position since the first day of training that he came in. Straight away he swapped me and Nelson and I haven’t been on the wing since, so he obviously saw something in me and it’s worked out.”
On being vice-captain last season
“I’ve always been the same, not too loud, not too quiet, just consistently the same. I think people respect the fact I’ve been here a long time and I’m well-respected within the changing room, but I’m not going to start going ripping people’s heads off, or I’m not going to start babying people either.
“I’m literally just me in the changing room, which is relaxed and nothing can faze me too much, but I’ve always been like that. I never get too high, never get too low and just see things for what they are, and I don’t overreact too much to things, so I think in my position in the changing room has always kind of been the exact same.”
On preparing to return for pre-season
“I do love pre-season really, because you obviously get to work for a period of time on things that you just don’t get to do in season. You work on your fitness, your body changes, you get yourself into great condition, so I’m looking forwards to that part of it.
“Then we’ll have new players we’ll be working with, the manager will have new ideas for how he wants to play next season, so for me, pre-season is a time to get better – it’s the time to improve tactically and physically, and a good pre-season goes a long way to starting the season well.”
On a first pre-season under Pereira
“I wouldn’t say this pre-season is any more exciting than others, as for me they’re pretty much all the same, but it’s always exciting to see new players, see how good they are and you’re just excited to get back playing and get back into a season.
“It will also be interesting to see how the manager and his coaching staff approach the pre-season, and how pre-season is for them, because everybody knows pre-season is pretty important going into a new season.
“If you can get your pre-season right, you get off to a good start in the league and it can make all the difference.”
