Wolverhampton Wanderers have improved since the appointment of Rob Edwards as head coach, explains The Athletic's Steve Madeley.

The former Middlesbrough boss replaced Vítor Pereira in November, but Wolves remain winless in the Premier League ahead of Saturday's game against Brentford at Molineux (3pm kick-off GMT).

Wolves are bottom of the Premier League table, with just two points from 16 games so far. How can you sum up their season to date?

Well, it has been completely miserable. They lost some big players in the summer, with Matheus Cunha and Rayan Aït-Nouri being the two most obvious ones.

But they also lost Pablo Sarabia, as they did not renew his contract, and Nélson Semedo, who chose to leave as a free agent, and they were both influential voices in the dressing room.

Even though Sarabia did not start many games, he did have a habit of coming off the bench and changing the game.

And Semedo, in the last couple of years, had become pretty reliable. It was a bad summer, clearly, and it has just carried on from there.

Maybe they should have had, or could have had, a few more points than they have got; you look at the late goal in the Brighton game and the Tottenham away game and maybe if they won one of those games, it might have given them a bit of a confidence boost and it could have been slightly better than it is at the moment.

But with the squad they have got, it is hard to look at it and say it would have been a lot better than it is at the moment.

What is the atmosphere like around the club?

It is anger, really, from the fans' point of view because a lot of them saw this coming.

In the last few years, Wolves had this model of selling the best players and looking to replace them with younger talented players who they can develop to fill the void.

They have done it successfully in a lot of cases in the last five or six years. Rúben Neves was a huge player for Wolves but they did not really miss him, certainly initially, because, they had successfully signed João Gomes, signed Mario Lemina, who did a really good job in the short term, then they signed André, who did a good job as well.

But I think fans all feared that eventually there would be a summer where they did not do it successfully - and that summer has come.

So, there is a lot of anger, not a great deal of surprise and, I think, a little bit of helplessness, because fans do not really see any way that they can change things.

Rob Edwards replaced Vítor Pereira on 12 November and has not yet won a game. Is he going to be given the time he needs to try and turn the situation around?

I would say two things to that. In a strange way, there was, I would argue, a little new manager bounce as, in his first two games, Wolves were slightly better, they looked more organised and players were running a bit harder. It was the same at Arsenal last Saturday.

But I think the squad is so understrength that even with a new manager bounce, it has not been enough to change the results.

In terms of time, the intention when Edwards was appointed - and still the intention now, as far I understand it - is that they plan to give him time.

After his first five games, it is even more nailed on that they are going to get relegated, because there has not been the new manager bounce in terms of results.

But the intention is still for him to be kept on, then to be the man to try to lead them back in the Championship next season. But we have all seen football, and we all know how football works.

Ultimately, the atmosphere the fans create has a big influence on decisions that football clubs make. If Wolves were to go down with a whimper, threatening Derby's points record, and only winning three or four games all season, Edwards would have been implicated in more than half of that, even though most of it would not be down to him.

I think Edwards would become, unfortunately, tainted by it, and it would be hard to see how they could stick with him long term.

Very few fans saw Vítor Pereira as the big overarching problem at Wolves, because he was not, but he came to be seen as a smaller problem within the bigger problem, and I guess there is a danger the same happens with Rob Edwards.

Which player should Brentford fans be keeping an eye out for?

I guess the one you have to pick out is João Gomes. If you take the last three or four years as a whole, he has probably been Wolves' best player. Cunha would be the one to challenge him.

He has not been at his best this season, which is understandable, given that he has played in a struggling team, but in most games, he has still looked like he has been putting the commitment in, running around, trying to win tackles, and trying to make things happen.

What should Keith Andrews' players expect from Wolves in terms of shape and style?

He has stuck with three at the back, which Pereira played for most of his time in charge. Since Nuno, three at the back has become Wolves' general way of playing.

Two or three managers have tried to move away from it, but they have generally ended up going back to it. Edwards has just stuck with it from day one.

They have always had the three centre-backs and the two wing-backs, then there has been a variation between whether they have played two midfielders, one centre-forward and two inside forwards, or three midfielders and two up front.

That is the shape and I would say generally under Edwards, they have tried to be a little bit more aggressive in terms of pressing slightly higher, though there has not been any dramatic change.

What is your prediction?

The law of averages tells you very few Premier League teams ever go through this kind of run of games without winning one, and performances have improved a little bit under Edwards.

So, for those two reasons - against my better judgement - I am going to go for a 2-1 Wolves win.