Chairman Jeff Shi said Wolves were left with “no choice but to act” after parting company with head coach Bruno Lage.
Lage guided Wolves to a 10th-placed finish last season after succeeding Nuno Espirito Santo in June 2021.
Wolves were beaten 2-0 at the London Stadium on Saturday, creating just 0.98 expected goals (xG) despite being behind for the majority of the game, stuck on only three goals scored this season.
After a promising start under the Portuguese boss, a failure to test the opposition had been an issue for an extended period, as shown by their rolling xG averages under Lage in the Premier League.
They spent more than £100million over the summer, with Sasa Kalajdzic, Matheus Nunes, Goncalo Guedes and Nathan Collins all arriving for fees.
Former Chelsea striker Diego Costa and Boubacar Traore joined as a free agent and on loan respectively.
But Kalajdzic suffered a long-term injury on his debut, while fellow forwards Hwang Hee-chan and Raul Jimenez were also sidelined.
He handed Costa a 30-minute cameo as a substitute against the Hammers, and claimed Wolves are a "different team" when they have a striker to play between the centre-backs, but it did not prevent the division’s lowest goalscorers from slipping into the bottom three.
Additionally, Lage’s late substitution of Matheus Nunes was met with a chorus of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ from the Wolves fans, and he was booed off at the end.
The 46-year-old added: “I think it was about the subs. There are things that happen, sometimes we need to take the decision. Let’s see if Matheus can play the next game.”
Wolves travel to Chelsea next weekend, before playing a set of winnable games.
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