DAVE PORTER SHARES HIS INSIGHTS ON 6 THINGS WE LEARNT FROM WOLVES 3-1 DEFEAT TO ASTON VILLA
1. Tough Start for Wolves: Patience or Panic?
There is an understandable air of increasing frustration with the poor start to the season. At the end of the game, social media was a bleak place to be. With only one point from the first five games, Wolves find themselves at the bottom of the Premier League. This follows a terrible run of form extending into the end of last season, with Wolves picking up only one win in their last 16 Premier League games. There are echoes of the end of Bruno Lage’s reign, where a lack of momentum from the previous season carried through to the next and ultimately led to a change in management.
There are reasons for all Wolves fans to be frustrated. However, there are also some points of mitigation. Everyone will have their own opinion as to whether the frustration is proportionate, but there are questions to ask as to whether this is a temporary issue or a deep-rooted problem that needs a more immediate reaction.
Tough Fixtures: Wolves have faced a tough run of fixtures, being the underdogs in every single game this season. Does it matter that these games have all happened at once at the start of the season? If the results had been the same but scattered, would we feel any different?
Comparing to Last Season: Based on last season’s results, Wolves are four points short of their performance. The only major difference is a loss to Chelsea. Beating Chelsea at home is not an expected outcome every season. Taking that away, Wolves are shy by one point, caused by a 25-yard thunderbolt against Newcastle.
Competitive Play: Wolves are playing well in periods and have been competitive in each game. They have come up short and occasionally collapsed like the mid order of the 90’s English Cricket team, but this doesn’t feel like a team that lacks quality or is being overrun in matches, unlike Lage’s team or teams of the past.
Scoring Goals: Wolves are scoring goals, which is usually a barometer for a team likely to struggle at the end of the season. Despite superior opponents, Wolves have scored in four of the opening five matches.
So, the question Wolves fans have to resolve for themselves is whether this is a transient patch of form related to an incredibly difficult opening set of fixtures, and whether to retain an element of positivity, or if it’s time to raise the alarm.
2. Safety First, Victory Last.
In the second half, the feeling of inevitability grew stronger. Wolves became increasingly defensive and hesitant, rather than pushing forward to secure more goals. Despite having plenty of attacking opportunities in the first half, it never felt like one goal would be enough to win the game. Wolves haven’t been able to get a result over the line despite positive positions in matches, and this showed in their mental approach to the second half. A team that looked sharp and confident in the first half became nervous, negative, and tense in the next. When the goals started to come after a spell of intense pressure, it wasn’t really a surprise; it was just as expected as the inevitable defeat that followed. Losing is habit-forming, and currently, Wolves are addicted.
3. Andre’s Arrival: A Blessing or a Curse for Wolves?
Andre looks like a very good player, of course he does. He’s the sort of player that probably looks even better in a more established and well-performing team. Andre is an undoubted talent. Whether Wolves needed him or not, though, is another question entirely.
Wolves have a real problem with midfielders. Andre’s arrival has forced Lemina into a role that diminishes his contributions as a player and a captain. Lemina is not a number 10. This is not to say that Lemina is playing badly—he is okay—but there is no doubt that Andre being in the team means Lemina’s impact is reduced. Tommy Doyle must also feel like he has earned a run in the team, but where do you fit four central midfielders into one team?
Andre, Lemina, Gomes, and Doyle are four of the stronger players in a starting eleven, but only two can play in their favoured positions within this setup. One is asked to play much further forward, and the other cannot get a start. This is a problem of Wolves’ own making. Other areas of the team needed strengthening much more urgently than central midfield. What finances were available have been spent based on future financial opportunity rather than to plug massive gaps in the starting eleven.
4. Dawson’s Deflection Dilemma: Luck Just Isn’t on His Side
Craig Dawson, for the second week running, has provided a crucial deflection that brought the opposition back into the game. There’s no criticism of Dawson here; this is a difference of millimetres being brutally punished by the cosmos. Sometimes, luck just isn’t on your side.
5. Wolves’ Injury Crisis: A Lesson Unlearned
Wolves have suffered the inevitability of what looks like a serious and long-standing injury in a position where they were already short. It’s the exact same situation as the end of last season, but last year it was with the forwards, and this year it’s at centre back. The footballing gods never let clubs get away with this. If you leave yourself short in any position, you will be punished. Wolves have only themselves to blame for now looking woefully short of options and cover, a situation likely to extend until the January transfer window.
6. Wolves’ Depth Dilemma: A Crisis in the Making
Much was said this summer about the first eleven looking weaker but the squad depth looking much stronger. Is this really true? Wolves are losing games after changes have been made. It’s now part of the routine. Substitutes are adding little in the way of contributions, and every change seems to make the team worse. You could argue that the manager has made the wrong tactical decisions, and there would be some truth to that, but the performance of Wolves’ substitutes has been pretty close to woeful.
For the second week running, Wolves have had a deserved lead in games, only for changes made by the opposition to be impactful and turn winning positions into defeats. The players on Wolves’ bench are a mix of respected, proven footballers who look woefully out of form or untested players who are here based on future potential. The appearance of depth seems to be a facade. Only Tommy Doyle can have any argument at all for pushing the first team for a position, which illustrates that the perceived depth is a bit of a myth. What we have then is a worse starting eleven and a squad still lacking in quality and depth.
Wolves still look like a good team in stages of games, and there has been enough quality displayed in performances so far to think that Wolves will have enough to get themselves out of trouble when the fixtures return to something like normality. Make no mistake though, things will get worse before they get better with three more difficult fixtures to follow. What is difficult to argue against, though, is that this league moves on. It has long been said that if you stand still, you get overtaken. What the Wolves recruitment has done, though, is to knowingly worsen what we had. Wolves aren’t standing still; they are, by design, putting the team into reverse. This is not a sustainable strategy. There may or may not be three worse teams than Wolves this season, but something is broken in the long-term thinking. As much as defeat is currently an inevitability, relegation is becoming one as well. It may not be this year, but unless there is a real sea change in direction, Wolves will be going down at some point. Good players won’t accept that. Players of emerging talent won’t accept that. Despite what our views are on the start of the season, the issues here are wider and deeper than the results of the season so far
ARTICLE BY DAVE PORTER
Wolverhampton born, East Sussex based supporter. Old enough to have seen the descent to the bottom, young enough to not have experienced the days my friend. Not many Wolves fans to celebrate or commiserate with round these parts, so had to find an outlet to discuss the enormous highs, crushing lows and share the frustrations that only come with following Wolves.