What Went Wrong for Wolves at Bournemouth? 5 Hard Truths

Every one of the football experts have Wolves as one of the three to go down. Vitor showed today that he was not afraid to change the team. But still we wait for Lopez debut. Does he know his best team after pre season. They didn’t play today like a team on the same page. Compare us to Bournemouth, they’ve lost several defenders but have brought players in and they were a carbon copy of the style of team we played last year. They have an identity Wolves don’t!.

 

Players not performing like we know they can. I don’t know what has happened to Agbadou since he hung up his boots at the end of last season. He was the lynchpin that the stability came back into the Wolves defence. He was a rock. He seemed to be able to defuse danger without breaking sweat. Fast forward to pre season and the cracks were there to see, mistakes, lapses of judgement. Against City last week he was at fault on a number of occasions. Today he was at times a disaster waiting to happen. The deflection off him deceived Sa for the first goal. His assured play has gone. With it the back three organisation and stability. It has to be seen how long Vitor will give him to regain his confidence.

This one could have been number one. Sales and Signings. Wolves are renowned for leaving things until the last couple of days but this year it’s different. Two high profile players were sold in Cunha and Ait-Nouri. Both sold understandably for higher fees. But Wolves hadn’t got replacements. Then we shipped out Doyle and Traore without having replacements. Wolves have had a troublesome year this time with players turning down moves to the Golden Palace. In comparison Brentford and Bournemouth have had changes but they appear to have adapted better.

Wolves are really suffering from the loss of Cunha and Ait-Nouri with regards to creativity. In addition Guedes and Sarabia moving on have left gaping holes in Wolves forward play. It’s sad to observe that Wolves biggest recent threat has been a Larsen flick on to Munetsi.  This was Wolves biggest chance on Saturday. There are no wide players, Lopez didn’t start. Hwang who can play wide also didn’t start. Unless Wolves are able to bring in some new players who are first team ready its going to be a long season. 

 

Officials are my final note this week. Only two games in and nothing has improved. Watching the one sided officials treatment of some of the Wolves players yesterday. I mentioned earlier about Wolves naivety. Bournemouth got away with numerous repeat fouls that didn’t result in yellow and subsequently red cards. Toti was stupid to get booked twice for the same offence. He sold his teammates down the river with his actions. But Scott was guilty of repeat fouls all game. He was lucky to not receive a red card had VAR been awake to his waist high challenge that was late in the waist high region of Santi Bueno. Had he been booked earlier for his persistent fouls he would have gone for the second offence. He could easily have had the high challenge upgrade. But he survived and was substituted before anything else could happen. Wolves lost Hoever to an injury from an awkward fall from a headed clearance. What actually happened was that Semenyo shoved him whilst he was in the air causing him to land awkwardly. At least a booking, but not even a free kick. So as not to be accused of bias – Man City v Spurs on Match of the Day Porro was brought down close to the penalty area. The official waved play on, no foul. However surely VAR should have checked for a penalty and seen the contact by the defender, correctly giving a foul to Spurs. There are numerous other incidents for another day.