Karl Whitehouse gives his match report for wolves defeat at Anfield
This was a game of two halves of football with the first half being good and the second half not so good.
Match 25 of Wolves season and 25 days on from the 3-0 win at Molineux and Wolves could do the double against Liverpool for the first times since the 1950/51 season.
Julen Lopetgui made one change to the starting 11 bringing in Joao Moutinho for Matheus Cunha who had failed at late fitness test.
Wolves starting 11: Sa, Semedo, Dawson, Kilman, Bueno, Lemina, Neves, Moutinho, Nunes, Sarabia, Jimenez. Subs Ait Nouri, Podence, Gomes, Costa, Adama, Bentley, Jonny, Collins, Neto.
Jurgen Klopp made six changes to his starting 1 bringing in Konate, Tsimikas, Fabinho, Elliott, Bajcetic, Nunez and dropping Matip, Robertson, Henderson, Milner, Keita, Gakpo.
Liverpool starting 11: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Tsimikas; Fabinho, Elliott, Bajcetic; Salah, Jota, Nunez. Subs: Kelleher, Matip, Robertson, Milner, Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Carvalho, Gakpo, Firmino
FIRST HALF
This game was originally scheduled for September 10th 2022 but was postponed due to the passing of Her Majesty The Queen as a mark of respect.
Wolves kicked off shooting towards the Kop End in the first half where Liverpool with shooting towards the Anfield Road End and the away fans. Our best chance of the game was in the opening minutes when Pablo Sarabia passed the ball to Joao Moutinho and his effort from inside box was turned around the post by Alisson for a Wolves corner. Raul Jimenez also had a chance with a overhead kick in the game and that went wide of the post.
But there was to be a big blow for Wolves. Hugo Bueno went down with a injury after chasing Mo Salah and this didn’t look good. Bueno had a good game against Fulham but it looks like a hamstring injury resulting in Wolves making an early change bringing on Rayan Ait Nouri. Will this change ruin the good start?
Liverpool had their chances in the game with Jota, Nunez and Elliot but the first half ended with the scores level at the break with a hard fought 45mins.
SECOND HALF
Second half starts with a another substitution for Wolves this time Pablo Sarabia taken off with Adama Traore coming on will this spark a difference?
Neither Wolves or Liverpool take control and both suffering from sloppy balls with nothing much of note happening in the final third. Julen Lopetegui makes a change bringing on Daniel Podence and Joao Gomes coming onto the field in place of Matheus Nunes and Joao Moutinho
The game just passed the hour mark when Liverpool thought Darwin Nunez had scored the opening goal but the Wolves players contest and immediately complain of a foul in the build up. VAR declare the goal disallowed following a foul by Jota on Maximilian Kilman who was attempting to clear the ball away and the game is still level.
This was a warning sign of what was to come in the match with Liverpool looking much more likely to score than Wolves.
The momentum was with Liverpool and this time there was no VAR decision to save the day. Jota collected a loose ball from Joe Sa’s save which he crossed for Van Dijk to head into a open net.
Almost immediately Wolves conceded another goal when Konstantinos Tsimikas went down the left hand side with Nelson Semedo losing his footing crossing for Mo Salah to put the ball into the back of the net.
Wolves are now chasing a game. The substitutions that Lopetegui made in the second half has left us wide open in the game for Liverpool to exploit. We have hardly had a chance in the game since the third minute of the first half it is so frustrating for a team like us.
A late substitute near the end of the game saw Raul Jimenez comes off the pitch to be replaced by Costa too little to late with this change where the game has clearly gone. Daniel Podence did cross for Costa late on in injury time in the game but it came to nothing so Liverpool hold on for the victory 2-0.
IN CONCLUSION
This result leaves Wolves in 15th Place with 24 points from 25 games played with Tottenham to come on Saturday 4th March there is plenty of work for Lopetegui to get this team ready for the next one.
My opinions s that Wolves were great in the first half keeping Liverpool from scoring with the game plan working but when the second half started we looked too open and the substitutes didn’t have as much impact as expected.
Liverpool took their chances to score goals where as Wolves had just one on target attempt on goal in the whole game. This is a concern especially when it is nearly a year since a striker scored.
Some fans are asking questions – Is it the Bournemouth game that started this downturn? We don’t know but Lopetegui has to find the answers as we have 13 games left now and another top half side to play this weekend. We need to get results as this was a disappointing display and the team should have done better in all departments.
article by Karl Whitehouse
I am a Wolves fan been for over 30 years. I have supported them both home and away games in the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s and now like looking into wolves games the stats behind the games they play in the premier league and also look other stats if asked by someone else in the podcast. I have also done the 92 football league grounds and shortly be doing a ebook about peoples favourite match they went to along with a match report and if possible stats from game.