It’s time to twiddle your thumbs for a bit as real football takes second stage to another pointless international break, but Wolverhampton Wanderers went into the October lull in good spirits with a hard-fought win over Crystal Palace last weekend.
With a number of clear positives to come from the game as we continue a fine start to life back in the top-flight and the Premier League, some fans did find a negative and that was the performance of Diogo Jota.
The 21-year-old was far from at his best but he certainly wasn’t the only player to have a low number of touches and a low passing accuracy based on the standards we’ve seen from him already and statistics website WhoScored did actually have him as our fourth best player on the day but just as perceptions can be misleading, it’s fair to say so can statistics.
How many times as he made poor simple passes? Very frustrating. Like the lay off to Neves today. Not only was it short and poor. Nearly caused Neves an injury too. By far the worst player in our 11. Hopefully he comes good! deffo got the talent.
— Mathew Ward (@Matman050988) October 6, 2018
I really hope so…it looks like a confidence thing imo. You can see the glimpses of the old Jota but theres not enough of it. Created a couple of chances in first half today tho. Difficult one to call
— Michelle M-S ???? (@Wellygoggs13) October 6, 2018
#wwfc we all know jota is a great player on his day. would love most for him to be that player and dont want to lose patience with him but were 8 games in now and havent seen the player that he was last season once yet.i know he'll turn it round eventually but how long do we wait
— James (@Jamesgough1985) October 6, 2018
Swear to god it looks like Jota and Costa have lost pace too
— Spencer (@SpencerWWFC) October 6, 2018
Very, very average first half. Jota lacks serious confidence at the moment. Loads of missed placed passes, lack of movement meaning we’re getting caught on the ball. Need to sharpen up. #wwfc @Wolves
— 1877Wolves (@WolvesTruth) October 6, 2018
Pretty poor first half. Jota looks half the player he was last year. #wwfc
— jon dent (@jon306) October 6, 2018
With Jota not quite hitting the heights of last year it’s understandable as to why there’s some frustration, but the above fans have hardly written him off as given his age, he’s not the only one still adjusting to the top tier and some players always take longer than others to truly find their feet after promotion.
He’ll come good again and with Nuno Espirito Santo in his ear, I have no reason to doubt that.