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“It Would Be Easy To Point At The Defence” – Wolves Fan Offers His Thoughts After Chelsea Debacle

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Writer: DJWolves

Wolves went into Saturday’s home game against Chelsea looking for their first Premier League win of the season, but came out of it having suffered their biggest defeat under the management of Nuno and looking some way short of the team that made such a fine return to the top flight last season. There will be many opinions around as to why they are not producing the goods and Nuno must sift through his own thoughts and find a way to win league matches before this season becomes a major disappointment.

There can be little doubt that participation in the Europa League has had an impact, but qualifying for the Group stage means that challenge isn’t going away and Wolves must find the balance so that progress in that isn’t at the expense of the bread and butter. The Europa campaign began on the last Thursday of July and in the 45 days up to the Chelsea game they have now had 11 competitive games. And the internationals amongst the squad also had games and travelling during the recent break. This time last season they had only had 6 competitive games, and Chelsea on Saturday were playing their 5th competitive game of the season. Regardless of how fit a team is, some sharpness is lost by playing twice a week repetitively.

Added to the game time, each away game in Europe and each participation in an international game takes three days out of preparations for the weekend including two days of travelling, and most teams suffer form loss after those kind of weeks. And possibly the biggest impact of all on the league games has been Nuno trying to keep players sharp by resting them from individual games, and the unchanged line ups that were a feature of last season and added to the consistency of performance has been lost. And working with a small squad has meant some changes have resulted in a weakening of the team selected.

Where Wolves have suffered most from changing faces is in defence and the injury to Doherty and the suspension of Boly has added to those changes. At Everton we saw Traore and Vinagre in the wing back positions, two players who are much better going forward than they are in defence. And Everton exploited that resulting in the three centre backs regularly being pulled out of position to cover the gaps. This week against Chelsea we at least saw the return of Jonny which gave more security on the left. But we still had Traore on the right who did make some impact going forward, but Chelsea were getting in behind him regularly in defence. With Boly suspended, Saiss came in on the left and it was surprising in that respect that this was the game that Nuno decided to leave out Bennett and bring in Vallejo for his first league game. He started well but gradually began to struggle and with Traore not offering much assistance defensively, Chelsea found a very easy way through the defence on that side for their key second and third goals.

There is also a sense that teams have found a way to play against this Wolves defence. Last year Coady impressed as the sweeper behind a solid backline, but this year we are seeing strikers pushing forward on to him more and on Saturday in the resultant battle with Tammy Abrahams, Coady certainly came out second best on the day. With Doherty now fit and Boly returning from suspension there is surely a case for returning to the back 5 that did so well last season, with Doherty and Jonny contributing in attack and defence in the wide positions, and Boly and Bennett providing a barrier in front of Coady.

Having conceded 8 goals in the last two league games it would be easy to point all the fingers at the defence but that would certainly not tell the true story. Wolves have underperformed in midfield, with Neves falling well short of his usual standard of passing, Dendoncker having to focus too much on covering the spaces on the right hand side of the defence, and even Moutinho, although the best of the midfield players, has not been at his best. Upfront the service to Jota and Jimenez has been poor and both those have looked leggy in recent games after the Europa and international travels, after both looked on fire in the early August games. Cutrone at least has shown the work rate and skill to be able to be effectively used as an alternative to those two. But Neves and Jota both need to step up a gear on recent form as they are so important to this Wolves team.

Next up for Wolves is the first game in the Group Stage of the Europa Cup when Braga come to Molineux on Thursday. The target for Wolves is to finish in the top two of the group so that they qualify for the knockout stages of the competition in the new year. Braga are the 4th best team in Portugal, regularly being best of the rest behind the big three of Benfica, Porto and Sporting Lisbon. As such they qualify for Europe year after year so know what this competition is all about. It won’t, therefore, be an easy ride for Wolves but a win is needed not just to help towards qualification but to get the season back on track after two defeats and make sure confidence doesn’t become an issue. Its 6 wins out of 6 so far in this competition so form in these games has not been an issue, and be good to take the first step on another unbeaten run at Molineux with the most recent run lasting from January until Saturday.

We wouldn’t take anything away from the importance of the result needed on Thursday, but there will probably be a greater eye on getting the first Premier League win of the season at Palace on Sunday. 5 games without a league win is quite enough, thank you.

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