Wolverhampton Wanderers welcomed third place chasing Arsenal to the Molineux on Wednesday evening, and following goals from Ruben Neves, Matt Doherty and Diogo Jota, we took a well deserved 3-1 victory on the night.
With plenty of praise flowing from the fans in light of the overall performance, Doherty admitted to the Official Website following the game that it had been a tough time after our late defeat in the FA Cup, but a performance like that was the perfect way for the players to move on and get themselves back on track as we look to end the 2018/19 campaign strongly and then, ultimately, see what happens with a possible European adventure next year.
“It’s been difficult since losing in the FA Cup semi-final. I couldn’t really get it out of my head for a couple of weeks – I was thinking about it a lot. A performance like the one against Arsenal was needed, to push those thoughts away. Now we’re seventh again, and that’s where we want to finish. That might give us a chance of playing European football – depending on what happens in the cup final – and we want to challenge ourselves, so playing in Europe is the next step.”
The really interesting part of the interview I thought was the continued change of perceptions around the club. Everyone is well aware of our upward curve following the appointment of head coach Nuno Espirito Santo and our approach to the transfer market, but confidence and spirit is important in football, and understandably in many ways, Doherty points to that and given the players that we now boast, despite it being only our first year back, he doesn’t believe that we are overachieving like some say.
“We’ve had a great season. Maybe our performances against the top six might lead some people to believe that we’ve over-achieved, but personally I don’t believe that we have. People are walking around with smiles on their faces, and we just need to make sure we finish it off strongly now.”
The real answer to that question comes in 2019/20 and whether or not ‘second season syndrome’ kicks in.
