Wolves ended 2023 in style as Gary O’Neil’s men put three without reply past Everton at Molineux in the team’s most complete performance of the season, making it nine points from nine to conclude the festive period.
A commanding showing at home
Wolves head into 2024 as the form team in the Premier League thanks to three wins from their final three, while scoring nine goals. No other team in the top flight has had a better Christmas record than the Old Gold – only West Ham United (with two wins from two) could overtake O’Neil’s men in festive form, but they would need to claim a 4-0 win in their clash with Brighton this evening. Wins over Chelsea and Brentford were followed up with a dominant display against the Toffees at Molineux, as Maximilian Kilman, Matheus Cunha and Craig Dawson found the back of the net to ensure Wolves won back-to-back Premier League games by three or more goals for the first time ever, and first in the top flight since April 1964.
After the match, legendary Wolves full-back Andy Thompson said: “I thought this was going to be the hardest one out of the three games they played over Christmas. I thought Everton were going to come here and make it really difficult for us, I thought they’d be a physical side, but Wolves handled Everton, they nullified a lot of their attacks and ball play well. They commanded and then they had the cutting edge to get the goals. It’s all about putting on performances and getting the right results, and they’ve done absolutely brilliant over the Christmas period.”
Wolves’ 300 Club defender and play-off hero Lee Naylor added: “They earnt the right to play. Early doors, every time Wolves went and lose the ball, they went and hunted it down and got it back and got their system playing better than Everton did. When we got in front of goal, there were probably some opportunities where we let them off the hook, but most of the time I thought we were ruthless and just dominated throughout 70 or 80 minutes of the game.”
Doyle stepping in for Lemina
Ahead of kick-off, Wolves received the heartbreaking news that Mario Lemina’s father, who had been in hospital for the last two months, had sadly passed away. The midfielder – who many have down as Wolves’ best player since his arrival at Molineux almost 12 months ago – flew out to Paris on Friday morning to join his family meaning he was absent from Saturday’s match with the Toffees. Lemina’s father were honoured at the game with the Wolves players wearing black armbands, and with every goal that went in, the scorers celebrated by lifting their teammate’s ‘Lemina 5’ shirt aloft, as the Old Gold players stepped up in his absence, but none more so than Tommy Doyle – who was instrumental in the team’s performance, playing in the role usually reserved for the Gabon international.
Naylor: “He was excellent. When you have the opportunity – I know it came from Lemina’s loss and we send our condolences out to him – but you have to take it. You want to put in a performance for yourself and he went and did that. I thought he was commanding, he put in challenges, he put in the hard yards, but he also kept it simple. It wasn’t like he was doing crazy 60, 70-yard passes here and there, he just broke down their play, went hunting in packs, got the ball back, recycled it, and went about his business, and I thought he was class.”
Thompson: “I thought he played really well. It was tough for him to come into the team with all the stuff that’s around Mario Lemina, but I thought he played really well in there and just shows the quality and the reason why we brought him to the club. I thought he was really good.”
🎯 55/59 passes completed 🔢@Tommy_Doyle8 keeping the ball moving 👏 pic.twitter.com/MDrBettf7E
— Wolves (@Wolves) January 1, 2024
Everton matching Wolves’ back five
Wolves’ slow start under O’Neil soon changed when the head coach started to play with a five at the back system which has been the club’s trademark ever since they first claimed promotion back to the Premier League back in 2018. Although the current system employed by O’Neil allows lots of flexibility, Wolves have been working hard for the last few months to perfect it, so when Everton arrived at Molineux with a back five to match the hosts up, the players in Old Gold knew exactly what they needed to do to over come it.
Naylor: “When a team changes for you, you’ve already got them on the back foot. It gave us the upper hand straight away because we play that formation better than most and we’re used to it. I thought them changing to match us up was a negative for Everton and a positive for us, and we made it work. Our work rate, our passing, the areas that we got into all afternoon – it could have been more than the three. I know Thommo was wanting more the other night at Brentford, I’m saying it could have been more here.”
Thompson: “It was the same as it was the other night. The way that we passed them down, the way that we broke them down, the way we got through the back line of Brentford, you saw it again against Everton. They were as clinical as anything, apart from a couple of offsides – so it was a great result.”
Sarabia hitting top form
After O’Neil described Saturday’s win as his favourite performance from his players this season, and many pundits complimenting the display as Wolves’ most complete of the season so far, it was difficult to pick a man of the match as not a single player put a foot wrong. Although he didn’t get on the scoresheet or claim an assist like he did in the wins over Chelsea and Brentford, the form of forward Pablo Sarabia has been one of the key positives from the last few months, with his outing at Molineux at the weekend being praised as one of his best in gold and black.
Thompson: “I think he’s got better with each of the games. He’s looking a lot more comfortable, but what it is, by playing more games, he’s got that match fitness. He’s looking sharper, his decision making and his quality with the ball has been brilliant, and I just think he’s got better with each game. He moves the ball really well and can put the ball anywhere when he’s got it, he’s got that quality and the range of passing, but there’s definitely been a big improvement with him. I questioned him coming into the team at one stage because he came with a big name, a big reputation, and I hadn’t really seen it from him, but we’re starting to see it now and the quality that he’s got.”
Naylor: “Let’s be honest, we all questioned it, but that Tottenham game changed everything for him. He was outstanding when he came on that day, and that was the first time we saw what he possesses. We all knew he had quality, he just wasn’t producing, and I think that was the change. It bred confidence within himself and the manager has to take credit for that, because he’s found a way to implement him in the team differently to how we were playing with Neto, so fair play to Sarabia for adapting and to the gaffer for putting him in a position in the team where it works for everyone.”
When you're unbeaten in eight at Molineux 🔥 pic.twitter.com/ggFvF827bX
— Wolves (@Wolves) January 1, 2024
Goals coming from all over the pitch
In the last few seasons, the Wolves supporters have been starved of goals. In the 2020/21 season, the Old Gold found the net just 36 times in the top flight, and only slightly improved to 38 goals in the following campaign. But last season Wolves produced their lowest ever Premier League goals return, finding the net just 31 times. Only once before in the entire history of Wolves have they scored fewer goals – with the 27 in the 1983/84 season beginning a decline which almost led to the demise of the football club.
But Saturday featured contributions from centre-halves Kilman and Dawson, with the former scoring just his second senior goal after his first also came in a win against Everton at Molineux, and the latter closing the team’s scoring for the year after also scoring the first goal in his first appearance for the club in February. With goals also coming from Lemina and Matt Doherty over the Christmas period, it’s not just the forwards who have been finding the back of the net, leaving Wolves just one goal short of last season’s final tally – with half of the campaign still left to play!
Thompson: “We’ve said that time and time again over the last few years – everybody’s got to contribute, you can’t just rely on a few players to score, because that’s been our problem. If the one or two players who we expect to score – the strikers – don’t score, then we struggle. But now, all of sudden, there are players popping up with goals from all over the pitch. But that’s because of confidence, because of the way we play, and having the confidence on the pass that is coming in and making sure you get there. Look at the quality of the ball for Dawson. Cunha played the ball in for Dawson and it was a quality ball put into the right area. How many times did we question the final ball? But all of sudden, the penny seems to have dropped to him and the way that things are going, people are putting the quality into the box. Semedo put a few great balls into the box today, so it just shows that everything just seems to be clicking at the right time for them.”
Thompson and Naylor were talking to Mikey Burrows on Wolves’ official post-match podcast, Matchday Live Extra, which is available to listen to now on all podcast providers.
