Despite defeat to Liverpool on Saturday evening, Wolves put in a fighting display, which was enough to impress Matchday Live guests Andy Thompson and Lee Naylor.
Rayan Ait-Nouri scored Wolves’ first second half Premier League goal of the season to bring his side level against the new league leaders, but Liverpool instantly responded from the penalty spot and saw out the victory.
Former full-backs Thompson and Naylor watched on from the press box, and saw plenty of reasons to be optimistic, particularly in the midfield, and now they want Gary O’Neil’s side to be even bolder when they travel to Brentford next weekend.
Letting a drawing position slip quickly
Thompson said: “To get themselves back in the game and get on level terms in the second half, and then to concede within a minute. That’s when you make it as difficult as possible, you get your shape, you get everybody behind the ball, your starting positions are right. It's a massive blow because it had been a massive effort to get themselves back into the game. You can't afford to keep switching off in this game, even if it's for a second or so. Semedo thought there was no danger, but then all of a sudden, the ball comes across and there is a danger, and he tried to get back at him, and he ended up giving away the penalty. That's the difference.
“It was our first goal in a second half as well this season, and it’s just a massive blow with the way that things are going at the minute, the luck that they're having. But on a positive note, throughout the game we saw a lot better performance. I know the result’s everything, but at least it showed us that they've got that quality in the second half, which we haven't shown.”
Naylor said: “I think there's a lot to take from that game, but when you score, you're told as a player that you have to be heightened for the next few minutes in that game. Make sure you make no mistakes, because that's when you’re susceptible to a goal against you. You're told that as a professional and what did it take 60 seconds? I think that's preventable.”
Could Wolves have shown more quality?
Naylor said: “They were waiting for Wolves to push onto them. You could see Gary O'Neil trying to get his team to push up, to speed them up. Liverpool were just keeping the ball. But I think that Wolves stood a little bit static against them. When we had the ball at the back, we needed that movement. We needed somebody to make a run, somebody to come short. But they were standing right up against their back line when we had the ball and it's difficult to find them.”
Thompson said: “The only success that we had was the diagonal one to Cunha on the left hand side, it caused them problems. But we didn't have it through the middle or on the right in the second half. Forbs, I thought there were times where he could come short for the ball and then spin. Then it would give something for some Semedo to do by playing the ball in there. They needed some kind of movement and action up front.”
Players catching the eye for Wolves
Naylor said: "Andre and Gomes I thought were top, but they're going up against another top midfield. I thought, if you were to put them against each other, I thought we got the better of them in midfield. I thought Santi was brilliant for his first game in for a long, long while. I thought he was top.”
Thompson said: “I thought there was some good performances out there today. I think there'll be a lot of pluses from that game. Don't get me wrong, the manager is going to pick faults within the performance, because he's ended up losing the game and conceding two goals, but I think that was a lot better as a whole, against the team which has gone top of the league, and we’ve done enough to get something out of the game.”
A chance to take more gambles
Naylor said: “I don't take Larsen off. I'd put Hwang up top with him. We're a goal behind and we need points. Larsen wasn’t having a bad game, he was putting himself about, that's what he does, and I just thought he needed someone off him and I thought Hwang would have been perfect to play off. What is wrong with doing that?”
Thompson said: “He [Strand Larsen] was disappointed when he came off. Nobody wants to be substituted. I just thought maybe we could have sacrificed another midfield when we were chasing the game. Just a little bit of a twist with the formation, we could have gone up there and gone a little bit more positive. You've brought on Forbs as a winger, you put Cunha out on the left hand side, and it gives you something. You aren’t necessarily going to win anything, but what he's going to be is a body in there.”
Brentford away coming next
Thompson said: “I'd like us just to be bold and go for it. We had opportunities, and you heard the fans, where we had an opportunity one versus one. We've had an opportunity to either deliver the ball in or get at somebody. As defenders we want you to pass the ball back. It drags everybody else up the pitch. I would just like to see us being positive, especially when we're in their half of the pitch. That was the best I’ve seen him play for us [Hwang vs Brentford last season], Brentford didn’t have a clue where he was. He was running across the lines, timing his runs. You had that movement up front, which caused them all kinds of problems. That was probably the last time we saw Hwang as the player he is.
“When he went to international duty, I thought it was a shame because Brentford had no idea how to deal with him, because of how good his performance was. He got 12 goals last year, so it shows you the quality, but he doesn’t look anywhere near that at the minute. Does that come because he needs a run in the side. Who knows?”
Keeping the belief
Thompson said: “With all the pressure they're under, because they haven't won this season yet, they showed some characters. They showed some they showed fight, which was appreciated by the number of fans that stayed when the Wolves players went to clap them. So that shows that they still believe in their team. They still want our team to do well, but they want to see that fight and fire on the pitch, and we got a little bit of that.”
Players that are fighting
Thompson said: “I thought the two lads played well in there. They battled hard, they tried to take the game to them, they’re horrible to play against because they're constantly niggling at you. I know Gomes gets a lot of bookings against him, and I know Andre's got a record of bookings as well, and you can see why, because they're just relentless. They just keep going and they keep chasing things down.
“You can see that they still believe by the way the played. They still believe in what they're doing. I'm sure the manager will as well, and I'm sure he's telling them that – they got punished by a couple of mistakes by switching off, but I thought it was a good performances, and they showed some character to keep fighting.”
