Comment: Nuno won't trade in beliefs for Wolves success

The Wolves head coach had just seen his team beaten 3-2 by Tottenham Hotspur, on November 3.

Wolves were sliced open by Spurs and could easily have been 4-0 or 5-0 down before a rousing late comeback almost claimed an unlikely point.

It was their third successive defeat and Nuno was asked if he would consider adopting a more conservative approach in a bid to improve results.

His answer was emphatic.

"We have a 'how' and this is the most important thing we have – how we do things," he added.

"How we do it, it’s our way, our style, our ideas, with our principles, with our mistakes that we have to correct."

A week later Wolves took on Arsenal at the Emirates and very nearly blew away their prestigious hosts. They played the better football, created the better chances and were devastated not to earn all three points.

The reason they didn't? And the reason they lost 2-0 to Huddersfield on Sunday? Well the answer lies in Nuno's quote 'mistakes that we have to correct'.

The style, the ideas and the principles that Nuno talks of, there's been nothing wrong with those for the past 15 months, with Wolves romping to the Championship title and then losing only one of their first eight games to sit just five points off the top of the Premier League (just five games ago).

So will a five-game winless run lead to Nuno ripping up his own rulebook and sacrificing the principles that he has engulfed this football club in? Well, no. There's more chance of Neil Warnock giving up the whole football thing and going full time at an Indian transcendental meditation retreat.

"Nuno has the strength of vision to go through with his own convictions," assistant Ian Cathro told me in the summer, adding that there were 'very few things' that could knock the likes of Nuno off track.

"It's not a materialistic or superficial thing because it looks nice," Cathro added on the philosophy that he and Nuno share. "It’s because we believe that’s the best way of getting the team the most probability of being in control of the game and winning.

"That’s something that comes from inside, from your own strength and what you commit to and are convinced of."

Nuno's conviction in his principles was a major strength last season. It was a major strength up until October 6 this season, too, when Wolves last won a match. Any suggestion that is now becomes a weakness is folly.

The issue is when those convictions become stubbornness, and watching Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho continuously overrun by Huddersfield's terrier-like (yes, I know) midfield trio you wondered if Wolves needed a good old Plan B.

But it's too late for that. Nuno has drilled his formation, his ideas, his philosophy into his players since day one, back in Austria last summer, and a tactical revolution now could spell disaster. He won't do it.

If he was given a choice between ordering his team to 'chuck it into the mixer' or resign and become Macclesfield Town's manager, he'd be driving up the M6 quicker than you can order two bottles of Sol.

Indeed, while the head coach has been guilty of a couple of mistakes lately, mostly in terms of substitutions, and was arguably out-thought tactically by David Wagner on Sunday, it's the players who really need to step up.

They're young, they're still adapting to the Premier League and Sunday proved that, goodness me, there is no such thing as an easy game in this league.

Huddersfield arrived at Molineux having won a solitary away league game in the whole of 2018 (at the Hawthorns in February) but they produced a display worthy of a top-10 side, with a couple of passes of sumptuous football that the Brazil team of 1970 would have been proud of.

Only two or three Wolves players did themselves justice – a complete role reversal of that trip to Arsenal.

The step up in quality from the Championship is vast and Wolves can rightly point to the fact they've only not turned up in two of their opening 13 matches (Watford being the other).

Raul Jimenez bore the brunt of fan frustration on Saturday after that almost comical refusal to shoot when through on goal, but it must be stressed once more that the Mexican has been involved in eight of Wolves' 12 goals so far (three goals, five assists).

It's the guys either side of him who haven't stepped up to the plate yet. Helder Costa was unplayable at times against Arsenal and Spurs but he is yet to break his drought for goals or assists, ditto Diogo Jota.

They and Ivan Cavaleiro contributed 38 per cent of Wolves' goals last season, but between them they've netted only two so far as we head towards Christmas (both from Cavaleiro).

If Wolves weren't creating chances, there'd be a problem. If they looked shoddy defensively, there'd be a problem. But despite the goals they've shipped recently, they don't look like a porous defence. Only the teams in the Champions League positions have conceded fewer goals.

Indeed, if the new buzz-stat 'expected goals' counted both for and against, Wolves would be sixth in the table.

"People say that the most difficult part is scoring the goal, but what I have to do is get the player there," Nuno told Sky Sports this week.

"If you focus on the goal instead of the how then suddenly the chances start to decrease. The encouraging part is that we create and at the same time we are solid."

The winless run must be stopped and Friday would be a great time to do so at Cardiff, where a defeat will have Wolves looking over their shoulders.

Half the team looked a yard off the pace against Huddersfield. Romain Saiss must be close to getting a chance, or Morgan Gibbs-White. Maybe even some chap who cost £12m and plays for Belgium.

If the players want or need inspiration, they need look no further than Conor Coady, who is setting standards in terms of performances and attitude.

Wolves' man of the match for two games in a row, Coady embodies the 'strength of the wolf is in the pack' mantra that will be needed more than ever on Friday.

A motivated Cardiff team in desperate need of points will be fired up, of that you can be certain. Warnock will be out for revenge – Nuno needs to hold his nerve and get the best from his players, none more so than Moutinho and Neves, whose struggles have coincided with Wolves' dip.

You'd back him to do so.

Yes there are reasons for concern and yes, a reality check will do this club no harm at all, but come on, who wouldn't have taken 11th place at the start of the season? And where are Wolves right now?