It’s uncommon for managers to reveal team selections before a game, let alone Nuno ‘Cards Close to His Chest’ Espirito Santo. Usually only injured players would be ruled out before a game.

Whether Nuno gave Ruddy the nod for pre-FA Cup game time, or to deal with Cardiff’s physicality up front - or both - it was surprising, but understandable.

When it came to 2pm and the lineups being announced on Saturday, your eyebrows may have risen so high, they disappeared Neil Warnock-style, after seeing Nuno’s changes.

He has certainly given himself a selection headache, as his midfield line of Ruben Vinagre, Romain Saiss, Morgan Gibbs-White, Leander Dendoncker and Adama Traore did their jobs superbly.

Wolves weren’t fully on top until scoring. John Ruddy nearly one-upped his Shrewsbury error, spilling the ball in the six yard box before scooping it up just ahead of an oncoming attacker. After this, in fairness, he was solid and did his job commendably, deserving his clean sheet.

After this frantic start, two quickfire goals put Wolves in control of the game. The second was the suckerpunch for Cardiff, and reminded of Watford doing the same to us at Molineux back in October.

Both goals were fantastic in their own way. The first was total football, liquid football, pure football, with the final manoeuvre between Gibbs-White, Raul Jimenez and Diogo Jota finishing off a superb team goal.

The second goal is testament to the dogged nature of Jimenez and Jota up front, as Raul nicked the ball from Cardiff’s defence and Jota assisted the goal, returning the favour from a minute or so earlier.

Wolves posted a statistic on Twitter that Jota has scored or assisted every 71 minutes in the past three months - truly phenomenal.

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By playing Vinagre and Traore as wing backs, Nuno probably played the most direct, attacking options in the squad. They both offer exceptional pace, skill and dribbling.

It will be very hard to drop the pair after this game, with both putting in some of their best performances in a Wolves shirt.

This position arguably suits Traore better than up front, with his best football coming out wide. If only he could finish - he seemed to lose his compass at the vital moment, when a goal would have capped off a superb performance.

Reports after the game suggested that Vinagre clocked up the highest running speed in the Premier League this season, hitting almost 22 miles per hour.

This pair of wing backs have astonishing pace and don’t deserve dropping - although Matt Doherty and Jonny probably didn’t either!

Nuno’s other dilemma comes in midfield. Will he bring back Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho, dropping one of the three who played so well?

One of Saiss or Dendoncker will have to drop into defence to cover for the suspended Ryan Bennett, so Moutinho would likely be the first to step back into the team.

This weekend’s opponents Chelsea take on Dynamo Kiev at home on Thursday night, meaning Wolves will be far fresher than their opponents.

In the battle for seventh place, with Watford taking on Man City, this could be a big game. A result isn’t out of the realms of possibility.