Wolves Fans' Verdict v Watford: Sloppy showing

Matt Cooper (Talking Wolves)

Reaction to the Result

Wolves seemed to have woken up like the rest of the country – with a hangover. Sloppy passing and lapses in concentration cost us where we didn’t need to be at our best. Watford offered very little, but we offered less. The only difference being they didn’t gift us two goals. Team selection was poor but the performance was even worse.

Man of the Match

Pedro Neto was my man of the match. He tried to be cute to win a penalty but the referee saw him coming a mile away. Attacked with real directness and caused problems all afternoon. Great to see him score, too.

Something to Improve

Wolves need to wake up and not give the ball away in key areas. Just as it would on any afternoon in the Premier League, the errors in the defensive third cost us dearly.

Clive Smith

Reaction to the Result

Thankfully, we do not have many performances like that. We started OK, but four early chances were wasted. A sloppy pass in our own half saw us go a goal behind and from then on the game took a turn for the worse. Watford were happy for us to have the ball as they defended deeply. We lacked tempo with our passing and we struggled to create good openings. Changes and playing ten men raised hopes of comeback, but it never looked that likely, especially with a weak referee. We will just have to write this game off and hope we can bounce back straight away.

Man of the Match

Of the four rested players returning it was Saiss who was the standout during the first half. He was our best defender overall as Coady and Bennett kept losing out to Deeney headers. Dendoncker, in midfield presumably for his height, was frequently all at sea. Traore yet again looked our biggest threat during the second half with his constant dribbles. Enough to get MOTM despite finding it hard to create an assist when faced with just two or three attackers in the box against eight or more defenders.

Something to Improve

The quality of our squad would be the obvious answer. Too many players had off games, tired minds as much as tired limbs. We really only have fourteen available players to rotate.

Adam Virgo

Reaction to the Result

Poor result in all honesty, we got punished for our mistakes and we didn’t make enough of Watford going down to ten men. Dendoncker was at fault for both goals there’s no denying that, his performance in midfield also showed he can’t play there in a two. As soon as Neves came on, the difference in quality showed and we got on the front foot massively. Watford were on the ropes once Neto got a goal back for us but we became too predictable the longer the game went on, we were clearly using Adama and Vinagre to get balls into the box but that’s where we needed to commit more players, or do something different like go to Neves on the edge more.

Man of the Match

No one had a standout performance, Adama completing 15 dribbles was very impressive and most of his deliveries weren’t even bad, just not enough players attacking the crosses. Jonny and Neto had decent games, I was very surprised Jonny came off whilst Doherty stayed on considering the Irishman looked very leggy all game. Neves controlled the game when he came on and made a huge difference. I was also a bit disappointed he didn’t take free kick when Jota got fouled for the red card, Moutinho can clearly take them but from that range I feel like Neves would have been better.

Something to Improve

Sloppy mistakes cost us the game. Dendoncker gifted them the first goal and the second we just switched off and didn’t track Doucoure properly. Once we got back to 2-1, we didn’t create anywhere enough chances, especially when Watford went down to ten men. In those situations, an attacking midfielder who can break the lines or run forwards with the ball could be the difference.

Russ Evers (Hatherton Wolves)

Reaction to the Result

A first half performance that made you think it was the team in the casino until the early hours and not us. Too many individuals were just not at it and the majority of the performance was flat, slow, blunt and error-ridden.

Man of the Match

Coady again.

Something to Improve

Many things but Nuno will know them better than I! A bad day at the office.