Bruno Lage: Wolves lost the battle

The visitors struggled to get hold of the ball throughout the game as Palace dominated possession and quickly closed Wolves down.

In the end, they came away with a deserved win and Lage has challenged his side to be fearless in the future.

“We challenged ourselves to come here and continue to make a good performance like we did against Everton,” he said.

“It’s the challenge for this team, as players, and also for me as a manager. That’s the dimension I want. The challenge was with ourselves to continue with a good performance, but we didn’t.

“Crystal Palace had a massive performance against us. They were better in the duels, not just defensively but also offensively.

“This comes from the dimension I want. Me as a manager, the things I want from my team and my players. Don’t be afraid of anything and let's play our game. Don’t be scared of anything.

“We look at our performances and results and today it wasn’t a good performance. I am not happy today but when I look back at what we did in the last five or six matches, I cannot judge my players just because of today.”

A pattern has emerged with Wolves’ away performances of late, with the side struggling to get going in the forward areas.

But Lage insists it was Palace’s ability to deny Wolves space that ultimately led to their victory.

When asked about the poor away performances, Lage said: “I think just in the last two (performances). What we did at Southampton and Watford was good.

“Against Newcastle it was a hard day for us because of the way we press.

“Certainly Patrick Vieira will have looked at the last two games against Leeds and Everton and understand if they give us space we will manage the ball the way we want.

“They came with higher pressure to close our game and create problems when we start from the back.

“We need to be clever to find the spaces and we can manage the ball the way we want. We didn’t have the ball too much.

“They were better than us. I will watch the game again but look at the duels. I want more from my men when we have the ball and especially the one-on-one duels.”

VAR had a major part to play in the fixture, as Wilfried Zaha’s opener was rightly given after being initially flagged offside, while a Wolves penalty was overturned after Joel Ward brought down Rayan Ait-Nouri.

Although Lage is a supporter of VAR, he believes the penalty should have stood despite contact starting just outside the box.

“I didn’t look at the first image, so I don’t have an opinion,” he added.

“First, I think VAR is very important for modern football and it can help the referees to be better.

“The second one. Sometimes you need to understand what really happened during the action and not just on TV. With Rayan, the big foul was inside the box.

“There was a touch outside but the big foul is inside the box. In that way, they should go by the referee’s opinion.

“The referee saw it was a big foul inside the box, and not the first touch. He didn’t whistle for the first touch, the first contact, he whistled for happened in the box.”