Wolves Fans' Verdict v Crystal Palace: Beaten by the better team

Russ Evers

Luckily I was watching this game in Tenerife which is probably about the same home journey time as a trip to less than sunny Croydon.

We were simply too defensive and seemed to try and pass backwards at every opportunity.

That said, the front three all had individual and collective off days while Semedo (again) was culpable for the first goal. Yes we were unlucky with VAR but we got what we deserved – nothing. At least the sun is still shining in Playa de las Americas!

John Lalley

It was the nature of the performance as much as the defeat itself that rankles with this disappointing result.

Wolves have enjoyed a decent unbeaten run, showed a lot of character in response to a frustrating start and on Monday against Everton excelled for much of a highly satisfying and rewarding game.

When next up their teams are unrecognisable and offer virtually nothing worthwhile, frustrated managers and coaches frequently express their surprise and bewilderment unable to explain the drastic dip in quality.

That Wolves continue to punctuate the fixture card with such numbing no-shows comes as no great surprise; we just have to hope that the number of times they indulge themselves in such listless dross is kept to the bare minimum. We witnessed similar half-price displays all too often last year and for this group of players this kind of amnesia will inevitably descend from time to time.

Palace were energetic, committed and reasonably competent and on this particular day it was more than enough to find Wolves submitting without much resistance. Apart from a spirited showing from Max Kilman whose assurance and composure is the highlight of the season so far, Wolves were little short of deplorable.

The first goal was carelessly conceded and virtually settled the outcome; we had nothing to offer by way of retaliation, conceded weakly for a second time and drifted to the inevitable defeat. It was all eerily reminiscent of the grisly defeat suffered at an empty Selhurst Park last season; once again Palace grateful in the extreme that Wolves opted to be supremely awful.

The same players who last Monday had harried Everton to distraction with their pace, energy and determination were absolutely flat, meandering disjointedly devoid of any positive notion of how to win this game. It’s intensely frustrating to face up to the irritation of another international distraction in the wake of such a half-hearted damp squib but that is the reality.

We have to hope that the players can string together another decisive run of games similar to the five unbeaten that saw us rapidly shoot up the table. It’s all too easy to talk glibly of eliminating errors and achieving consistency; the truth is only the best teams come near to achieving such lofty aims.

Our squad and resources dictate that we will fall short on occasions sometimes with alarming regularity but as we have already proved, a decent shot at this level is in no way beyond our compass. We will endure further rehashes of Saturday’s debacle no doubt, but ultimately, Wolves will stabilise their position. Hard league this; we’re holding our own.

Clive Smith

Sometimes you have to hold your hand up and say you were beaten by a better team. If ever a team reflected their manager then it was Palace. We were bullied out of the game as we were pinned into our own half in a similar way to the second half at Leeds. No doubt the original intention was not to spend so much time defending but the way the game went that was what happened.

The first half was almost a defensive master class, protecting Sa in his goal well, with all three central defenders doing well, but knowing full well they had been 'in a game'. Getting a foothold in attack though proved beyond us. The constant pressure inevitably told after the interval and once behind we never looked likely to get back into it. Near the end we had a few corners but always looked outnumbered whatever we tried.

Palace were very physical and the referee's interpretation of soft fouls did us no favours. Our attempts of playing the ball out from the back were not too successful as it encouraged Palace to advance and close us down quickly. Time on the ball was at a premium and, early on, Semedo was the only player who found any space but his touch and control let him down near their box.

Yet again MOTM Neves looked the most likely to create anything, although he found it hard to find a pass when nothing looked on. His work rate was phenomenal while Jimenez tried to lead the line but found it hard to retain possession or link up with Hwang or Trincao.

No doubt all of the match stats would be in Palace's favour, but six inches difference on a couple of decisions might well have made the result a draw.

After going behind on the hour we were crying out for changes to be made. Frankly though our options looked limited. Dendoncker might have helped stifle some attacks, but it was too late for that. Meanwhile it had not felt like a Trincao sort of game, nor Podence, but equally Traore would have seen little of the ball in attack either. It is perhaps a timely reminder that we still need a deeper squad, with quality, as there will, no doubt, be more games like this to come.

Rob Cartwright

Not the result or performance that we wanted, but these things will happen while the team is in transition. Bruno is trying to stamp his style onto the same set of players and performances have been mixed and inconsistent.

We failed to impose any sort of authority on this game. Our midfield could not get themselves on the ball to create and the forwards looked very isolated, rather than the dangerous trio were saw against Everton. You couldn’t fault Bruno for starting with the same eleven, though I am frustrated by his timing and tactics around his substitutions. Not for the first time, we needed to change things earlier with Podence and Traore on the bench. I don’t understand the Traore to wing-back change with so little time remaining.

Both goals were a little fortunate, but Palace were well ahead in terms of possession and chances created. Vieira has them playing well. VAR was against us too, but again both decisions were correct on seeing replays.

It seemed that the whole team were below par, so difficult to find a man of the match. I think Ait-Nouri was the one who seemed to remain positive in trying to get back into a game that had simply passed us by.

We’ve had a decent start to the season. I hope this is “just one of those days” like Brentford was. If we can bounce back and put another good run together now, we will be well placed for the Christmas period and a January window where we will find out much about Fosun’s ambition for the club.

Adam Virgo

Terrible performance and Crystal Palace deserved their win. We couldn’t handle their high and aggressive press, we took too long to change anything up/made questionable changes and ended up paying the price eventually with them scoring twice.

Brentford did something very similar to us and we struggled massively then too. With teams like West Ham, Man City and Liverpool coming very soon, we need to find a way to cope with the high press a lot better otherwise it’ll be a lot worse than just 2-0 defeats.

We couldn’t string together more than three passes whenever we went forward. It looked incredible easy for Palace’s defence, we turned the ball over far too much and especially in the first half. Our midfield got overrun and dominated by their three, something should have been addressed their a lot earlier in the game. Moutinho being on a yellow card so early didn’t help us either.

Adama needed to come on for Trincao either at half time or 5-10 minutes after because he was really struggling and the Spaniard would have actually been able to get us up the pitch and hold onto the ball a lot better.

If we had done that at 0-0 and still conceded, we could have easily changed to a back 4 and done something similar to Villa because we looked a completely different team in that formation.

Bringing Adama on at right-wing-back for Semedo was a very strange decision, the best dribbler/carrier of the ball in the league not being utilised in a more advanced role. He barely saw the ball and before we knew it we were 2-0 down and the game was done.

Ait-Nouri and Kilman were the only two who deserved any credit from the game, the rest were nowhere near good enough. It’s frustrating how we can go from playing incredibly well in the first half against Everton to then looking like a completely different side in the next game. Some credit has to be given to Crystal Palace too but we are much better than that.

On the flip side we’re still in a very good position and we have been on an incredible run, a defeat was always going to happen eventually. We need to go again quickly after the international break because we’ve got a tough run of fixtures coming up.