Wolves debrief: Super Romain Saiss saves them from missed opportunities

Bruno Lage’s men still are not clinical enough in the final third but, thankfully, the defenders are performing excellently.

The Seagulls just could not get past them while Romain Saiss came up with a lovely winner.

Super Saiss

And first of all, on Saiss, what an amazing servant he continues to be for Wolves.

Skipper Conor Coady and rising star Max Kilman have rightly been showered with praise for their work as of late.

Saiss, though, has been right there with them and was the star man on the south coast.

Some might have thought that this would be the year where the Moroccan, having been with the club since 2016, started to play more of a bit-part role.

But at 31, he is still putting in top-drawer displays on a consistent basis.

A word must go to Ruben Neves for spotting Saiss with a sumptuous lofted through-ball.

How he managed to see him through such a crowd of bodies, let alone pick him out, was difficult to fathom.

Saiss, however, still had to apply the finish and did so with aplomb – with his weaker right foot nonetheless.

Lage hailed him as the ‘Moroccan Maldini’ afterwards, and who can blame him. Saiss is superb.

Solid shape

On to the defensive work as a whole, Wolves deserve credit for keeping Brighton at bay through a whopping 11 minutes of added time.

That, of course, was due to the referee’s electrical kit malfunctioning – the world we live in now.

To be fair, the game could still be going on and Graham Potter’s lot probably would not have scored.

The fact they have gone 11 league games without winning feeds into that, but Wolves’ shape was spot on.

We have already touched on the three centre-halves but wing-backs Nelson Semedo and Fernando Marcal, who came in at the last minute after Rayan Ait-Nouri picked up a knock in the warm-up, were also on their mettle.

Wolves will, inevitably, have to defend valiantly for large spells against Chelsea on Sunday.

Another display like this gives them every chance of getting something from the game.

Chances missed

At the other end, though, they must find a cutting edge.

Daniel Podence missed two gilt-edged opportunities in the second half while Francisco Trincao, having been slipped in by Adama Traore, lacked conviction as he was kept out by Robert Sanchez.

Trincao, in particular, needs to do better.

Having been brought in from Barcelona, he obviously has talent, but it has not been displayed regularly enough.

He gave the ball away too easily too often at the Amex and fans, rightly, want more.

Squad size

Finally, it is nothing new, but the importance of bolstering the squad in January was added to.

As well as Ait-Nouri missing out, Wolves had Hwang Hee-chan limp off after just 15 minutes.

It is not known what the issues are yet, but Hwang looked to be in a fair amount of pain and the already-small squad could well be two men lighter for the next few weeks.

Surely, Wolves will make use of next month’s window.

They are sitting pretty in eighth and that’s a fine achievement. Some help would not hurt, though.