Wolves’ dressing room inquest into Aston Villa equaliser

Nathan Collins revealed how Wolves wasted no time in carrying out an inquest into their failure to keep a clean sheet at Villa Park.

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Wolves were ahead and looked to be comfortable when a simple ball over the defence allowed Danny Ings through to level for Villa in the second half of Wednesday’s West Midlands derby.

A similar ball in added time almost cost Wolves dearly but Leon Bailey missed an open goal to hand the visitors a share of the points.

And Nathan Collins said skipper Ruben Neves carried out a dressing room debrief into the defensive error which cost Wolves the equaliser.

“Straight away, as soon as we got in, Ruben had the goal up on his phone and we all looked at what we could do better,” said Collins. “It was frustrating because we know we can stop that. It could have been three points. But at the end of the day we didn’t lose the game and we took a point away from home against a team that’s been performing well recently.

“It’s a long road, but the performances are getting better.”

Collins also revealed Wolves benefited from boss Julen Lopetegui’s insistence on pressing higher up the pitch aggressively as they got on top of Villa early in the encounter. “”That’s the tactics and he’s helped us,” said the Ireland defender.

“In the mid-season we were working on it and always pressing and never giving up. We press as a team and I think it’s showing.

“Our decision-making on when to press, and when not to press, could have been a bit better in the second half, but in the first half we had it spot on.”