Wolves Fans' Verdict v Crystal Palace: A poor Molineux defeat

Clive Smith

Since we were ‘safe’ in early March we’ve seen a few games like this. West Ham, Bournemouth and now Palace, all at home, presented an opportunity to push towards the top 10. Player availability has compromised things as we know and Neto continues to be a significant loss. What might have been.

However, being penned in by City or Arsenal is one thing but our recent obsession with the slow build-up takes away any home advantage and prevents influence from the home crowd.

GON has tinkered with the formation (forced or experimental?) and our slow strategy had become more pronounced.

Playing Semedo where he was looked a backward step – losing virtually all of his forward momentum. Lemina adds to the defensive line-up but we lose his midfield impact. Too often we looked disjointed and played like strangers.

By half time we were two goals adrift, and it could have been more. For all of our possession we hardly touched the ball in their box. The one shining light was Gomes. He ran and tackled like his life depended on it. He was well supported by Traore to be fair. If they could have added a few more accurate forward passes to their game it would have helped our attacking options.

Palace started the second half looking stronger but we too raised our game. Cunha bagged a goal and suddenly it looked like we might salvage something after being out played. It took less than 10 minutes to squash those hopes.

VAR overturned a penalty we’d been given but we never looked like getting anything from the game while Palace probably had another gear if required.