Wolves blog: Bump back down to Earth

Although the undoing of Wolves came in that 58-second spell where Watford put two past Rui Patricio, they really weren’t at the races all over the pitch.

Everyone performed below their usually exemplary performances - although this may have been on the cards for a while.

Despite getting wins over Southampton and Crystal Palace in the last two games, they haven’t been as dominant as they were in the early games of the season.

In a way, that’s a good thing - Wolves still aren’t hitting their top gear and have been collecting points, and when they really fire up they will start to put teams to the sword.

For nine matches in a row, Nuno has named the same starting line-up - is it a case of the team getting slightly stale, or complacent?

It’s likely Nuno will make changes for the Brighton match this weekend, especially as the bulk of the team had no rest in the past few weeks, with the majority playing international football.

Ivan Cavaleiro is surely ready to step in - most likely for Diogo Jota, who really hasn’t been on form yet.

However, talk of Jota not being Premier League quality is premature - he will come good and return to last season’s heights.

We certainly don’t need to make wholesale changes to the team - we were bad, but it’s only our second loss and we are still in the top half after nine matches, ten points above the bottom three: a bottom three which includes big-spending Fulham.

We are also above Man United in the league going into the final game of October.

What caused Wolves’ loss against Watford… was it complacency? Watford were 4/1 with the bookies pre-match, and many fans (myself included) believed Wolves would get three points at 3pm.

Or was it the infamous Manager of the Month curse? The last time Nuno won the award was back in the Championship for November - and Wolves drew their next game 0-0 at home to a Sunderland team on their way to relegation.

Whatever the reason, it’s clear one thing Wolves need to improve on is their goalscoring. They now have only nine goals in nine games.

It’s been their defence that’s helped propel them up the league, but having only scored two goals in two of their games, this is clearly an area which needs improving.

The fact that Helder Costa and Diogo Jota are yet to score is concerning, as the two wide forwards were often the outlet for Wolves’ goalscoring last season.

On to a tough trip to the Amex on Saturday - Wolves haven’t done well there in recent trips with the exception of a 2016 New Years Day shock - and it’s time to change that.