Wolves went down to a derby day defeat as West Brom came back from a goal behind to win what was a crucial match for both sides.
The away side took the lead early on through a controversial Marcus Pereira penalty, but Wolves turned the game around towards the end of the half through Fabio Silva and Willy Boly.
However, Wolves capitulated as they did at Brighton, conceding a soft header and then another penalty.
The loss sees Wolves fall into a potential relegation battle and with a plethora of issues at the club, there are some serious worries going into the second half of the season.
Match Report
The biggest game of the season. The one we could not lose. This was the chance for Wolves to get back on to winning ways against their bitter rivals who had only won one game all season.
Yet again however, their miserable record of conceding first reared its ugly head again. Only nine minutes in Willy Boly was adjudged to have fouled Matheus Pereira in the box, on VAR replays it showed the tackle was outside the box, but the spot kick was given – much to the anger of Wolves fans.
The Brazilian converted the spot kick and Wolves, yet again, were on the back foot. The response was decent given the start; the team began to create slightly more going forward with Fabio Silva having a positive impact with his link-up play. Adama Traore and Pedro Neto were beating their man every time and showed promise they could unlock the game.
However, defensively the problems were still very much apparent, at one point in the first half Conor Coady was on the touchline whilst Boly was near his own box – a perfect visualisation of how poor their defending has been.
The blocking was frantic at points and Callum Robinson was proving to be a real danger, especially with Conor Coady looking out of his depth. Communication seemed to be at an all time low as the team were found out of shape so consistently it looked like they had never trained together.
The home side should’ve had a penalty when the ball struck Kieran Gibbs’ hand, but VAR yet again inexplicably missed it.
Despite their shortcomings, they managed to find themselves level through Fabio Silva on 38 minutes. The striker managed to bundle a long ball to Boly, who brilliantly flicked the ball back to the youngster, he then managed to use to his body to great effect and muscle off his marker before slotting his effort into the far bottom corner. The goal was much needed for the player who has struggled this season, but it capped off an impressive performance.
Wolves then turned the game round five minutes later with a set piece (ironic considering it was against a Sam Allardyce team) as Boly yet again showed great attacking play to take down the cross and fire his effort in for 2-1.
At half-time the thoughts of the fans would have been ‘don’t bottle it like Brighton’, but unfortunately that is exactly what the team did. The second half was as spineless and poor as we have seen all season, within the first 10 minutes the away side had turned the game around.
The first came from a long throw that was flicked on without a challenge, and Semi Ajeyi headed his effort over Rui Patricio into the net. Not a single challenge was made to win the ball and it was typical of their recent from. The players looked down in the dumps after the equaliser and it was compounded when the atrocious Coady gave away the second penalty of the game. Pereira then slotted in his second of the game to complete the turnaround.
The second half died off after the goal as Wolves struggled to break their opponents down, with Nuno looking more and more dejected as the game went on. He threw on Morgan Gibbs-White and Patrick Cutrone to try and get back into the game but neither of them could make any impact.
Cutrone was brought on with 10 minutes to go and had a chance to equalise as the ball fell to him 12 yards out, but from the left-hand side he fired his volley into the ground, and it bounced over the bar.
The game fizzled out with Wolves showing no fight or creative ideas and the squad showed no real remorse, laughing with opposition players and coaching staff after full-time.
Man of the Match – Fabio Silva
Despite the disgrace of a performance, this kid really stood out as a star performer. He was superb in holding up play, he was direct and fearless and deservedly got his goal. His best performance so far and he needs recognition for it, for a player who has been called out of his depth, he did very well.
Final Thoughts
What is going on at Wolves? This performance typified everything that is going wrong at the club at the moment. The fact Fosun can call this acceptable is a real worry and the relegation word is becoming a very real scenario. This was an unthinkable position at the start of the campaign, but the club is in real danger of unravelling and falling into a catastrophic relegation scrap. The four at the back has to change back to a five, as the amount of goals conceded and mistakes made is unacceptable. Fosun need to step up.
Tom Parker is part of the Talking Wolves editorial team – you can follow him on Twitter here.