Wolves Fans' Verdict v Crystal Palace: New beginnings, but the same old story

Another feeling of Groundhog Day at Molineux that yet again poses the question as to just how we are going to pick up our first win? 

I thought that Wolves battled well for the large majority of the clash, but once again, a lack of real quality at both ends of the pitch cost us dearly. Once Crystal Palace had opened the scoring, there was yet again no real way for us to claw our way back into it. 

The logic in pairing Jorgen Strand Larsen and Tolu Arokodare together makes sense, although there is simply no creative spark in the team to form combinations with them and shift the ball quickly in the final third. I know that it gets mentioned frequently, but to not adequately replace the attacking instincts of Matheus Cunha, Rayan Ait-Nouri, and even Nelson Semedo to an extent is just embarrassing from a Premier League club’s standpoint. 

And it is the lack of due diligence that will lead Wolves to lose their top-flight status. I think that all our summer arrivals understand the assignment - they all battle and fight. But there is simply not the required quality to keep us in the division. 

I don’t think that it’s unfair to say that Pep Guardiola would not guide this current squad to safety, and for that, I very much feel sorry for Rob Edwards. The current sad situation is completely the club’s doing, and it feels as if even our annual January spending spree won’t be enough to get us anywhere near the safety line.

Harry Lee

New beginnings, but the same old story.  Rob Edwards' first game in charge gave us anything but that new manager bounce, ultimately a performance that fell flat, with any faint hopes of a miraculous turnaround quickly fading.  

The new managers' team selection offered clues about the style of play we were going to see, with Tolu starting alongside JSL.  An industrious midfield lacking any creativity with a reliance on wing-backs crossing the ball into the two big men, who were up against three solid central defenders in the Palace backline.

Wolves cannot be faulted for their efforts, working tirelessly throughout, but there is no doubt that when you continue to play this formation with no creative midfielders we are going to lack that spark required to break down a team of Palace's quality.

That frontline balance that they had in the physical presence of Mateta, the pace of Sarr and creativity of Pino was what we used to see when we had a Jimenez, Adama and Podence type setup.  We are miles away from that now, a number of transfer windows away.

If, and it's a big if, that Edwards can get our wing-backs high in games, potentially 'easier' coming up against teams who play a four at the back then he may have some success playing in this 'direct' way.

But ultimately if he is unwilling to give Mane or Gonzalez a chance then we are likely to see the same level of performance from Munetsi, Hwang and Arias as we have seen for the first 12 games.

Adam Virgo

Another loss but nowhere near a terrible performance and it was definitely better than what we’ve been used to recently.

The main problem is a lack of quality throughout the squad, missing chances that we should be doing better with and whenever we got into good areas, a lot of the time we weren’t able to pick the right pass or put the ball in the back of the net.

Getting to half-time without conceding was a huge bonus considering our recent problems, particularly at home with conceding multiple goals in the first half. Crystal Palace probably had the biggest chance through Mateta but we defended our box really well on a number of occasions.

Tolu had a really good game in terms of holding the ball up and bringing others into play and when we went off, we lost a lot of what we were trying to do. The subs that came on had very little impact and it helped Crystal Palace.

The two goals we conceded were a rebound and a worldie so it’s not as if we’ve gifted them easy goals like we’ve been used to, I think we can definitely take some positives from the game but at the moment we need points and the lack of quality and confidence makes it difficult for us to win games.

Jhon Arias missing an open goal from a few yards out really sums up our quality in front of goal, if that goes in there’s a potential fightback for a point but even when Palace went 1-0 up, they took control for a period of time and we struggled to really gain any sort of momentum.

If Rob Edwards is able to miraculously keep us up somehow, it’ll go down as the greatest survival ever surely because everything is massively stacked against us, the quality of our squad is very low and I don’t see us being able to bring in a player of someone like Matheus Cunha’s ability which we managed a couple years ago in January.

Clive Smith

The new Manager bounce arrived for some of the players, but not enough to turn the result our way. Our work rate and endeavour could not be faulted right to the final whistle. Many would say, and rightly so, that should be the bare minimum - but it has not always been that way this season.

Ron Edwards stamped his mark by picking Larsen and Tolu as our two forwards, something we'd not started with before. It invited a more direct approach and involved Munetsi also getting in the mix and being available to assist possession retention in advanced positions. These things make it easier for the crowd to get involved.

At times the difference between the sides looked striking, but had J.Gomes's freekick had a greater deflection, and the rebounds on the two Palace goals not have happened, the result might have been more favourable. The rub of the green has deserted us. 

It is way too early to suggest we have an identity but with Gomes and Andre at their combative best there were several periods when we won the ball and passed it around quickly and accurately. There were far less unproductive sideways passes where the tempo is taken out of the move. 

We'd had a good spell of this for a few minutes just prior to the Palace goal. The timing of their goals was really unfortunate.

All three central defenders looked to advance the ball rather than go for the low risk safe pass. These tweaks are a momentum thing and will hopefully reap rewards in the near future.

Let's hope a win arrives sooner rather than later.