Wolves Fans' Verdict v Brighton: A disastrous display

Clive Smith

That was a horrendous day.

With nearly 25 minutes to go I thought it could be devastating and I might be seeing my worst ever Wolves result. It is often said you learn more about your players in defeat, well, watching recordings of Brighton this season would also be a good learning experience. They have my respect and admiration.

Results like this always have two sides. They were very good and yes, we were equally bad. A total mismatch. In the same way City made Arsenal look very average the other night, we were made to look very poor and second best in this game.

Sa looked petrified every time he had the ball, playing it short constantly made retaining possession a challenge, while going long never gave Costa, or anyone else, a chance. He should surely have done better with two or more of the goals. I am not just singling him out because Nunes and Kilman both also had shockers. It is difficult to give much credit to anyone frankly but Neto frequently seemed oblivious to the ineptitude that was going on around him and played well – MOTM by a mile.

Let’s hope there is no repeat of this performance level again this season...or indeed ever!

John Lalley

Flush purple with rage, demand radical change, identify and castigate a scapegoat or two and hurl as many barbed brickbats as takes your fancy, but all that matters is how Wolves respond to this miserable dereliction of duty.

Nobody savours being humiliated, neither personally nor professionally and no doubt the obligatory contrite sackcloth and ashes and mea culpas will be dutifully delivered. Players will feign humility, apologise to travelling fans and suitably admonished, report to Compton with the retribution of an absolute beasting on the training pitch awaiting them.

The head coach will declare such performances as unacceptable and insist that any repeat will not be tolerated.

Troubled supporters will be reassured that all measure of penitence is sweeping the Molineux dressing room. Then when tempers have cooled, the coach and players will take the only option on offer which is to prepare properly and professionally for the game against Aston Villa.

We aren’t the first team to take self-inflicted suicide to the extreme and we certainly won’t be the last; better teams than Wolves have suffered monumental embarrassments far worse than our scarifying in Sussex.

For what remains of this season there are no alternatives; we have to re-group and simply go again with the same squad who previously won three games out of four to seemingly at least, secure our status for another year.

Somewhere within the course of the remaining four games, we must hope we can nick a point or two to fully ensure our noses sneak over the line This debacle is a painful summing-up of our season; shapeless, disjointed and tedious.

We hover just above the desperate candidates for relegation, but in reality, we are only marginally more provident. The obligatory 10 wins have somehow been gained, few if any achieved decisively but earned nevertheless.

Let’s remember that at Christmas we would have been turning cartwheels had we been guaranteed the position we occupy right now. And for this act of mercy if nothing else, both coaches and players deserve genuine credit.

Difficult to enjoy but effective and a probable life-saver; we were in no position to quibble! Who leaves the club, who we can trust to remain and who might be drafted in during the close-season is at present utterly irrelevant.

We have major deficiencies; that’s abundantly clear and the entire catalogue of weakness manifested itself with ravaging extravagance at Brighton. But we need to finish this season with a touch of respectability restored; stick together and ensure our status for next August.

Saturday’s chaos strongly emphasises that along with changes of personnel we need a wholly different philosophy in our approach to the game. We can’t go on repeating the same mistakes and expect any semblance of improvement; there is a mountain filling the Wolves’ inbox at present but the responses which need to be sweeping will have to wait for a month or two.

James Pugh

As mentioned in the previous Brighton summary, my family and some very close family friends (who are all Brighton Season ticket holders) share a WhatsApp group, and every time we play each other it gets very lively. In ascending order, find below messages that were exchanged;

“Wolves are 7/1 on Bet365, printing money”

“Thank you for playing Gilmore and Welbeck instead of Mac Allister and Mitoma”

“Draw written all over it. This is going to be the drawiest draw of all time”

“Not the best start”

“Lol”

“Once again, not the best start”

“Can we play you every week”

“We’re a second half team, up the boys”

“Casually subbing on about £200m worth of players when 5-0 up”

“still going for that draw James?”

“grow up”

In summary; not good. Not good at all. A calamity of errors from start to finish.

My housemates went to go watch Dulwich Hamlet get relegated from national league south and I am fuming I didn’t join them.

Semedo, Nunes, Costa, Collins, Kilman. All truly awful. While a lot of those goals were worldies, I have never seen defending like it and a lot of those players should be ashamed. What was Julen thinking, changing a winning formula?! I never thought I would be sat here begging to see a 4-4-2.

The only player who has something to show from the performance was Neto, who hasn’t played 90 minutes in what feels like years.

Am I sad? Yes. Am I angry? Yes. Am I sunburnt and hungover? Of course. Will I completely forget about this result with a smash and grab 1-0 win over Villa next at home week? Almost certainly. Come on me babbies.