Liam Keen comment: Work to do after Wolves' underwhelming Stoke friendly

Almost 3,400 supporters made the trip from the Black Country for a relatively underwhelming match and performance.

Wolves next take on Lens on Wednesday, at Walsall's Pallet-Track Bescot Stadium, where fans will hope for a better showing ahead of the upcoming 2025/26 season.

Casual

Emmanuel Agbadou has been superb since he arrived in January and will continue to be an important member of the team going into the new season.

However, his performance at the Bet365 stadium left a lot to be desired.

In a first half where Wolves had a lot of possession but did very little with it, Agbadou was far too casual on the ball.

Pereira likes his team to have the ball and play out, but Agbadou was making unforced and unnecessary errors. On two occasions in quick succession he took one touch too many and tripped over the ball, giving Stoke a chance to go on the attack.

After the second, Pereira was screaming over to him from the touchline, seemingly asking him to pick passes much quicker. The defender raised his hand in apology.

Wolves' defending was also sloppy when Stoke took the lead. A corner was not dealt with and a tame shot in the box was then flicked into the net.

It may have been offside, however it still showed some of Wolves' weaknesses.

One promising tactic - which we also saw in training during the trip to Portugal - was the attempted long ball to striker Jorgen Strand Larsen. 

Agbadou was taking goal-kicks to occasional find the forward, who was doing a good job of trapping the ball and bringing others into play.

Intensity

Pre-season is the right moment to have poor performances and work on the small tactical details - and Wolves went through the motions at times against Stoke.

The first half was a tough watch from both sides and Wolves had little momentum.

Against Burnley in a training game in Portugal, Wolves also ended with a 1-1 draw, but put in a much more intense display.

Particularly in the first half of that game, Wolves pressed higher, had willing runners and looked threatening on the attack.

In the first 45 against Stoke they did not have the same display and that will frustrate Pereira.

However, Wolves were better in the second half after making some changes and a nice passage of play resulted in Joao Gomes feeding a pass through to Hwang Hee-chan, who was dragged back for a penalty.

His powerful spot-kick was well saved, but it fell to him fortuitously to finish the rebound.

Despite originally missing the penalty, scoring that goal will be good for Hwang and also for Wolves, to stop them losing the game.

Wing threat

The only real bright spark from the first half came down Wolves' right as Fer Lopez and Ki-Jana Hoever linked up.

The former picked up intelligent positions in between the lines and picked dangerous passes, often for the overlapping wing-back.

One link-up resulted in Lopez taking aim with his left foot, but he curled just wide, as both players did themselves favours with their performances.

Rodrigo Gomes also did well down the right when he was introduced in the second half and he offered a different attacking threat, as Hoever moved to centre-back and showed his versatility.

Hoever's future remains a talking point but he's taking full advantage of the chances given to him in pre-season so far.

Down the left, Jean-Ricner Bellegarde offered little playing out of position, but Wolves improved when Hugo Bueno was introduced at half-time.

Now sporting the number three shirt after Rayan Ait-Nouri's departure, Bueno looked natural going forward and defending. 

He put in a few dangerous crosses and looked lively on his return from an extended holiday.