Gary O’Neil made just two changes to his side that lost to Aston Villa 2-0 the previous weekend, with Matt Doherty and Hugo Bueno coming in for Santiago Bueno and Tommy Doyle.
This meant Wolves had all four of their full-backs on the pitch, which is something we will go into a little later in the article.
Let’s take a look at what can take from this result and performance.
1. CUNHA RETURNS
After picking up a hamstring injury against Brentford in February, Matheus Cunha finally took back to the pitch.
He was limited to around 20 minutes, but in that time we saw a glimpse of what we have missed since his injury.
He wasn’t up to full speed, but some lovely touches is enough for the Wolves fans to gain excitement about him being back, and hopefully he can stay fit for the last stage of the season. Again like I said he didn’t seem as sharp as he usually is, but I think the worst case scenario yesterday was to see him pull up with another injury, so maybe him taking it easy is a good thing.
2. AIT-NOURI BRILLIANCE
All the focus is on Pedro Neto going into the summer, but I would most definitely not be surprised if a big club comes in for Ait-Nouri.
How he controls the ball and skips past players like they aren’t there is special, and is a gift not many players have. Not to mention his goal, which is his third in four games, but it could quite easily have been five in four.
He is so important for us, it would be massive for Wolves to go in to next season with as much potential and talent in the squad as possible.
3. A FULL BACK SHOW
Due to the thin squad O’Neil opted to use all four of his full backs in the starting eleven.
With Nelson Semedo and Bueno used as more of defensive full backs, Doherty and Ait-Nouri were utilised in more attacking positions.
This is very telling of the situation the squad is in at the moment, and doesn’t shade a good light at our depth especially up front.
4. O’NEIL POST MATCH COMMENTS
In his post match conference O’Neil stated that he made it clear with the board that they needed bodies in the January window, which did not happen.
A ‘Premier League level number 9’ was apparently ready to come in, but the board didn’t want to pay a small amount of money to finalise the move in our manager’s words.
This is very concerning to see another manager yet again state their discontentment with the lack of signings. Hopefully the board take this in the right way and promise O’Neil backing in the summer, as it would be worst case scenario for us to lose him with the position we are in financially.
5. SO WHAT NOW?
As our season seems to be drying up with the European push seemingly unlikely due to our injury list, what now for the season?
We often get this when we have nothing much to play for, our season just peters out. We saw it under Bruno Lage in the 2021/22 season.
I think we all know we massively overachieved this season whatever the outcome is now, but I think what frustrates the fanbase is the talent we all see. We know this team can take it to the next level, but the lack of ambition shown by the board especially is just so discouraging.
However we can still hang out hope that this summer, O’Neil is backed, and Wolves kick on next season to fulfil the potential we all know they have.
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