Wolves Blog

It's a blog. About the Wolves.

Ben Rasmin

Man Utd 1 Wolves 1

Blog, Man Utd

Josè Mourinho had been waxing lyrical about Wolves in the buildup to this game, and rightfully so.

It must be incredibly gratifying for a manager to see one of his old players doing such fine work in the top flight.

But United’s infamously cantankerous manager was a little misguided in his post-match comments, in which he said Wolves played the match as if it were a World Cup final.

Anyone who has been watching Nuno and his team’s early season exploits will know that they approach every game in exactly the same way, regardless of the opposition.

Magic moment – Utd look on as Wolves celebrate

This trip to Old Trafford was no different, with Wolves in the ascendancy from the get-go.

David de Gea foiled our attempts at an opener on multiple occasions, as the raucous away support roared the team on with little opposition from a muted home end.

Typically, United took the lead not long after as Fred plundered his first goal for the Red Devils thanks to a cute tee-up from Paul Pogba.

My initial view was that Rui Patricio could have kept the Brazilian’s effort out, but replays show it was expertly steered beyond the reach of our Portuguese keeper.

The goal did little to change the tone of the game, with United’s dominance of the ball failing to prevent our threat on the counter.

Joao Moutinho ensured we got the equaliser our efforts deserved, curling a sumptuous strike beyond de Gea after enterprising work from an impressive Helder Costa.

How we managed to get a player of Moutinho’s obvious quality for as little as £5m is beyond me, but he’s already looking like one of the buys of the season. He simply oozes class in everything he does, and complements Reuben Neves brilliantly.

The same could be said of Jonny Otto, who once again operated solidly down the left hand side. He and Matt Doherty are absolutely key to how this team operates, and were unrelenting in their efforts to get up and down the flanks.

Costa and Diogo Jota are also deserving of praise for their performances, with both looking closer to their vintage than they previously had this season. The former was a particular menace right up until his withdrawal, giving a performance reminiscent of his stand-out display at Anfield two seasons ago.

Pandemonium is the best way to describe the away end after the goal, with the travelling support drowning out Old Trafford completely. One can only imagine the scenes if Adama Traore had managed to net one of the two chances he spurned during another enterprising cameo.

The noise continued despite a winner evading us though, with the familiar refrain of ‘Nuno had a dream’ ringing true from the stadium to central Manchester.

Continue playing this way and we’ll have to begin changing the lyrics to our favourite ditty, however. Because at this rate, Wolves aren’t on their way back to the glory days.

They are back.

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Wolves 2 Everton 2

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I used to see the opening game as an anomaly.

After all, what can you really learn about a team from one match?

However, last season’s curtain raiser against Middlesbrough showed that you can in fact learn plenty about a team over 90 minutes – the impressive win setting the tone for a title winning campaign.

Whether this entertaining draw will prove to be quite as informative come season’s end is anyone’s guess, but it did at least show we can hang with one of the Premier League’s ‘best of the rest’.

Everton are a talented team and showed no intention of indulging us on our return to the top flight, taking an early lead via that most familiar of achilles’ heels.

Set pieces were one of few issues experienced by Nuno’s team last season and it was disappointing to see us come unstuck from one so quickly into the game.

Thankfully, it did nothing to puncture the atmosphere inside a raucous Molineux and we soon imposed our trademark style of play on the game. Though clear cut chances were few and far between, the ball was almost exclusively at the feet of someone in old gold for much of the half.

It was enough to make you feel that a slice of luck was all it would take to change our fortunes, and that came courtesy of a reckless tackle on Diogo Jota that earned Phil Jagielka an early bath and Ruben Neves an opportunity to do something outrageous on telly once again.

Ruben – always delivers

Naturally, our star man obliged and levelled the score with a free kick every bit as good as his winner at Cardiff last season. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, you do wonder how much longer we’ll be able to enjoy seeing him in a Wolves shirt. He’s good enough to play at the very tramadolmain.com highest level.

Regardless, enjoy it we shall and Neves, aided by the wily Joao Moutinho, continued to dictate the tone of the game as we pushed on for a winner.

It seemed as if those efforts would all be in vein when Everton fired themselves back in front, their goal being courtesy of some impressive skill from marquee signing Richarlison.

Credit where credit’s due, the Toffees played for three points regardless of their numerical disadvantage but when their attempts for a third were foiled by Rui Patricio it began to feel as if the stars were aligning in our favour.

With the opposition retreating further and further into their half, Nuno rolled the dice and sent on Leo Bonatini to partner Jota and the impressive Raul Jiminez in attack.

The Brazilian’s clever movement gave Everton something different to think about after they had largely nullifying the threat of Jota and Costa, and balance was restored before long.

Jiminez capped off another good performance by heading home intelligently from a sumptuous cross delivered with aplomb by Neves.

It was the least we deserved and ensured a fair result for both teams, neither of which did quite enough to deservedly claim three points.

This was a good test of our mettle and offered a stark reminder that we’re coming up against far superior opposition this season.

Given the occasion, I thought we performed admirably but believe there’s plenty more to come from us in the weeks and months to come.

We’ve plenty to build on after this result and some exciting new signings to bed in, so perhaps next week will give us an opportunity to celebrate a little louder.

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