Chelsea

Top teams always respond.

And with every passing performance – win, lose or draw – you’d have to say Wolves look a formidable outfit.

They lost in the most painful way imaginable in the week and having gone behind again today, it was all the more impressive they came roaring back to take Chelsea’s place in the top half of the table.

Joao Gomes was back in the side doing Joao Gomes things – wrestling back possession high to create the opening for Matheus Cunha to equalise.

And what a day for his compatriot, packaging everything we’ve consistently seen from him of late to unleash a devastating haymaker of a performance.

Premier League goal number seven of the season owed to good fortune, but his timing for number eight and composure from the spot for number nine – having won the penalty himself with a typically penetrating run – marked him out as the elite attacker on display.

Pedro Neto might have something to say about that, I suppose. He was the architect for two of the goals, most notably rinsing Thiago Silva for the third, to further enhance an already huge reputation.

The mind boggles when considering the combined value of Cunha, Neto and Hwang in the current market. Have three individuals ever enhanced their value so much in a 20-odd game stretch?

They must credit Gary O’Neil for that upturn in fortune because the shape, style and tactics of the team suit those forwards perfectly.

Chelsea paid more for their two central midfielders than we did for our entire team but I wouldn’t swap them for Gomes and Lemina. They are an efficient and effective unit, covering the ground, stepping in at the right times and feeding passes to the front line.

Ait-Nouri is another unique talent – one I still struggle to understand or quantify – but the hybrid role given to him by O’Neil in this fluid Wolves shape suits his game perfectly. He might have scuffed his shot that somehow found it’s way into the goal anyway, but the fact he was arriving there in the first place will do for me. If he adds some quality to his final ball, there’s no ceiling to his career.

Add on top a back three that have the necessary combination of grit, power and technical ability to keep us afloat at the other end and all the components are there for a performance and result like this one.

A first win at Stamford Bridge in 45 years. A first double over Chelsea in 49 years. A first Premier League hat-trick for any Wolves player away from Molineux.

Records to enjoy but more to pursue.

This team can go further.

The first half on Thursday was a reminder of what can go wrong.

Only Gary O’Neil will know whether the team weren’t setup correctly to cope with Man Utd’s threat – particularly on the counter – or simply didn’t carry out his instructions.

The intensity was dialled up in the second half and things improved, so I lean more towards the idea the lads just needed to sharpen up.

There were still positives to extract and reasons to believe we can go to Stamford Bridge and get a result.

Chelsea

A crushing defeat at Anfield in midweek was another setback for the Blues in a season that doesn’t want to catch fire.

But they’re into a cup final and just about in the hunt for Europe so every chance the campaign will finish a lot better than it started.

There are still plenty of key players returning or set to return and I think the experience of Chilwell, Nkunku and James will take them up a level if they can keep them fit.

I was a bit surprised they allowed Broja to leave on a straight loan to Fulham the other night but as with all clubs, I think they’ve got one eye on FFP and generating revenue with over a billion spent in recent windows.

He would have been a decent pickup for Wolves but I’m glad we didn’t splash out megabucks to get a player only just returning from a serious injury still looking to regain his best form.

Wolves

It’s easy to say with hindsight but Ait-Nouri and Gomes probably should have come back into the side on Thursday.

That’s not a slight against Doyle or Doherty, I just think the team needed some fresh energy and with Gomes in particular shielding the back three, we might not have been so stretched.

I’m confident both those players will be starting tomorrow along with Pablo Sarabia, who had a good impact from the bench. Bellegarde just can’t get into the game playing up top.

Predictions

A 3-4 home defeat is a tough one to guess so little surprise nobody got it right.

Both teams will be looking to bounce back tomorrow and if we’re not at our best I fear we might be on the wrong end of another result.

We need to be more compact and disciplined as we were at Brighton, looking to break when they over commit. Get Neto and Cunha into the game in those pockets of space and we’ll have a real chance.

But I’ve got a suspicion they’ll produce more attacking output and home advantage might just give them the edge to avenge their defeat at Molineux. 2-1 Chelsea.

As always, if you’d like to join in with the Prediction League this season, it’s simple – just leave your prediction in the comment section below using the boxes provided. Then repeat for every preview article throughout the season, making sure you always use the same email address to make your prediction. Your email is what ties you to your overall score.

Up The Wolves!

I used to spend a long time fretting about a future Wolves midfield that didn’t have Neves and Moutinho running the game.

But we’ve struck it lucky again with Lemina and Gomes; players built in a different mould but with the same capacity to win games of football.

What they lack in passing range and delivery, they more than make up for in tackling and athleticism, qualities we’ve desperately lacked in recent years.

Super Mario delivered today, excelling in the disjointed, hustle and bustle of the midfield, winning the ball back time and again to put his team on the front foot.

He also headed in the opener and fought like a Trojan soldier to keep Chelsea out, culminating in one final smash right on the final whistle to bring the curtain down on an excellent afternoon’s work.

Gomes was briefly the villain after getting his pocket picked by Sterling, which should have seen the match heading in the opposite direction. He can thank Jose Sa for saving the day, even if he felt it was the goalkeeper’s fault he was robbed in the first place.

But that one suicidal lapse aside, he too got around the pitch superbly – tackling, intercepting and generally having his say on proceedings. It’s what he does.

I sometimes don’t feel they have the same impact away from home but at Molineux, they continue to dominate. We’re now unbeaten in our last seven on our own patch and those two have been a major factor in that success.

This was probably the most chaotic performance in that sequence and I never felt we had a firm grip on proceedings – albeit with a big dollop of that owing to the bizarre mish-mash that is Chelsea these days.

They’ve got bags of energy and good intent but lack structure, discipline, focus and experience. All of that aside, they may still have won if they had that other elusive quality – cutting edge. Broja, Jackson and Sterling were all culpable of squandering great chances before Wolves took control.

Poch’s response was to load up on attackers and force the issue through sheer weight of numbers so it was to our defenders credit they repelled everything up until that late Nkunku header that ensured pain and suffering to the very end.

We’ll take it though. With 22 points on the board and still a game shy of halfway, there’s little to fret about.

And that’s enough to ensure a very Merry Christmas in my book.

You do have to wonder what the final frontier is for televised Premier League football.

Christmas day fixtures? A midnight kick-off to see in the New Year? 10 matches played back-to-back over a single day?

I wasn’t too bothered about a lunchtime kick-off on Christmas Eve but then again, I live locally and it isn’t (to my knowledge) upsetting or inconveniencing those around me.

But many who would have wanted to go won’t be going and others who are going will have sacrificed to be in attendance, so it is, once again, putting supporters second.

I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The Premier League control the fixtures and the TV companies control the narrative around the game. Will anyone in the Sky studio even mention the ramifications or controversy of playing this game on Christmas Eve for instance? I doubt it.

Chelsea

That felt like a potentially big moment for the Blues in midweek, seeing off Newcastle on penalties to reach the semi-final of the League Cup.

Then again, they’ve shown flashes of promise at different times this season, only to follow up with some terrible results to keep them landlocked in midtable.

I struggle to see them shaking off that inconsistency this season, particularly with the injuries continuing to pile up.

When I watch them, I see a lot of energy and athleticism, but they lack cutting edge and any sort of meaningful leadership beyond Thiago Silva.

Their megabucks have all gone on young players, which might prove shrewd in the long term, but if I were Poch, I’d be asking Santa for a few senior players to speed up the development of the side.

They have got Christopher Nkunku back now and he could be a difference maker once he’s properly up to speed.

Wolves

There was illness in the camp prior to West Ham so mitigating circumstances to what looked a sluggish performance to me.

With a full week to recover and prepare for the game, I’d hope for a much sharper Wolves to emerge from the tunnel on Sunday.

There’s even the possibility that Pedro Neto could be involved, from the bench in all likelihood, but even that would be a lift.

With Ait-Nouri back I think we’ve got to revert to that more hybrid setup in defence, which has produced all of our best results this season.

Predictions

Well done to Positively Negative who appropriately predicted the 3-0 hammering from the Hammers.

I’m going for an entertaining draw. Both teams are capable but often soft-centered. I’m leaning more towards Chelsea but our home form has been good for a while (from a results perspective at least).

As always, if you’d like to join in with the Prediction League this season, it’s simple – just leave your prediction in the comment section below using the boxes provided. Then repeat for every preview article throughout the season, making sure you always use the same email address to make your prediction. Your email is what ties you to your overall score.

Up The Wolves!

Many of us have questioned whether some of this Wolves squad have the stomach for a relegation fight.

Based on yesterday’s win, it’s an emphatic yes.

Most pleasing was the appetite for hard work. Some North Bank natives probably had enough of me standing up and applauding a particular piece of pressing or defending.

But I was excitable because the lads were finally showing some character.

Admittedly it was a poor Chelsea side, but for large periods we didn’t give them a minute’s rest. An old gold and black shirt was either pressing a Chelsea player off the ball or perfectly positioned for an interception.

Kudos to Lopetegui for playing his part with the selection of a balanced side especially the midfield of Lemina, Nunes and Gomes.

If you looked up workhorse in the dictionary, you’d find Lemina. A lot of his work goes unnoticed but subtly he’s bossing the base of our midfield, which allowed Gomes and Nunes to push on.

The former looked much more assured than his Leeds performance. Gomes is technically sound but isn’t afraid of a tackle or a spot of pressing either.

Regarding Nunes, that was probably his best Wolves performance. Play him in his best position where he can bomb on and we have a player on our hands. As for the finish, I was right behind the shot and it felt like a missile was heading straight towards me.

A word for Toti too. Like all of the defence yesterday, the work he got through was exemplary, whether that was sniffing out danger or a last-ditch tackle. Toti obviously isn’t a natural going forward, but he held his own.

The front three worked too. Cunha, Costa and Podence perhaps weren’t at their very creative best, but they linked up nicely at times and understood the need to cut out the fancy flicks. We all know Costa isn’t the player of old, but he still has something to offer leading the line. He must start there in our remaining games.

Talking of games ahead, it’s amazing to think that there’s eight left, but if we beat Brentford on Saturday then we’re almost safe. I don’t think my heart could take our safety still up for question in the last home game against Everton.

We need to lift the mood.

It was a relief to get that equaliser at the City Ground and the midweek results were favourable, but I haven’t felt good about a Wolves performance for ages.

In the earlier games of the Lopetegui era, there were positives to extract even when we didn’t win and a vibrancy about the squad that fostered enthusiasm.

The last three performances have stamped much of that out and the stock of many of these players has never been lower. Some will disagree, but I don’t think they’re as bad as they’ve made themselves look.

Even so, I’d rate our current chances of survival no better than 50/50.

Chelsea

If you’d told me Frank Lampard would be sitting in the Chelsea dugout tomorrow, I’d have assumed they’d reached desperation in their search for a goalscorer. But no, he’s back as manager for a second spell in one of the more surprising twists in this strange old season.

I can’t imagine he’ll have a significant impact in such a short period of time, but you’d have thought someone will eventually get a decent tune out of this stacked Chelsea squad.

The jury is out on all of their recent signings, but the familiar names are now returning (James, Chilwell, Kante, Kovacic, Sterling and a few others), which should help them establish consistency.

They’ve only scored six goals more than Wolves (just to underline how bad they’ve been) and profligacy killed them again in midweek with plenty of chances created against Liverpool but none taken.

They’re marooned in midtable so a push for Europe seems fanciful but are still in this season’s Champions League and head to the Bernabeu on Wednesday for the first leg of their quarter-final.

Wolves

I’ve given up trying to guess who Lopetegui will pick and have no idea who I’d pick so I’m not even sure what this XI represents.

Is Cunha a better choice than Costa or Raul? Is Hwang going to have more impact than Traore or Sarabia? Should Podence be in over Neto? Who can really say?

Similarly, in the midfield, Joao Gomes didn’t do a lot wrong against Leeds so could fill in for Ruben. Boubacar Traore is also knocking around too. It could be any combination.

Chelsea are in a similar boat, especially with a new manager with his own opinions, so at least we won’t be the only team spinning the wheel this week.

Predictions

Well done to Woodend wolf, Ben Rasmin, PeteRobbo, Pete Dunbar, Aussiewolf, vicsmith, Ash k and Rich who all predicted the 1-1 scoreline at the City Ground last weekend.

Rich remains four-points clear at the top of the overall table at the end of Gameweek 29.

As always, if you’d like to join in with the Prediction League this season, it’s simple – just leave your prediction in the comment section below using the boxes provided. Then repeat for every preview article throughout the season, making sure you always use the same email address to make your prediction. Your email is what ties you to your overall score.

You can read my prediction for the game in the comment section below.

Up The Wolves!