Man City

Character.

A quality Wolves have lacked but demonstrated in abundance today.

City’s equaliser hinted at Liverpool all over again. But no, this time it was different.

The response to Alvarez’s free kick to reset and go for the jugular took some guts.

The jury is still out on O’Neil but at least this performance suggests that the lads are playing for him. And kudos to the boss. Starting with a back five soaked up City’s pressure. The visitors were limited to very little.

Sa was brilliant in commanding his box, Ait-Nouri and Semedo defended for their lives out wide, while Dawson and Kilman looked a lot more assured alongside an energetic Toti, who loves the physical stuff.

I’ve always been reluctant to return to five at the back due to how negative we became in that system under Nuno. But if O’Neil can add fluency to a solid foundation against teams where we’ll see more of the ball, then maybe it’s worth considering.

Gomes and Lemina were at their ferocious best in midfield. Their appetite for hustling their opposite numbers off the ball is something the Molineux faithful can easily get behind. The aren’t too shabby on the ball either.

As for Hwang and Neto, they’re dynamite. The former is coolness personified when it comes to finding the back of the net, while the latter causes havoc with his direct running. Quite the pair.

Cunha is undroppable too. His pressing from the front and all-round game is so important to this Wolves side. Besides, Hwang and Neto’s numbers are making up for Cunha’s shortfall.

A final word for Boubacar Traore. I can see why O’Neil likes him so much. His relentless energy in the middle of the park is perfect for when Lemina or Gomes are flagging.

And how good was it to hear Molineux back in full voice? I struggle to remember the last time we generated such an atmosphere.

Long may it continue.

You know the pressure is building when the manager starts yammering on about things beyond his control.

And Gary O’Neil is dropping beats left, right and center about key players leaving, lack of preparation time, the dire situation he inherited, etc. Yawn.

I don’t see how that’s doing him any favours. Supporters know already and let’s be honest, he only got the job in the first place because of all those things. Better to shift the narrative towards things being done to put us on a better path. Look forward, not back.

We did do better against Liverpool in our last home game and have shown promise in spells in all the matches, so the manager can clearly coax something out of this disparate group. Putting it all together over a full 90 remains the problem.

Man City

They might be coming into this on the back of their first defeat of the season, but it’s been perfection in the Premier League so far.

Six games, six wins so far for Pep and co. The fixtures have been somewhat favourable though. Not that this is any different. They’ll be licking their lips coming up against opposition who’ve conceded 7 in two league games at home so far.

Maybe that cup defeat will plant a seed of doubt and it’s Arsenal away next Sunday, so there might be a tinge of pressure to keep the ship on course heading into that one. We can only hope, right?

With Rodri suspended, Matheus Nunes will be in the City team and can look forward to a hero’s welcome. He’ll do well for them, but I hope to see him fall on his face this time. He didn’t need to act like a baby to get his move.

They have a squad jam-packed with quality but the team isn’t as good without Kevin De Bruyne and Rodri. Of course, they’ve got enough to put Wolves to sleep but there’s a glimmer of hope with those two missing.

Haaland got 4 goals against us last season – as well as scoring 5 more in the league than our entire team – so hopefully we can find a way to shut him down more effectively.

Wolves

Gary deployed a back three at Ipswich and I think that’s the way to go, albeit without Jonny filling in on the right side.

We need to stop Haaland plundering headers at the back post and without the insurance of a third centre half, I worry we’ll be exposed in those areas.

With Bellegarde out I don’t think we have an alternative to fill that position between midfield and attack effectively so we might as well try to tighten up defensively. We can’t keep conceding 3 or more.

If you’ve still got the three attackers and wingbacks that can get forward, we can carry a threat. The above team would also have good opportunities from set pieces if they’re prepared to scrap it out to earn those chances.

Predictions

Well done to Sea Pigeon, Wokywolf, Portuguese men of Wolves, Rich, PJB, Aussie Wolf and Ash K for getting the score correct against Luton. And Wokywolf takes the lead at the top of the leaderboard at the end of Gameweek 6.

Logic dictates a comfortable defeat but how bad is it likely to be? I’ll go for the same score as Liverpool – 1-3. They should be more vulnerable without Rodri holding down the fort but they’ll get through us unless something changes.

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!

Too many mistakes.

Sa’s gaffe was the headline, but all the goals were preventable.

Ruben gave the ball away and then needlessly fouled Gundogan for the second. Even Haaland’s well-worked opener could have been cut off had Nunes not been sucked towards the ball allowing De Bruyne a free cross.

Small details but you can’t afford to get them wrong.

City probably would have continued creating chances for as long as they needed to, but this became too easy for my liking.

Wolves defended well up until the first goal and prevented it from becoming a rout after the game was gone, but there isn’t much else for Loptegui to take from the wreckage, other than the fact we don’t have to play City again this season.

Even as we broke forward in the second half and occupied promising positions the inability to test Ederson made for painful viewing.

Sarabia looked confident and direct, which is exactly what we need, but skied one opportunity and saw another blocked by Ake (possibly with his arm).

We really need the Spaniard to bring his Sporting Lisbon numbers to this team because 12 goals in 20 games is still the statistic keeping me up at night.

I just wonder what is being done on the training pitch to address this crippling deficiency? City had clear patterns of play in the final third and were rewarded for that with the opening goal.

In contrast, Wolves just pass and pass and pass, hoping the solution will become obvious and it never does.

Even from set pieces, the desire to put the ball into good areas and attack with aggression isn’t there. Collins and Kilman don’t look like they’d connect with anything if they played for a decade.

I would put Dawson straight in for his heading ability in both boxes alone, but I also believe we’re overplaying in defence and inviting the press. An experienced player will know better when to play and when to simply defend.

With this game out of the way and many of the teams around us dropping points in winnable fixtures, things could be worse.

But we can rightly expect better than this when we emerge for that Liverpool game in a fortnight.

Every time we’ve won a Premier League game this season, we’ve followed up with a defeat.

That’s something Wolves need to address, but it’ll be tough to break that trend on Sunday, especially if the cup exit is anything to go by.

The Liverpool game showed that however many strikers we throw at the problem, scoring remains the issue.

On the plus side, this team still tend to do all their damage on the counterattack and there will be plenty of opportunities to do that in this game.

Any result other than a defeat would be significant.

Man City

I watched City’s comeback win over Spurs last night and was impressed with how they managed that game after conceding the first two goals.

It wasn’t a typical Pep performance (which probably explains his bizarre post-match demeanour) but they bulldozed their way through repeatedly to get the job done.

Foden, De Bruyne and Cancelo all sat on the bench with their feet up while Dias, Walker and Silva only had token minutes right at the end. That’s what you call squad depth and it gives Pep no shortage of options for Sunday.

They lost to Brentford and drew with Everton in fairly recent times, which should at least give us hope of causing a similar upset.

But 35 goals scored at home already (50 overall) is a scary prospect, particularly with Haaland back among them after a two game ‘drought’.

Wolves

Subject to injury there are plenty of options for Lopetegui to choose right across the pitch, but this is what I’d expect to see.

Pablo Sarabia hasn’t come to sit on the bench, but hasn’t had a huge amount of minutes so it would be a bold move to throw him straight in at the Etihad. His output suggests he could be a problem solver in the weeks ahead.

This is definitely the type of game Mario Lemina was drafted in to play so I’ll be surprised if he’s not in the starting XI.

Moutinho, Ait-Nouri, Jonny, Toti, Traore, Raul and Costa are other realistic options depending on the shape and tactics the coach wants to deploy.

Predictions

Well done to Ben Rasmin, Rich, Woodend wolf, Matt Cook, Mike Jones and Wishfart who all correctly predicted the 1-0 scoreline against West Ham.

Rich extends his lead at the top of the overall table to 5 points at the end of Gameweek 19.

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!

Since April 3, Wolves have scored four Premier League goals at Molineux, compared to Manchester City’s eight.

In other words, as soon as Jack Grealish bundled in the opener before we’d finished contemplating Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, the game was done and dusted.

Thoughts now turn to King Charles III’s tenure, and how many weeks into it before we see another goal again. With this front-three in particular, I wouldn’t bet against it being Christmas.

Ok, so Nathan Collins will rightly receive the wrath of many for a braindead challenge on the City player we like to hate most, but in truth we’d been playing with 10 men up until that point anyway, as the hopeless Pedro Neto was being carried for another week, as he keeps up his woeful impersonation of his former self.

Unfashionable as it is to say this no doubt, but if Adama Traore was pulling the stunts – or lack of – that Neto has all season, he’d have been hounded out the starting XI by the baying masses long before now. Alongside Neto, Podence still does nothing to disprove that he’s a quirky, novelty player, while Guedes looks like the pair of them put together…

…All fur coat and no knickers.

Opting for one luxury player against arguably the best team in the western world right now is asking for trouble, but three across the front line is only going to end one way, as it has every game bar Leeds, Newcastle and Southampton…

…Goalless, clueless and quite honestly, hopeless.

And more proof, were it needed, that without Man City’s 2019 tormentor in the team we look infinitely less likely to score than we do when he’s out injured, as he was today in a big blow before kick off.

While many fans are claiming this squad to be the most talented in their lifetime (with a fair degree of validity), I’d wager that it’s also the most toothless side that I’ve seen in the final third, give or take those Le Fondre days of woe. So whilst defeats like this one against Man City are never going to define our season, the shocking ‘goals for’ column is, as is a meagre 6 points from 7 games and a potential drop to the Premier League relegation zone by the time those below have played their game in hand.

The two claims must be mutually exclusive, as it’s inconceivable that this vaunted squad we’re all so quick to laud can be so pathetic when approaching an opposition penalty box? Even in the dying embers of this fixture with the game done and dusted, we refused to load any players in the box. I.E We were (in)actively looking not to score, which can only be an instruction from the coach.

A churlish definition? Perhaps, but players are literally refusing to shoot at goal or even make a run into the box to receive the ball to shoot in the first place. It is beyond maddening now and one paltry shot today was another damning indictment, irrespective of the opposition or the fact we had a man less for an hour when playing them.

That we kept the score down to three with 10 men was a minor moral victory to cling on to, while Boubacar Traore gave a promising cameo off the bench late on.

Yet despite the glaringly obvious, we did play some good stuff in spells, as typified in the 15mins between City’s two goals, while some of the play after we went a man down was pleasant enough, albeit lacking in any sort of cutting edge that would get you off your seat. Only Her Majesty did that in the 70^th minute, in a doubly sobering moment.

But before I join the growing cat-calls towards Bruno, I’ll keep my powder dry for now as I sense (without any evidence, granted!) that he is aware of our side’s glaring deficiency and needs longer to put it right.

Signing Boubacar Traore and Diego Costa would suggest this to be the case, with the former here to drive us up the pitch and the latter given the diktat to cause mayhem in the box.

Firing blanks thereafter will be a sackable offence though, irrespective of who we’re up against.

Sometimes it takes a big result to get the season going properly.

The last three rickety performances have produced five points and that valuable first victory, which wasn’t a bad return given the ‘could have won, could have lost’ nature of those games.

But anything less than perfection tomorrow will result in certain defeat, so the challenge is there for the players to raise their game accordingly.

They did reasonably well against Tottenham in the only other match against the ‘Big Six’ so far, so there’s no reason we can’t give them a run for their money.

The memory of last season’s walloping and the spectre of Haaland loom large but hopefully Wolves rise to the occasion.

Man City

As good as they’ve been, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Pep and company.

It took a couple of epic comebacks against Newcastle and Palace to avoid defeat and they were stung late on by Villa last time out to keep them off the top of the Premier League table.

Still, all signs point to a successful defence of their title and with Liverpool stuttering already I struggle to see anyone living with their consistency.

Avoiding injuries to key personnel will be the biggest worry as they navigate through various competitions. Even with their strength in depth, losing De Bruyne or Haaland or Dias would set them back.

In the here and now everyone seems to be fit and healthy and that is bad news for Wolves, not least because they’ve already scored 17 more goals than us, just 6 games into the season.

Wolves

Bruno’s decision to play Jonny in a back three and Chiquinho at wingback in this fixture last season was probably his worst decision as head coach.

That said, City make you want to experiment to combat their overwhelming dominance. It might be worth sacrificing an out-and-out striker to have Podence playing deeper to give us four bodies in the middle.

Neto, Guedes or Traore would then give us viable outlets, running outside to in when we can counter or get some form of possession.

I’m not sure if Raul or Costa are considered fit enough to start if Bruno wants something more conventional but hopefully at least one of them will be able to feature at some point.

Predictions

Rich remains at the top of the overall table at the end of Gameweek 6 after the Liverpool game was postponed.

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!