Relief as Neves penalty secures win
Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 v Nottingham Forest 0
As Kwasi Kwarteng has just experienced it’s always comforting to be shown the door with warm tributes massaging your ear lobes. Close on two weeks ago Wolves’ manager Bruno Lage received similar when his slightly longer tenure was also brought to an end. On that occasion Wolves Chief Jeff Shi said “Bruno is an excellent coach, a hardworking and dedicated manager and a warm wise and honest man. He and his staff have been a pleasure to work with throughout their time at Wolves, so it is with much sadness that we have to make what has been a difficult decision”. Shi went on “I honestly have no doubts about Bruno’s ability and I am sure he will succeed elsewhere but the team’s form and performances over the last few months mean that we have no choice but to act”.
The following is purely conjecture but I sensed that the first nail in Bruno’s coffin came with last season’s alleged training ground disagreements with both Raul Jimenez and Conor Coady. The end of season performances were awful. The second nail was the early season departure of the aforementioned Coady, Lage’s on-field general and as such a vital cog in the team. And the third was the continuing poor performances relative to the closed season spend. The side appeared indifferent to the manager’s touch line protestations and as such I felt the players had lost faith in the narrative.
Fast forward twelve days and Wolves have sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia to prise former manager Nuno Espirito Santo from his two-year contract at footballing power-house Al-Ittihad. Now that preferred choice Julen Lopetegui has turned the club down the options for a suitable replacement have certainly narrowed. Nuno’s final season at the Molineux was not good. But he knows most of the players, has experience of the premier league and is still held in high regard by the majority of the Wolves faithful. The team has still not recovered from the departure of Diogo Jota and Matt Doherty and a steady rebuild is required. He could do that.
Steady might be the optimum word. For if this performance was anything to go by it was anything but steady perhaps influenced by the iniquities of VAR which twice intruded into the second half action. The first followed a darting run by Adama Traore in minute 51 which ended in his shot being deflected for a corner. In doing so had it first touched a Nottingham Forest hand? Clear and obvious is the principle by which decisions are made. It took four minutes. Clear and obvious? I don’t think so, but referee Thomas Bramall pointed to the spot and Ruben Neves converted in style. 25 minutes later it was the turn of the Wolves support to squirm as another VAR decision, this time involving some shirt tugging by Matheus Nunes, was undertaken. For a second time it took four minutes to reach a decision as the referee once again pointed to the spot. Step forward Brennan Johnson whose well struck penalty was brilliantly saved by Jose Sa, playing with a broken wrist. In its wake panic set in as Wolves hung on through eight minutes of time added on to finally cross the line.
It need not have been so for had Wolves converted any one of five good first half chances – Traore, Diego Costa, Ryan Ait-Nouri (twice) and Max Kilman – they would have been home and hosed. Rarely has there been such a one-sided contest in which the dominant team failed to score. But then scoring goals in open play has been a problem for eighteen months or more.
“You can only play what is in front of you” is an oft repeated trope. Nottingham Forest are rank and two penalties - one scored one saved – was the difference between these two sides. A long season stretches ahead. But, for the time being at least, Wolves are out of the bottom three.
Wolverhampton Wanderers: Sa 8, Castro Otto 6, Gomes 6, Kilman 7, Ait Nouri 6 Sub Bueno, Neves 6, Nunes 6 Sub Hodge, Moutinho 7 Sub Traore, Podence 7, Traore 7 Sub Semedo, Costa 7 Sub Hee Chan,
Nottingham Forest: Henderson 6, Williams 6, Cook 6, McKenna 6, Toffolo 6 Sub Surridge, Yates 6, Freuler 6 Sub Awoniyi, Kouyate 5 Sub Mangala, Johnson 6, Dennis 6 Sub Lingard, Gibbs-White 6
Attendance: 31,554
Referee: Thomas Bramall 7
©Mark Brennand