Wolves Fans' Verdict v Brighton: An embarrassing display!

Clive Smith

Our worst performance of the season in many ways. Boly, Saiss and Jonny all had their worst game’s of the season.

The body language was poor from early on. Usually we are confident passing the ball around, but we looked nervous, overplaying it, and constantly putting colleagues under pressure. We looked a tired side and off the pace throughout.

Had the rules been in place we could have made full use of five substitutions at half-time. A game to forget, a bad day at the office. Move on.

Russ Evers

Firstly the positives – the weather, the Tap (Duke of York) and seeing the old and usual faces.

And thats it.

Last week I said the performance was abject – this was worse. A totally disgusting and disrespectful showing from nearly everyone on that pitch in gold who treated the paying faithful and the rest of the premier league sides with disdain. Not one player would get over 3/10 – some tried and others hid.

|If Semedo, Dendoncker and Hwang are chosen to do anything other than sell the pies then something is wrong. But they alone cannot shoulder the blame – seven defeats in 10 points the finger at the manager and this latest disaster would warrant that pointing. No fight, no passion, no idea and no plan.

I cannot see where the next point will come from. And next season, well that is a frightening thought.

Needs a proper sort out. And quickly.

Matt Cooper

Thankfully I didn’t have to waste my time by travelling to Molineux for the game and watched it at home. Let’s just say I am feeling quite smug having made that decision.

That performance was embarrassing from front to back. We were completely humbled and played around by a Brighton team who are on the beach – but there isn’t a team more on the beach than Wolves.

Fans were quite right in booing at half-time and at full-time. You’d at least expect a bit of reaction at half-time but no, it got worse. The team lacks serious cohesion and even as a fan, I feel so detached from this squad and club.

Questions have to be asked about the manager too, with seven defeats in the last 10 being among the worst in the league. Hopefully, Fosun will see that this team needs a cultural reboot which will come at a cost in the summer. Let’s see where their priorities lie.

I said on the Talking Wolves podcast last week that I can’t see Wolves getting another point this season. That looks to be ringing true.

John Lalley

With this season imploding as alarmingly as the last and with the horrendous irresolution displayed by Wolves on Saturday, perhaps just a modicum of perspective might be in order.

Scant consolation I know, but almost every player who fumbled their way through that turgid mass of incompetence which beggared belief has at times performed brilliantly for this club.

Two or three of them will comfortably saunter into the club’s Hall of Fame and historically rank alongside the very finest practitioners to have represented Wolves.

Trouble is, football is all about the here and now and at present we are beyond shambolic much as I admire and respect so many of our squad. Nobody likes to be humiliated; it’s degrading and its painful.

I’ve seen Wolves routed more times than I care to remember over the last sixty-plus years and hearing the strains of ‘We are the Albion and we’re taking the toilet-water’ from a distant and sparsely populated area of Molineux takes some stomaching. But that is exactly what a competent, organised and efficient Brighton were doing in the death throes of this grotesque debacle.

This campaign isn’t simply fizzling out, it’s almost expunging itself from memory. We threw in the towel before we even laced the gloves; our response to getting away with a missed penalty was simply to gift Brighton another one.

With Fabio and Hwang leading the attack another scoring blank was inevitable. Hardly the image of Dougan and Richards or Bull and Mutch this pair, more Abbott and Costello or Morecambe and Wise. When Jimenez was introduced, it was sad to see his demise continue and his inability to maintain possession, which has bedevilled him all season was instrumental in the concession of the deciding second goal.

How we begin to constructively address this pitiful scoring drought remains an insoluble mystery. Not that they were remotely helped by their colleagues; nothing was created and the defensive co-ordination was totally haywire, so much so that it was a major surprise that Brighton took as long as they did to ensure the inevitable.

It was remarkable the number of times that Wolves were exposed by the Brighton front runners effortlessly getting goal-side of their markers for a free run towards our eighteen-yard box. Boly was caught hopelessly on the hop in this way and gifted the visitors that second penalty. His uncertainty was contagious; long before the end, Brighton were effortlessly cutting swathes through our ponderous midfield and terrorising our panic-stricken backline.

The contrasts were stark; damningly so. Brighton, brisk, polished and determined. Wolves, laborious, shoddy and flatulent. Our ineptitude was truly staggering; why we have degenerated so spectacularly after such an encouraging beginning and with a tangible reward there for the taking is as baffling as it is disappointing.

Long before the end, Bruno Lage stood virtually motionless in his technical area, hands deep in his pockets almost diminishing before our eyes. A penny for his thoughts; so much outstanding work now slipping through his fingers. I like and respect the bloke just as my affection for Nuno will never waver. His frustration must be colossal and his options frighteningly minimal. I would love to see him shift the balance but baffled as to how he might do it.

I masochistically remained until the bitter end unlike a vast proportion of the crowd and maintained my refusal to ever boo off a Wolves team but I shared Bruno’s embarrassment. At the final whistle I was away rapidly and down the Cannock Road heading for home at a rate of knots hoping as few pedestrians as possible would spy me sporting a Wolves’ top. Couldn’t bear the thought of being associated in any small way in what I had just been forced to endure. It was a relief to see the shirt disappear into the washing machine. It might not be so easy to cleanse the dirty laundry festering right now at Molineux.

Rob Cartwright

This was totally abject from Wolves.

It’s hard to put into words how the game unfolded. We started where we left off at Burnley, very poorly.

The first penalty should have been the wake up call, but no, we got even worse as the game went on. Two subs made at half-time were timely, but their impact made no difference whatsoever. For the third game in succession, we went from bad to worse in the second half.

The whole team, collectively, were bad with the exception of Ait-Nouri and Silva. It’s probably wrong to single out any player. There’s a few that come to mind for criticism.

I can’t help but think Neves returned too soon, though he wasn’t one of them.

It’s gone downhill since Bruno rinsed Hoever, in public.

I commented after that game on March 6 that his outburst revealed frustration and pressure but was best not said in public. This is the moment he lost the dressing room.

The last three games have put him at serious risk and who can argue with that?

We’ve gone from heroes to zeros in the last four months – look at Jan/Feb (six wins from eight games) compared to Mar/Apr (two from eight). Add to this we were in touching distance of a top six finish and it makes for sorry reading! What an opportunity missed.

The only thing that saves him is the fact he doesn’t rock the boat with the owners or Chief Exec.

No doubts Bruno did an amazing job to get us to eighth; but it’s been a totally abject since then.

Sorry to say, but I believe he just ain’t got “it”.

Changes needed at the season end.

Adam Virgo

The worst performance I’ve seen live from Wolves in a long, long time. No effort shown from the majority of the players, questionable team selection choices and then subs made at half-time. It just feels like everything has gone from being so great a couple months back to a complete mess.

Failing to score against Newcastle, Burnley and Brighton is bad in itself but not even looking like scoring in either game is embarrassing. In terms of ability, it’s not as if Brighton have way better players or anything like that but when you don’t put effort in, a scoreline like that can happen and it could have been more too.

Fabio Silva is the scapegoat at the moment but how Hwang is playing as much as he is, is beyond me. Defensively we look all over the place individually and collectively and going forward it’s as if we have players who have never seen each other before.

There’s a select few who I thought didn’t do too badly but out of 14 players that played some minutes, a few putting in effort isn’t anywhere near acceptable. Some of the current players aren’t good enough either for where we’re aiming to be, if the owners don’t invest in the summer then we’re only going to regress because we’re probably overachieving currently with the squad we have and the fact we hardly spent in the summer.

The last four games are just days out for the fans now, West Ham lost yesterday but we are serial bottlers and there’s no chance we are picking up enough points to finish above them. Chelsea, City and Liverpool will more than likely embarrass us with the way we are playing and then Norwich will end up being a draw because that’s what we do.