Steve Davis: Poor second half cost Wolves
Steve Davis believes Wolves' poor start to the second half was their downfall in the defeat to Crystal Palace.
Adama Traore's first half header was cancelled out within a minute of the restart when Eberechi Eze equalised.
Wolves struggled in the second 45 and a winner from Wilfried Zaha wrapped up the points for the hosts.
Davis said: “I thought we executed the game plan really well first half. I thought we stifled them with our 10s and scored with the best move. It was a great cross and a header, Adama getting round the back which we’ve been trying to do for a while.
“Then obviously Neves’ big moment with the free-kick. That was crucial. I was disappointed with the first 15 minutes. We talked at half-time about how we start because we knew they would probably get a few choice words from their manager.
“But we weren’t ready. We needed to approach the game slightly differently, go a bit longer, but we still tried to play. As a group we’ve got to recognise that in that moment of the game. If we’d have seen that through, we’d have probably gone on and got a better result.”
Wolves were appealing for a penalty in the second half for an apparent handball by Marc Guehi, which Davis felt should have been punished.
He added: “We’ve watched it and it looks like a penalty – the guy has put his hand out and it’s hit his hand. We don’t know what Lee Mason saw, but from the monitor we’ve looked at different angles and it clearly looks like he’s raised his leg and his arm is there as well, and it’s hit his arm.
“Those things have got to go for you and sometimes they don’t. You could see the excitement on the bench because we thought at that point that we were pushing for an equaliser and that was the key moment really.”
Wolves supporters have criticised a triple substitution that saw Traore, Boubacar Traore and Matheus Nunes all come off, but Davis insists they were forced into making those changes.
He said: “We had to. Adama was a doubt before the game with a little injury that might get worse. We didn’t know what his minutes were going to be, but he was important to how we were going to play and I thought he was excellent first half.
“Obviously you don’t want to take a player off who is causing problems, but we had to do it with him. He couldn’t have done any more.
“Bouba was booked and hasn’t completed 90 minutes. He was fatiguing massively, so we felt we needed some legs in the middle of the pitch. And Matheus got a bang on the head, so again that was something we needed to look at as well.”
