Wolves Fans' Verdict v Newcastle: Another VAR injustice
Our Wolves fans have their say on the defeat to Newcastle.
Clive Smith
Wolves huff and puff but lose again, nothing to see here, move on. Except we can’t. The overwhelming feeling of injustice strikes again.
After Liverpool in the FA Cup, Forest in the Carabao, Lemina at Southampton (meaning he missed Bournemouth) and the non-penalty, red card here at Newcastle. Is there a Wolves fan out there constantly running over black cats? Sticking pins in teddy bears? If its you – please stop!
Ok, so I am sitting way up in the God’s and the ref is just a few yards away, so he must be right. But, when a 12-hour round trip gets shaped around a decision that might possibly have been wrong... hey, its hard not to feel somewhat bitter/angry/livid.
What else happen then? Mr Howe brought his book of dirty tricks into play and, as Newcastle always try to do, they kicked Neves out the game, twice he was down and needed lengthy treatment.
The first half was patchy. We played well at times and for 25 minutes were certainly ‘in’ the game. Traore and Semedo linking up well and Moutinho putting in a good shift. Then, a routine looking free-kick (from a position we’d often just take short, square or back), went into our box for a flick header to score the sort of goal the Doog was famous for.
That gave them the confidence they needed whereas ours took a knock. We did well to survive without conceding again before the break because we were being battered for 15 minutes.
Lopetegui’s surprise half-time substitution this week saw Neto replace Traore. He played well too, looking to have neat touches and pace and hit the woodwork with a well worked free-kick. Podence had hit an upright in the first half. It really was not our day!
With 20 minutes left we rolled the selection dice again, and again it worked. A cross into their box and when the ball ran loose it was Hwang who equalised. Maybe after all we were going to get something out of the game, but no. Within 10 minutes it was 2-1 and game, set and match.
The Neves and Moutinho combo had worked well and we were certainly competitive in midfield. Podence, who seemed to divide opinion amongst the crowd, was involved in quite a few of our best moves but, like others, was wasteful at times. Kilman and Dawson made there usual high number of blocks but in possession we did ourselves no favours at the back. Time and time again it looked an accident waiting to happen as Sa tried to engineer a passing move that could only be watched through fingers over your eyes as it usually involved a string of hospital passes and brought anguish to the away end. Dawson in particular looked nervous in possession.
