Wolves Fans' Verdict v Chelsea: A capitulation at Molineux

John Lalley

The final third of the previous season offered graphic evidence that this Wolves squad carried some glaring deficiencies that urgently needed addressing.

These inadequacies have not been remedied; to suggest otherwise is delusional.

This catastrophic capitulation to opposition who themselves are far from flawless, is the culmination of a policy of standing still and hoping fortune smiles on us without the necessity of proactive action to foster progress and improvement.

The portents of this retrogressive inertia are blindingly obvious. The chaotic defending, both team-wise and individually spread like wildfire; in the end Chelsea might have reached double figures such were the acres of space we gifted to them.

Tackles and challenges degenerated into half-hearted apologies until ultimately our vulnerability was absolutely total.

Confidence and morale shot to bits; somehow, there has to be a positive and defiant response and a wholly more professional hard edge.

During the first-half, despite conceding two horrendous goals, Wolves exposed Chelsea’s soft underbelly and maybe were a shade unfortunate to score only twice. But what followed was an outrageous orgy of self-destruction with much of the mayhem bordering on the inexplicable.

The executive, the head coach and his staff and the players need some harsh self-appraisal in the wake of this fiasco; self-inflicted wounds that need to be healed, and quickly.

Adam Virgo

An absolutely disgraceful second half performance, especially defensively.

This has to open the eyes of everyone at the club that we definitely need signings as soon as possible.

We’re on a horrific run at the moment if you take the end of last season’s results into account and something needs to change and improve because if we lose to Forest then we could be in serious trouble with our fixtures after that.

Defensively we were all over the shop. We’ve got Jose Sa’s poor passing, along with our defence looking like they hadn’t met each other before, let alone played together.

The only positives I can take from this game are that we looked pretty good in an attacking sense and the link up between Cunha and Strand Larsen was looking very promising.

Ait Nouri was good going forward but absolutely terrible defensively, Madueke was running rings around him.

We definitely need signings in this week, no excuses whatsoever. A new starting centre back and a goalkeeper is a must for me whether we continue with a back four or revert to a back five because there’s no way we can just accept what we have currently when it’s nowhere near good enough.

Clive Smith

OMG - where to start? Had the final whistle been at half time, we’d have, kind of, taken the rough with the smooth and accepted a point. With the ball, attacking, we appeared good, with Larsen and Cunha looking like they had played together for ages. Without the ball it was a very different story.

As for the second half, it was horrific.

Gary O’Neil now has his hardest week as Wolves boss ahead of him. The Cup game is a mere distraction. It has finally come to decision time for any transfers in and out. Anyone want to invest a spare billion pounds?

Meanwhile he has the repercussions of this game to digest. Big panic or mild panic. All of our weaknesses were exposed for all to see. Nuno and Lage failed to ‘move us forward’ by playing four at the back, does GON kick the idea into touch sooner, later or persist.

Sa, maybe distracted by transfer talk, but his distribution in our two games has never been worse. Ait-Nouri does not have the right attributes to play left back. Toti looks a much better player with two central defenders alongside him. Mosquera is on a steep learning curve on being a Premier League player.