Wolverhampton Wanderers (Away) 13.04.2025

Football is essentially an easy game, but we are doing well to make it look so difficult.  Without concentrating on the basics, the rest won’t follow and concentrating seems to be a problem for some players with loose (seemingly unconcerned) passing, forgetting their positions and lacking aggression to win the ball in areas from where the ball ends up in our net.

From the kick off, Bellegarde went down the left and won a free-kick.  From that, he played it in, Vicario punched it out and it went to Ait-Nouri, just outside the box, who volleyed it into the ground and into the net to the keeper’s left.  Vicario complained, but it was difficult to see about what, although VAR looked at it for offside for two and a half minutes before the goal was awarded.  It was just our luck at the moment that Vicario’s punch, which wasn’t too bad, came straight back and ended up as a goal.  So, another early goal conceded, although we are capable of conceding at any time these days.

What Vic didn’t do so well was deal with a back-pass from Spence in the fifth minute, that he shanked straight to Semedo in the box and his square ball was half-intercepted by Romero as he challenged Strand Larsen, with the ball falling for the striker, who was on the floor, but could only scoop the ball wide of the post by two feet from the six-yard line when he really should have scored.  When Tottenham won a corner, it was cleared and Bissouma’s mis-control forced him to drag back Bellegarde to pick up a yellow card with only eight minutes gone.

Spurs started to string a few passes together, but the Wolves shape was to get men back behind the ball quickly and it made it difficult to create much.  Tel made a good run left and squared the ball to Sarr around the penalty spot, but his loose touch allowed the ball to be cleared, although Bissouma ran onto it on 25 yards out and smashed a shot at goal that Sa did well to push away to his right.  It took 21 minutes for us to get a shot on goal, but at least we got a shot on goal.  There was another after 35 minutes, when a determined run by Tel squeezed the ball to Romero, who passed in to Brennan Johnson just inside the area.  He took a touch and turned to fir a shot at goal, but it was over Sa’s bar.

When the ball went forward for Wolves having been won by Agbadou just inside the Spurs half, Ait-Nouri’s cross deflected high into the air off Johnson’s challenge and Munetsi went for it with his head, missed it and with Strand Larsen closing in, Vicario slapped at it, directing it onto Djed Spence and into his own net.  It was another embarrassing goal to concede and one which nobody else seems to let in.

In the last minute of the half a ball over Doherty’s head into the box found James Maddison and the former Spurs man bundled over the Tottenham midfielder.  VAR reviewed it and decided that contact was insufficient, although it was enough to knock Madders off balance and affect the outcome.  Wolves had a good chance in added time, with a cross from the left finding substitute Sarabia in space ten yards out, but he got his header all wrong and it came off his nose into the ground and bounced gently through to Vicario.

At the start of the second half, Johnson closed down Toti and got a ball in to the near post for Solanke, but Agbadou got across to deflect his shot away for a corner.  Ten minutes into the half, Bergvall and Bentancur came off the bench for Bissouma and Sarr to try to liven things up.  

Sarabia opened up a shooting opportunity for Strand Larsen inside the right side of the box, which Vicario pushed wide, although it looked as though it might have missed anyway.  A free-kick was awarded when the ball came in from the corner for Bueno pushing Maddison over, but there was so much holding and pushing going on it was difficult to determine who might have made the foul.  From the dead ball Spurs spent a lot of time passing around at the back until Maddison slipped the ball to Bergvall who moved it forward up the right and put Johnson in beyond the left sided defender.  Brannan’s ball across the box along the six-yard line to the far post looked like it would be dealt with by Semedo, but his attempted flick with his heel missed the ball and allowed Mathys to put the ball between the defender’s back and the post to make it 2-1. 

So, just when it looked as though we might be back in the match, a ball down the left three minutes later was run past by Romero and Ait-Nouri gratefully accepted it to square in front of an open goal for a chance that even Strand Larsen couldn’t miss.  It was an amazing lack of focus by the Spurs captain on the day and one that snuffed out any hope of getting anything from the game.

Things certainly were not going our way when Dom had a free-kick given against him for being kicked by Ait-Nouri.  The referee had been generous to Wolves in fouls they committed but were unpunished and when Andre brought down Maddison a couple of yards out from the top of the D, his dissent also went without any rebuke.  Maddison shot the free-kick way too high over the Wolves goal.  Davies got booked for his second bad foul of the day and a Bentancur foul on sub Cunha gave the Brazilian a free-kick five yards outside the box that he put just over the top.

Spurs welcomed back Dejan Kulusevski, coming on for Maddison and Richarlison on for Solanke with 15 minutes left.  Much like in the Frankfurt match on Thursday, Toti hit a pass against Richarlison, but it rebounded kindly for the defender, otherwise, Richi would have been directly in front of goal with the ball at his feet.  Joao Gomes twice shot wide when in good positions, then Archie Gray did well to win the ball of Hwang, who had just come on and then play the ball up the line with it moved out to the left wing, where Spence won a corner.  Bergvall took it aiming for the back of the box, where Davies headed it back into the middle of the area and Romero won a header that hit the bar giving Richarlison the simple task of heading the ball over the line from two yards out.

It looked like a nervy finish for Wolves, but that was until Toti got booked for fouling Johnson and from the free-kick, Bergvall lost the ball to Cunha, who breezed past Davies and ran away from Romero to slot the ball low past Vicario with his right foot to the keeper’s left from the 18 yard line.  Another sloppy goal that is one of far too many this season that we have conceded.

A cross from Djed in the 89th minute saw Agbadou slice the ball in his six yard box, but it squirted beyond the back post to safety.  A Richarlison header over the bar from a corner was the last action before the final whistle, which brought the agony to an end.

The stats might have indicated that this was a game that we dominated and had control of, but that wasn’t the case in reality and frankly, it could have been much worse.  Ange said he wasn’t going to pick out any players for making personal mistakes, but he had a wide choice to pick from.  These errors are costing goals and may yet coast the boss his job.  People say that he is not good enough to be in charge at Tottenham, but he can’t legislate for simple things that the players fail to do.

Losing the ball high up the pitch suddenly becomes a danger as we over-commit players to attack, leaving the midfield open and the defence exposed making us so open.  The awareness of where players are and where they need to be is just not there.  Movement off the ball and knowing where opponents are when we are out of possession seem to be things that they don’t think about.  Whether they are playing to instructions from the management team that doesn’t make this happen, we will never know.

Passes very rarely are put in front of players, meaning that they have to slow things up by trying to turn or have to play the ball backwards where momentum is again lost.  The lack of urgency among the Tottenham players often allows situations to develop that will cause danger to our goal and whether that was in today’s match the players were not committing as much as they should with Thursday in mind.

The one bright spot from today’s game was the performance of Mathys Tel, who is showing that he could be a useful buy and certainly a better one than Timo Werner, who we might not see playing for us again.

• Players took the knee prior to kick off.
• The final Wolves goal was their 100th scored against Spurs in matches between the two sides staged at Molineux.