Wolves 1 Liverpool 2 - Liam Keen and Nathan Judah analysis
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00:00Hello, I'm Nathan Judo, I'm here with Wolves reporter, it's Mr Liam Keane, Liam, Wolves
00:131, Liverpool 2, good in part but ultimately mistakes Cosma, I feel like I sound like a
00:20broken record at the moment.
00:21Yeah, exactly my sentiment really, same old story isn't it, Wolves play well in part,
00:28they don't particularly do a lot wrong, I don't think they have a lot of attacking threat
00:33to be honest, that's my biggest negative I would say, but overall they do ok, it's not
00:38a bad performance by any means, but it's a performance that once they somehow, I mean
00:44quite fortuitously albeit very good work from Larson, get themselves back level, to throw
00:49it away in the manner they do is the most frustrating thing, and we should just come
00:54straight on to it, now it's a Smedo situation, I don't think you get a bad game particularly
00:58against Smedo, I thought he did ok, and unfortunately some people on social media are desperate
01:03to protect certain players regardless of what happens, that's a massive defensive error
01:07and that's a penalty, and he's lost Wolves a point potentially, I mean there's no guarantee
01:11Wolves go on to get a point anyway, but it ends 2-1, he gave the penalty away, he's had
01:15a scoring penalty, it's a mistake from a player who is much better than that, and he has to
01:20call it out when he sees it, I think it's a stonewall penalty, I think it's very clumsy
01:23and very naive from a player who's a lot more experienced and should know better.
01:27When you get to 1-1 in that game, to concede within 90 seconds in the manner that they
01:34do, that's almost as frustrating as you're possibly going to get for Gary Neal, because
01:39you know you've got yourself back into the game, the most important thing in this game
01:42tonight was getting the fans involved, they were having a period, they get that goal,
01:47and to even just give the referee a decision to make in the box, you can't do that can
01:52you?
01:53Yeah, as you rightly put it, even if the penalty isn't given, he's treading a very fine line
01:59there, in my opinion it's a penalty, I think it's pretty clear, regardless of how soft
02:04some people may think Jos goes down, you cannot, he gets the wrong side of the player first
02:08of all, and you cannot put your arms around and essentially drag to the floor an attacking
02:13player in the box, unfortunately it's going to be given, Anthony Taylor's right on top
02:16of it, to be honest with you, he's the kind of referee that I think is not going to let
02:21an opportunity like that pass him by, he's going to give the opportunity for a penalty,
02:25not because it's Liverpool or it's against Wolves, but I think he's the kind of referee
02:28that's going to be on top of those kind of situations, he will not let it slide, and
02:33to be honest even if he didn't give it, there's an argument that VAR will overturn it anyway.
02:39Lots of, obviously the virus situation happening yesterday, Craig Dawson outside, Santiago
02:44Bueno came in, so it was Bueno and Totti Gomez at the back, how do you feel they did as a
02:48central defensive partnership?
02:50OK, it didn't blow me away, I don't think they were particularly poor, I think Totti
02:56has to do a lot better for the Canarty goal, I do, yes Canarty gets the run on him, it's
03:01a very good leap and it's a very good header, so the attacking player does very well in
03:04that situation, but I think Totti is too slow to react, and it's an almost bizarre leap
03:11from him where he sort of jumps sidewards, I don't think he has any idea that Canarty
03:15is there, and to be honest he got away with one just before with the shove-a-slow and
03:19it was a fantastic save from Johnstone, he doesn't realise Shove-a-Slow is there, completely
03:22let him get the run on him and it should be a tap-in.
03:25Aside from those two chances, Totti did OK, Santiago Bueno was probably the better of
03:28the two, neither outstanding but neither disastrous by any means, but Wolves do miss Dawson when
03:35he's not there, he is a starter all day long for this team, he makes the players around
03:40him better, and he was, well we haven't spoken to Gary Neal yet, but you would assume one
03:45of the players that's down with this virus and hence was unavailable, and Wolves miss
03:49him, and you find yourself in a situation now where Wolves have ended the game with
03:53Mario Lamina playing centre-back, with six games into a season, I don't think that's
03:58a good move.
03:59You talk about Shove-a-Slow, it was a fantastic save, point-blank save by Sam Johnstone, that
04:06was the high point for him in what was, for me, a disappointing afternoon, a disappointing
04:11goalkeeping performance from him, a few mistakes, his distribution was poor I think throughout
04:17the goal, I think he could have done better with as well, Gary O'Neill's chirped two or
04:24three times at him during the game, there are going to be teething errors, there are
04:31going to be growing pains in this situation because he's a new keeper, he's learning a
04:36new system, but at the same time, when you spend £10 million on a player, when you replace
04:41a Portuguese international, Jose Sarr's not coming up in glory at Brighton either, you
04:46expect someone to come in and dominate, and I don't think he's dominating the box at this
04:52moment in time, I feel like he's short on confidence, and that's not what you want in
04:56a team that's desperate to try and pick up a point or two.
04:59Yeah, I think he came in, and we saw from that performance and probably the moments
05:04that followed that he was a relatively calming presence, particularly in comparison to Sarr
05:09who I thought was quite erratic, to be honest, and definitely underperformed, or outperformed
05:13rather than under par for the quality he has, but I have to completely agree with you, I
05:17thought Johnstone, aside from that save, which is a fantastic save, you can't take that away
05:21from him, he looked rattled early on, we know what the Molineux crowd is like, they're a
05:27fantastic source of energy for the players, but when they play out from the back and it
05:32gets hairy, it gets scary, and the fans don't like it, and the fans start to get a bit nervous,
05:38and unfortunately I felt like Johnstone reacted to that in the wrong way, he looked very scared
05:42of making a mistake for a player who is much better than that, and similar to Samedo, he's
05:47experienced and a good player, and I don't think he showed that, aside from that one
05:51save we were talking about, two errors playing out from the back that he could have easily
05:54been punished for, one going directly for a corner, and he just looked frantic, which
06:01is the same way I've described Jose Sarr in the past, and that, for a £10m signing, is
06:07not a rigging endorsement.
06:09OK, I understand the passing across the back four, and it can be a little bit nervous at
06:16times, but they've got to keep possession, and the stats I'm sure will show that that's
06:19the best way to go, as a lot of other teams are doing it, by the way, a lot of other teams
06:22are struggling with it as well, it's not just Wolves, but when you're 2-1 down, I felt like
06:28they were always going backwards, backwards, backwards, and you want them to turn around
06:33and just go forward, you know, they've got players who can do things in the positions,
06:36you've got Carlos Forbes on there, you want them to run it, and yet I feel like it's just
06:41this need to keep the ball, to keep possession, when really you've got 20 minutes in the game
06:47against a world-class defender, you've got to try and penetrate them for a second time
06:50in the day, and it's not happening, you're not going to do it with your back-to-ball
06:53going backwards towards Sam Johnstone.
06:55Completely read my mind, probably the thing that frustrated me the most about today, regardless
07:00of individual performances and mistakes and the goals, is the reaction to going 2-1 down,
07:07the crowd were with Wolves, the crowd were there, Gary O'Neill was there with Wolves,
07:11he was urging the players forward, it's not Gary O'Neill's fault that the players weren't
07:15passing the ball forward in those last 15-20 minutes, he is desperately asking them to
07:19play the ball forward, I'm watching them on the sidelines, desperate for them to have
07:23some sort of impetus, some sort of energy, inject some life into the game, and their
07:27reaction I thought was very poor, they have reacted well, albeit not picked up point,
07:31but have reacted well to going behind in certain games, you get nothing for it, people don't
07:36remember it, but I think in terms of analysing it, they have reacted well in certain games,
07:40they didn't react well at all here today, I'll give you a great example, Mateusz Kunio,
07:45who I think is a fantastic footballer, who I think Wolves are over-reliant on,
07:51unfortunately, which is a negative, but when he's on song, he is up there with one of the
07:55best in the Premier League, I think he's that good, he was way off it today, by his standards,
08:00way off it, and in that second half, when Wolves do get the ball to him, and once or
08:04twice he had a run and it was decent, ended it with nothing, but the majority of the time,
08:08the Wolves did get the ball to him, 10 minutes to go, make something happen, bad touch,
08:13playing out of possession, just all over the place, just not keeping hold of the ball,
08:19not getting others into play, he looks lost out on the wing, I think he needs to be more central,
08:24and Wolves just haven't found a way of getting him into the game, and equally,
08:27when he did get into the game, and did have possession, he was so poor with it, and that's
08:31a player who is, again, far better than that, I liken it to Smedo, far better than the performance
08:36that he showed with that one mistake, and he's an individual player, he's an experienced player,
08:40he needs to do a hell of a lot better. I feel like, with Kunja, and we know how good he is,
08:45like you say, we know he wears his heart on his sleeve, he's a very emotional person,
08:48I feel like he's taking it on himself, and putting too much pressure on himself at this
08:52moment in time. I actually agree with that, yeah, I do. He's the one who says, I know that,
08:55I know what I can do, he showed it at Villa. But he's single-handedly, isn't he? Yeah.
08:58If he wants to go out there and just do it himself, yeah, he can't do that. But it feels
08:59like there's no confidence there, I feel like, you know, Belagard, I thought, was ineffective
09:03today, I thought Larsen did well for the goal, but at the same time, lost his man for the first
09:08one, and was ineffective, I think, overall, was pulled at 60 minutes today. He's not getting a lot
09:13of help, so if you're a team and you're trying to defend Wolves and stop them from being effective,
09:18what do you do? Well, let's stop Mateus Kunja, because if you stop Mateus Kunja,
09:22then you've got a great chance of being Wolves, and that's the problem at this moment in time,
09:25that they're over-reliant. I think he's trying to do too much himself, and that needs to sort out,
09:30and players have got to start stepping up, they've got to be helpful. I thought Larsen and Kunja
09:34looked really good at the start of the season, I think that's dropped off, I think Larsen's dropped
09:37off a little bit, and he's isolated Kunja, and he's trying to do too much. That's the problem at
09:41this moment in time. Right, the most important thing is, and look, whether you play well,
09:45whether you play badly, all the fans are going to look at it, they're going to look at it tonight,
09:48they're going to look at it this week, played six, lost five, drawn one, bottom of the table,
09:5320th in the Premier League. You can play, you can talk as much as you want about positives,
09:57end of the day, the facts are in that Premier League table, that's the most important thing.
10:01They go to Brentford now, a tiny bit of a respite, I guess, from what they've had recently,
10:06but at the same time, they've got to perform, because otherwise you're going to be played seven,
10:10lost six, and then you've got Manchester City at home, which, you know, could be anything at this
10:14moment in time. That international break in between is going to be a long international break.
10:17And then you go to Brighton away, so, you know, we can't wait on these results, we can't wait,
10:24someone's got to do something very, very quickly, and it can't just be quickly managed,
10:28it's got to come from those players. I still think Wolves will be fine, I genuinely do,
10:34and I think, yes, if they'd had a couple of better, easier games in inverted commas at home,
10:38they would have had some more points, but the fact of the matter is they haven't,
10:41they haven't, and then it puts pressure on the games where you have to win, where you're expected
10:45to win, and that creates a different atmosphere here, away from home as well. Wolves aren't going
10:50to win all these games that they're expected to, it's just not going to happen at a Premier League,
10:53it's hard to win a Premier League game. But have you seen enough that they can turn this around,
10:57and they've got to start doing it, not in three or four weeks' time,
11:01they've got to start doing it next Saturday at Brentford.
11:03No, I agree, yes, the official list plays a part, yes, they've got better games to come,
11:07but you're spot on, you can't rely on, right, well, let's just lose the next three or four
11:12and just wait for Southampton at home. It doesn't work that way, not going to happen,
11:16you have to turn up for every game, and what I have seen is enough in the performances,
11:21now I understand fans will get frustrated at losing games and think, oh, the whole performance
11:24is crap, the whole performance hasn't been crap, but what it has been is another failure,
11:29because they've lost the game, and you have to try, and I have seen enough positives,
11:33but you have to try and take those positives and build on them, because they do look devoid
11:36of confidence. The Touareg-Kunya situation, I liken it again to Mario Lamina, I thought he had
11:40a pretty decent first half, maybe first half of the first half, if you will, and then lost his way,
11:46lost his way a bit, desperate to try and do everything he can to save, desperate to try
11:51and drag the team forward, and I commend that, and I respect that, because he's a player who
11:55is emotional, is the captain, has a lot of responsibility on his shoulder,
11:58I think he feels that responsibility, and I like that, I respect him, but you have to trust the
12:02people around you as well, and Wolves have got some good players on that pitch, you have to trust
12:05the others around you, Shaul Gomez had a very good first half, Andre I thought was fantastic
12:09for the whole game to be honest today, Forbes comes off the bench, I thought was probably Wolves'
12:12best forward, comes on in the 52nd minute and probably is the best attacking player in a short
12:17space of time, you have to start trusting these players around you as well, I do feel that those
12:21couple of players, as good as they are, and as well-meaning as they are, are possibly holding
12:27back a little bit, because they're just not trusting those players around them.
12:31Yeah, the girls thought it out, and hopefully get some points on the board starting next Saturday,
12:35not to be today. Wolves 1 Liverpool 2 for all the post-match reaction, make sure you log on to
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