Half term report

It's been a tough first half of the season - so where is it going wrong for Wolves?

19 games. 22 points. 14th place.

It has been a difficult first half of the season for Wolves, no doubt. An embarrassing defeat at home to 19th place and rivals West Brom has left the club facing a some tough questions. Since the win at Arsenal in November, Wolves have earned 5 points out of 27. People are understandably concerned.

So what is going on?

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The league table lies… but not for Wolves this season

Sometimes, teams can just be unlucky and there is reason to be optimistic. In Wolves case, 14th is a worryingly accurate indication of the performance levels so far. At this stage last season, Wolves had 30 points, and went on to finish on 59 points. The performance and results were very consistent. This season, Wolves are seemingly on track for around 44 points. That would be a big drop off, and not one that would have been expected come the start of the season - regardless of the lack of pre-season Wolves faced compared to other teams.

Goals For, Goals Against, Points, xG For, xG Against, Expected points Data courtesy of understat

Just before the run of 1 win in 9, Wolves points total was looking rather healthy. 17 points from 10 was a real bonus considering how laboured some of the performances had been. Nuno even won manager of the month in October!

It’s easy to look at the horrific injury to Jimenez in the 10th game of the season against Arsenal and attribute Wolves’ poor form down to that. However, you could argue that it is simply a regression to the mean - what was quite a large over-performance has now turned into a slight underperformance. Within this run of games Wolves have been unfortunate against Southampton, Aston Villa, Tottenham where their performances deserved more than the two points they actually got. Ultimately though, conceding two goals a game on average in that time is leaving Wolves with a mountain to climb far too often, regardless of performance.

So what has contributed to this?

Shapeshifters

Systems. Wolves have used a lot of different ones. In stark contrast to the previous three seasons, Wolves have chopped and changed formations - even playing with a back four.

The systems Wolves have mainly used this season

Nuno has tried new things, from a lopsided 352 to a 4231 with a trio of attack minded players behind the striker. Results wise, Wolves best run came in October with the 343. Four games, three wins and only one goal conceded. You could argue though that these results all came against bottom half teams and the formation may have been less relevant to the outcomes of those games. The imbalance of the 352 was quickly exposed defensively, whereas the 4231 has probably brought the best fluidity and exciting football, but Wolves have frustratingly only managed to get Neto, Podence and Traore together on the pitch in that system three times. A consistent selection, however we shape up, at full strength can surely give Nuno and Wolves the platform to improve?

Stuck between two styles

Leading on from the inconsistent line ups and systems, Wolves approaches to games have been muddled as Wolves look to develop their style of play.

“We are looking to evolve our game.

But it is not about changing our fundamentals, the foundation that we have. It is not about changing our philosophy. It is about making us more versatile in some moments. It is about adding things that can make us, at the end of the day, better, and not so predictable.” (Nuno, October 2020)

I think the most difficult thing Wolves are finding in games is bridging the gap from a team who allow the opposition the ball at teams in order to counter attack to a team who dominate possession of the ball. In this case, you would expect a team to press higher up the pitch and be more proactive but even in a back four, Wolves still set their defensive line in a mid-block (they have the lowest number of pressure in the attacking third in the league), often allowing the ball into their half but this season the aggression once the ball enters key areas isn’t there.

Attacking third pressures courtesy of FBref

It’s worrying to see the team look so confused and for fans it is hard to see what the end goal is. I think it also contributes to the way the team capitulates when something goes wrong. It’s quite similar to when a new manager comes in and overhauls the team’s approach. Quite often in the short term, performances and results suffer. This seems to be the case with Wolves just with the same manager! The passiveness of Wolves defensive play seems to suggest they are learning on the job almost, almost scared to get it wrong, so you have to hope Nuno can instil some belief in the players again to rediscover their ‘bite’.

Injuries

This certainly wasn’t part of the plan. Wolves have been one of the teams with the best player availability in recent years, no doubt down to the integrated work of the coaching and medical teams.

Yet this season, Wolves have regularly been unable to pick from a fully fit squad. I firmly believe that the plan when we recruited youngsters like Rayan Ait-Nouri and Fabio Silva was for them to be able to learn from the experienced, first choice players in their position like Fernando Marcal and Raul Jimenez. Instead, the injuries have mounted and they’ve been thrust into the first team with little respite. In the long run, they could really benefit from these experiences. In the short term, it’s hard to expect consistency and results are suffering. Elsewhere important players like Boly, Dendoncker, Traore and Podence have all missed games in recent weeks and left us with an extremely young bench.

To further compound issues, the senior players that were available have hardly been their consistent selves either. The likes of Coady, Moutinho and Semedo have all made high profile errors which have cost the team points. When the squad gets nearer to a full bill of health, you have to hope that will help in turning around the current dire form.

Set pieces

Set pieces are increasingly becoming recognised as vital, and being good at them can be worth several points a season. So when your team isn’t playing well, the last thing you need is to also starting looking vulnerable in dead ball situations.

Stuart Reid @From_The_Wing

And the defensive side: Leicester😬, Burnley the only team in the league yet to concede from a corner, lots of teams defending well.

Wolves are really struggling to defend in these situations. Only Leeds have conceded more goals from set pieces this season. Teams are cottoning onto this too, quite clearly. In particular, it feels as if Wolves are really struggling to deal with diagonal balls played back across goal from set pieces:

It is a clear weakness and perhaps if Nuno can rectify that, it will help results in the immediate future. The team seem very static, often beaten in the air by a player running forwards with momentum, and failing to attack the ‘second balls’. Wolves have only conceded 14 goals in open play this season, so the general shape of the team defensively is perhaps not the issue for some of their woes.

Offensively, Wolves have one of the best conversion rates despite not creating a great deal of chances from set pieces. From corners and indirect free kicks, Wolves have produced 3.86 xG whilst scoring 9 goals. It seems unlikely that they will be able to sustain this, so will need to up their game.

Short corners have been a particular frustration for Wolves fans, and it’s hard to disagree. Short corners are fine when your routines try to draw the opposition out, or create overloads but Wolves seem to do them for the sake of it and often result in shots from outside the area, which seems extremely misguided.

Wolves short corner routines

Another issue feels like the lack of bodies in the box. In the home defeat to Everton, particularly as Wolves chased the game at 2-1 down, it felt like Everton had a huge overload at set pieces. In the below example, you can see how Wolves have four players inside the box against Everton’s eight. Everton were able to make first contact on the delivery into the box and as such, Wolves never really threatened to score.

Wolves attacking corner against Everton

If they want to keep scoring as they have been recently from set pieces, they will need to re-evaluate the current approach to delivery and positioning of players. Against West Brom, Wolves did add an extra player and position Adama Traore nearer the front post at attacking corners which seemed to help create more space for others to exploit. Traore is actually quite useful in the air, so they would do well to make more of this moving forwards.

Set pieces feel like an area in general that can help turn around the team’s form in the immediate future. Such a large portion of the goals that are conceding as mentioned are coming through set pieces and penalties, that if they can prevent this being such a huge weakness could help to the team’s form in the short term. Oh and we’ve given away the joint-most penalties in the division this season - stay on your feet lads!

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Star man

It would not be fair to review the first half of the season and not reflect on how startlingly good Pedro Neto has been.

You can’t not love this kid

Still only twenty, he is the shining light of our season so far. He’s been remarkably consistent despite already playing more minutes than he did in the whole of the last league campaign. I’ve been worried about the risk of burnout but he still appears have the zip and speed that make him so exciting to watch.

His movement and intelligent use of the ball has been a fantastic addition to his game. His development also reinforces my hope that the likes of Silva, Ait-Nouri, Hoever and Vitinha can all flourish given the time to develop that Pedro has benefitted from.

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Will this bad form last forever?

It’s hard to look at anything in a positive light right now but my view is basically, no. Whether Nuno takes a back to basics approach or persists in playing with a back four, we will eventually get luck that has been missing at times in the past ten games.

A mid-table finish would be a disappointment, regardless. What Wolves fans need to see is visible progress in the way the team performs ahead of next season. As it appears there won’t be any incomings this month, there will be a lot of expectation on the transfer business done in the summer, so a good finish to the season will help improve the mood amongst fans ahead of that time.

A settled team selection, whatever approach is taken, will be important. This squad has thrived on consistency in recent years. With Podence nearly back, Marcal and eventually Jonny to return to the squad, there is more than enough quality to put together a good run of form that will help appease fans’ worries.