Looking back at this game, the xG timeline (below) gives a good overview of how things unfolded. Between the 40th and 60th minute of the game, Tottenham created chances with ease and could have got more than the two they scored. Either side of that and this was your typical end of season game, with neither team overly exerting themselves.
Still, there was plenty to analyse and scrutinise, as Wolves look ahead to the summer and next season.
The line up
It was a slight surprise to see Rayan Aït Nouri on the bench, considering his good form. This could have been due to the threat of Gareth Bale physically, a knock he may be carrying or just simple rotation to give others some gametime before the end of the season. Wolves certainly missed his attacking thrust regardless.
There was also some rotation in midfield, with Rúben Neves missing out. Ahead of the Euros, I think Nuno is just giving the three midfield options we have enough of a breather so that they can go into the summer fresh enough to perform for their countries. I’d expect it to change in the next game again.
Uneventful first half until…
Although Wolves had struggled to maintain meaningful pressure in the Tottenham half, they had been relatively solid for 40 minutes when out of possession.
Without the ball Wolves were lining up in a 4-4-1-1 shape, with Vitinha and Fábio Silva taking it in turns to mark or screen off the pass into Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, who was generally Spurs’ deepest midfielder.
In the first half, Tottenham struggled to play through Wolves and often played longer diagonal passes - primarily towards Gareth Bale.
So while Wolves were able to deny Tottenham for much of the first half to play through them, they did concede territory by allowing Eric Dier (and sometimes Toby Alderweireld) to play longer passes which, even if not successful, did allow them to play higher up the pitch in Wolves’ half but bypassing opponents aerially or picking up the loose ‘second balls’.
While Wolves’ shape and defensive line has generally been a bit higher since around February, they need to work out how they are going to apply more pressure on opponents like in this game where the defenders have the ability to play long accurate passes.
… the goal
The below picture illustrates pretty well what went wrong for what really was a far too simple goal for Harry Kane to score.
A familiar sight this season, Højbjerg has the ball under very little pressure at all from any of the Wolves midfielders. This is probably on Vitinha but Leander Dendoncker and João Moutinho need to work with him if he is occupied elsewhere at that point.
Conor Coady and Romain Saïss aren’t able to a) deny the pass between the two of them and b) be close enough to Kane in the first place. It is a shame as both had been pretty solid with little error before this point (Coady had been particularly impressive in fact) but it just demonstrates once again our need for a new centre back to be the priority this summer. If Coady gets inside of Kane, then the forward pass has to be outside of him and is going away from goal.
The goal was also another occasion where Nélson Semedo has played the opposition attacker onside. In this example it’s an extremely fine margin but nevertheless if he is a step higher, Spurs don’t score.
The threat of Adama
As mentioned, Wolves never really had sustained pressure on the Tottenham goal in the first half, but they did have some promising openings from counter attacks.
However, they did have several promising situations when they attacked into space quickly. As you’d expect, Adama Traoré was key to this. On two occasions, he made those direct runs through the middle that I love to see from him. Both times, he laid the ball off for Fábio Silva who dragged his shots wide.
In the 4-2-3-1 shape, it feels like Adama is able to come inside more often, with more players to rotate with inside of him and a full back outside of him. With a number ten like Vitinha or Morgan Gibbs-White and Pedro Neto on the opposite wing when back fit, Wolves could have a rather potent front line in this shape (should Raúl Jiménez get the all clear) next season.
Stretched and punished
Wolves started the second half in a fairly bright manner, with Romain Saïss having a very good opportunity to equalise from Vitinha’s cross.
This was arguably Wolves’ best chance of the game and had Saïss managed to connect better and put it to the side of Hugo Lloris, perhaps this may have given Wolves the opportunity and confidence to dominate Tottenham. Instead, Wolves started to become stretched though as the game opened up and Spurs should have punished them even earlier than they did.
Even when defending in general play rather than after turnovers, Moutinho and Dendoncker began to leave too much space behind them and in front of Coady and Saïss.
It didn’t take that much longer for Spurs to make it 2-0, anyway.
Ki-Jana Hoever took a lot of stick on social media for this goal. I’m not convinced it was the howler that everyone makes it out to be, but it was a good lesson for him to learn.
He chases after Sergio Reguilón into the corner and Reguilón is unbalanced because of his heavy touch, so Hoever just needs to make sure he either stays in front of the ball or forcefully clears the ball for a throw in. For some reason he does neither and Reguilón can take the ball and rebalance himself after getting past him.
However, there are still two passes (and a rebounded shot) that follow this. At no point does anyone really get near to Reguilón, Heung-Min Son, Bale or eventually Højbjerg in the box. Rui Patrício may even be disappointed with himself for how he parries the initial shot. So while Hoever gets the blame from most, there is still so much more Wolves can do. It’s been a regular sight to see Wolves defenders give up space in the box and it’s something that is going to need to be corrected.
Fortunately for Wolves, Spurs settled at 2-0 and a fairly uneventful last half an hour was played out. Wolves had a few opportunities in the box but Silva, Moutinho and Traore couldn’t even test Lloris in goal with shots dragged wide or deflected by a defender.
Fábio Silva will probably be frustrated not to have scored in the game. He had 7 shots in the game totally 0.6xG. Although he still has work to do to become more rounded as a player, he continues to demonstrate that he will occupy good positions in the box. At minimum, he’s going to be a good goalscorer in the long run.
The other interesting thing about the game was a debut for another youngster. The day before his 19th birthday, Canadian Theo Corbeanu was brought on for the last ten minutes. His cameo appearance resembled what Fábio Silva looked like in his first appearances for the team, trying to be positive but not ready physically in ‘duels’ as Nuno likes to call them.
Up next: Everton
Everton have been a strange team this season. They’ve got some great quality attacking options, and some decent defenders but their midfield can be very unbalanced a lot of the time and Carlo Ancelotti’s tactics have been hard to understand at times too. A lot of the time, it feels like they have relied on moments of brilliance or luck to win them games.
In the game at Molineux in Janaury, they started the game better but in the end were fortunate to win. Wolves were poor that day but a draw would have been a fair result. I’d expect more rotation amongst the team but hopefully Aït Nouri returns to the starting line up, and the likes of Gibbs-White and Vitinha are continued to be given time in the team. Everton’s home form has been patchy this season, so it would be nice to see Wolves go there and take the game to them, and make them uncomfortable.