Tomorrow may be a good time for Wolverhampton Wanderers to play Liverpool — no, really, stick with me.
There is nothing quite like a meeting with one of the Premier League’s most daunting opponents to focus minds. And Wolves’ minds ought to be concentrated on one thing in particular when Arne Slot makes his first visit to Molineux.
Monday will mark one year since Wolves produced one of last season’s most surprising results when they beat Manchester City 2-1 at Molineux. There would be no better way to usher in the anniversary than by channelling the defensive essence of that display to frustrate Slot’s side on Saturday.
That victory was out of keeping with much of what had gone before last season as Wolves head coach Gary O’Neil ripped up his blueprint. He adopted a low-block, counter-attacking, thou-shalt-not-pass approach to dealing with the Premier League champions.
Tomorrow may be the perfect moment to try something similar to galvanise this campaign because, quite simply, Wolves must stem the flow of goals against them.
At this point, it is important to point out that Wolves are unlucky to have the Premier League’s joint-worst defensive record of 14 goals conceded from their opening five games (tied with Everton).
The expected goals (xG) metric does not show the whole picture — especially at this early stage of the season — but it is a useful indicator of how many high-quality chances a team is creating or conceding. Wolves’ xG against tally is 7.2, which means they have the biggest discrepancy of any Premier League team between the goals they would have been expected to concede from the chances created against them and the goals they have actually shipped.
And for the xG sceptics, just examine some of the goals. The difference can be explained in several ways — perhaps by some goals that both Jose Sa and Sam Johnstone might think they could have kept out, and by some from long range that more often than not would fly high, wide or both.
A map of the chances that Wolves have faced in their five league games (below) underlines that they are not conceding huge numbers of high-quality chances close to their goal.
Irrespective of the comfort they can find in the underlying data, they are still leaking nearly three goals a game this season.
Their defensive record would usually revert to something closer to their xG against figure, but they do not have the luxury of waiting for that to happen. By the time it does, they could find themselves deep in relegation trouble, with their confidence shot and fixtures that would ordinarily look inviting becoming tense, must-win affairs.
By the time their luck turns, O’Neil could have found himself under serious pressure.
There is no suggestion that the decision-makers at Molineux are questioning the head coach’s position thanks to the huge amount of credit he stashed in the bank last season, especially since the fixture computer handed his side a brutal start to this campaign.
But in the Premier League patience always has limits, and when owners decide that something must change that change inevitably happens in the manager’s office.
It is probably a touch old-fashioned to wonder what one of the Premier League’s band of established firefighters would do if they inherited a team in Wolves’ situation. Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce, both of whom managed O’Neil during his playing career, would inevitably prioritise making their sides ‘hard to beat’ even if it compromised attacking fluency.
Wolves have been slick and progressive on the ball in every game but looking dangerous will count for nothing unless they can tighten things up at the other end.
Matt Doherty could have done better at showing Harvey Barnes onto his weaker left foot before he scored Newcastle United’s winning goal at Molineux. Nelson Semedo could have shown more desire to cut out the assist for Ollie Watkins’ Aston Villa equaliser last weekend. Rayan Ait-Nouri could have kept Bukayo Saka away on the opening day of the season at Arsenal instead of allowing him to shoot and score the match-clinching goal.
All three opposition players still had lots to do, but all three goals could have been cut out at the source.
When the chips are down there is no shame in turning games ugly in the hunt for clean sheets. For Wolves and O’Neil, a meeting with another heavyweight might provide the perfect opportunity to try it.
(Top photo: David Rogers/Getty Images)
