A 10th league game without a win left Wolverhampton Wanderers rooted to the foot of the Premier League with major questions to answer.
On Saturday, they conceded two poor goals in a 2-2 home draw with Crystal Palace and, once again, a section of supporters turned on head coach Gary O’Neil, who faces increasing scrutiny over his position.
Here, we look at the burning issues facing a club at odds with itself.
Can O’Neil survive?
The Wolves boss did his best to shut down talk of his future after Saturday’s game, insisting that taking flak from supporters is part of his job. But he has been in football long enough to know that Wolves will soon have a big decision to make over his position.
There is no shortage of mitigation for the performances that have led to a run of just one win in 20 games, dating back to the end of last season.
First, there was the crippling injury list in the forward line at the end of last season, which led to untried youngsters Leon Chiwome and Nathan Fraser being drafted into Premier League action long before they were ready. Then there was the brutal sequence of fixtures at the start of this season which made it highly likely that Wolves would find themselves in a relegation battle for much of the campaign.
Added to the mix was the shifting goalposts in the transfer window that meant O’Neil did not get the players he wanted, either in January — when he believed a forward would be added to the squad — or this summer, when he wanted a central defender and an experienced winger and not a central midfielder, as talented and exciting as 23-year-old Andre is.
But the longer a dismal run of results continues, the less such mitigation can mask the more basic statistics. If Wolves fail to beat Southampton at Molineux next Saturday, it would leave them with their second-longest winless start to any league season, behind only the 14-game run without a victory at the beginning of the 1983-84 campaign, when they were relegated from the old First Division.
This season already represents just the third time in their history that Wolves have reached the 10-game mark without a win, the other two occasions being that season in the 80s and the 1926-27 campaign, when they ended 15th in Division Two. Since the start of March, Wolves have lost more games (15) than any other Premier League side.
After the Southampton game comes a two-week international break, which will then be followed by six fixtures against teams from the league’s lower echelons, representing Wolves’ best chance of getting their season going before another tough sequence from Christmas onwards.
While there are issues at Wolves around the ownership and recruitment that are bigger than O’Neil, they cannot be addressed in the short term. Neither can the obvious imbalances in his squad.
The one immediate major roll of the dice available to Fosun is a change of manager. While the owners are desperate for O’Neil to turn things around, not least because they handed him and his backroom team long contracts just a few months ago, failing to win next week would leave them wondering whether they can afford not to make a change.
Dismal defending
Since the start of March, when Wolves found themselves ninth in the table with 12 games remaining, just a point off seventh place and with aspirations to push for Europe, they have conceded 52 goals in 22 games — more than any other side in the Premier League. Their expected goals against (xGA) tally of 45, showing the number of goals they would have been expected to concede based on the quality of chances opponents have created, is also the highest of any team.
They were without the hugely influential Craig Dawson at the end of last season, when the defender’s absence was felt keenly. This season, they have been shorn of last season’s captain, Maximilian Kilman, who left for West Ham in the summer, plus injured defender Yerson Mosquera in recent weeks.
But such factors only go so far in excusing the flow of goals against them.
So far this season, they have conceded more goals from corners (six) and more from set pieces overall (11) than any other side, with Southampton (five and eight respectively) the next worst offenders on both counts.
One tiny crumb of comfort for Wolves comes in the form of the difference between their expected goals against figure (19.8) and their goals conceded (27), suggesting that they would typically have been expected to concede seven goals fewer based on the chances created against them.
But even that must be tempered with the knowledge that the xG against figure is still the third worst in the league, behind fellow strugglers Ipswich and Southampton.
Attacking encouragement
If Wolves need some cheer, be it for O’Neil or a successor, they will find it in the form of their attacking statistics.
Their tally of 14 goals scored is the joint-ninth highest in the league despite facing some of the division’s best sides in the early weeks, but even then the underlying data is less encouraging.
Wolves’ expected goals tally — the number of goals they would be expected to score from the chances they created — stands at 10.5, the second-lowest in the league with only Ipswich below them. Their total of 19 ‘big chances’ — defined by Opta as chances from which they would be expected to score — is also the joint second-lowest in the league, alongside Ipswich and above only Saturday’s opponents Palace.
Those numbers suggest they will need to maintain red-hot finishing in order not to fall down the goals-scored table.
Jorgen Strand Larsen (four goals from an xG of 2.6), Matheus Cunha (four from 2.3) and Rayan Ait-Nouri (three from 1.1) have all proven to be clinical finishers so far but there is no guarantee they will continue to outperform expectations.
(Top picture: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)
