Well if you don't try to win a game, more often than not you won't.
Wolves never approached the game with any sort of drive or urgency, first half was very similar to that against Spurs, conservatively plodding along and feeling things out, all well and good when there's a vast array of firepower trying to gun you down but against a middle table side with an even more conservative outlook you've got to do more, especially as the home side with big aspirations then the onus is on you to make something happen. Second half it needed more urgency, get the defence higher up the pitch, let the midfielders receive the ball part way inside the opposition half instead of holding hands with centre halves, commit some bodies forward into areas that worry the opposition and play with some tempo, take some risks and try to force errors in the opponent rather than sit there waiting to see what happens. Seems Palace were the side that had more of than thought about them.
Didn't think the initial line up was a bad one but evidently there was something lacking by half time, I'd have ditched Saiss for MGW, get two midfielders on who are comfortable roaming from their position a bit more, encourage the defence to bring the ball further up the pitch and see if you can move Palace around more with extra bodies in more threatening areas. As it was I think MGW introduction made things worse, Jimenez did nothing in a wider position and MGW didn't get on the ball with any great regularity to try and force the issue from the centre of the pitch, it addressed none of the issues that had been so glaring in the first half, defence still too deep, not enough bodies in advanced areas and with MGW rarely on the ball no extra spark to raise the tempo. Next up I'd have tried Vinagre for Jonny, if you're not managing to tweak the system then he's probably the biggest difference you can make in terms of individuals available, let him have a run and see if that can open anything up. Instead we got Neves for Saiss, another pointless shuffle where you're just going to get fresher legs spending 90% of the time behind the ball trying to hit long passes into a congested defensive area, unsurprising it had little impact on proceedings.
First goal was woefully slack from Coady and Boly, both just switched off and sauntered away from the goal, didn't push up with any sort of urgency making it incredibly easy for Ayew to sneak out with them and neither was paying any sort of attention to what was going on around them, pitiful stuff.
It needs to stop being so safe and slow against these lower teams, you can't go in with the same mentality to every game, being conservative and feeling your way into it against a stronger side is all well and good but when you're the favourite all you're doing is presenting that same opportunity to your opponent. You have to take the initiative, be bolder, commit more men forward, play with more tempo and try to force the issue, teams at this level aren't going to just fall apart when they haven't had the ball for a couple of minutes, you have to force them into errors rather than just wait for them to happen.
