A great result which surpassed the performance but who cares. Chelsea outplayed us with 70% possession, more shots and more corners, but who cares! Rui - 7. Did everything asked of him. No fault for the goal and a great flying save from Willian. Boly - 6. Iffy first half but better after the break. Common theme for a lot of our players. Coady - 6. Unlucy to deflect Cheek's shot beyond Rui. Not as good as for most of the season but did enough. Bennett - 8. Best of the back 3 and handled Hazzard reasonably well. A goal-saving tackle on Willian. Will keep his place for time to come based on that display. Saiss - 7. High work rate and some decent passes. Broke up Chelsea's play time after time but was lucky to stay on. Moutinho - 7.5. See Saiss but with more class. Doc - 7. Great going forwards but was found wanting defensively. Lovely cross for Jota to score. Vinagre - 6. Mixed bag. Some good movement and link-up with some dodgy defending. MGW - 8. Great movement and through ball for Jiminez. Some lovely touches for one so young. Read that he only had 27 touches but made most of them count. Jiminez - 7. Great strike for his goal. Usual high intensity work rate but didn't do much else. Jota - 7. Right place at the right time to score. Worked back to support midfield. Hopefully confidence boosted. Dendoncker - 6. He exists! Costa - 5. Still not right and confidence low. Cav - N/A. Didn't do much but see time out.
Ashamed to admit it but I nearly didn't bother last night. Bad day, was in a huge rush after work and the thought of driving an hour in the traffic wasn't appealing. Snapped myself out of it though - and so glad I did!
You must have watched a different game than me mate My thoughts on your comments: The team were on a poor run prior to the game & missing Neves & Jonny Chelsea were no mugs & came to the game placed third in the league with only 1 defeat. Sometimes you need luck in football - the Chelsea goal was an example of that. We won despite having to deal with one of the worst referees ever seen at Molineux - who had Chelsea players in his ear all game. If you thought the North bank was crap - get singing then - its that easy. (Perhaps you never noticed that there's quite a lot of young families in there & older fans - maybe that has something to do with it?) We agree to disagree - but let's just take time to enjoy our first win against top 6 opposition.
Our first goal last night. From Patricio until the ball hit the back of the net there were 12 passes and Chelsea never touched the ball. The complete length of the pitch - a brilliant team goal. Great stuff by the lads.
I thought our first goal was scored by Coady - nice of us to help a struggling Chelsea team out Great night out, now on to Newcastle
What a performance. If i am honest I thought the highlight would be to wax lyrical on the long throws by Bennett. What a man he is, more on this later but after a dodgy first twenty, twenty five minutes where it was like a game of chess they went into second gear and stayed there and lets be honest gifted us the second goal. Plan B? We saw it yesterday. False number 9, early deep crosses, long throws. This game we adapted against a good chelsea team who couldnt be bothered second half but still have the capacity if they wanted to turn the game on its head. What a win. 1 point away from 20 which for us is the aim IMO for half way through the season. Stay up first then work your way up. Patrcio- Kicking was better, one good save from a freekick and was much better than previous Boly/Coady- Solid with moments of worry. Boly in the first half was deciding between being brilliant Boly or rubbish Boly. Coady unlucky with the goal but faultless other than that Bennett- What a man. What a bloody man this guy is. About to surpass Craddock and Pollet for me as greatest CB fan favourite ever. The long throws were superb and will result in goals mark my words. The tackle on Willian was a thing of beauty and should be part of that montage. Brilliant and he cost us absolutely nothing Vinagre/Doc- Second half from Vinagre I saw what all the fuss was about, dribbling, pace and crosses into the box which were superb. Doc again solid against the always difficult Hazard but both were organised, both rarely lose their man which has been the result of many a goal. Saiss- Been saying for weeks to play him and he offers something different. Fight. Chases everything, puts in tackles and against the midfield of Kante and Fabregas held his own and was superb. Neves will struggle to replace him and MUST play against Newcastle Moutinho- Better second half as he controlled midfield with the space given to him and had the awareness to put in some fantastic passing. More importantly worked his socks off which has been my problem with him these past few weeks and benefited greatly from the support of those around him. Much more like it. MGW- MOTM by some distance. Positive runs with the ball, tricks and skills to beat his man. He played like it was a kick about in the park and a lovely weighted pass for the first goal. Should have been in the first team weeks ago but it doesn't matter now as he is making that place his own after a performance like that. Proved its not a one off and is in for an exciting run of games hopefully Jiminez- Typical performance, ran his socks off, looks much better in the channels and took his goal well with a tidy finish. Jota- Stood up when was needed after a few weeks of others dropping the ball and worked his socks off making forward runs to terrify the defenders. His goal will do him the power of good but his overall performance in his supporting the defenders and looking a threat is much more promising than the others from recent weeks Proof we can adapt, offer different ideas and avenues and for that credit to Nuno. Big test over the next few weeks but this will do the confidence aspect the world of good. great win. Side note my flatmate is a chelsea fan and he is currently not coming home afraid of the abuse he will get
MGW looks a nailed on starter for me, which at 18 in the top flight is unbelievable. Gives us tactical flexibility as he can drop in to help out the midfield. Got to be careful not to put too much of a burden on him though.
I’m not so sure Nuno will start MGW on Sunday. I suspect that his attitude will be that a lad of his talent will need protection and should be introduced gradually over the season rather than given an extended run in the team just yet.
You could be right, and if that's Nuno's decision then I'll respect it. Good thing is Gibbs-White's place on the bench seems irrefutable, so he'll always be an option from there. Really looking forward to Sunday's game now, if Nuno can figure out how to play with less space available we'll be quids in!
Unfortunately my mother-in-law was taken to hospital yesterday evening so the first I got to hear/see of the match was a half an hour highlight program on sky around midnight! [She is fine now!] From what I saw we were very poor in the first half but a vast improvement in the second. Finally we seemed to be playing some great counter-attacking football again!! I almost cried when our efforts resulted in us beating Chelsea 2-1 [I had no idea of the score before]. Our neighbours must have wondered what was going on as I was screaming and yelling so loudly when we scored our two goals!! I haven't had time to read any of the verdict details yet but from the 30m highlights shown MGW seemed amazing - I would like to see him start again. It is so good to feel full of pride in the lads again. I am sure it helped playing in our proper colours again, in fact I would be happy if we never played in the bloody white strip ever again! UTW!!!
I don't disagree with anything you've said there and agree completely you need some luck and also you need things to turn for you to make you start doing the things that got you to where you are in the first place. However IMO there is absolutely no denying we went into the game with trepidation and low confidence and you could see that on the pitch and sense it in the stands. However we started ok and let Chelsea have the ball in their own half and didn't look in danger, albeit we were sloppy in long aimless punts up field at times when there were other options, but as soon as Chelsea scored we seemed to lose our heads and for about 20 minutes completely played into their hands. Moutinho started pressing Fabregas who was taking the ball off Kepa in his own penalty area, and if you do that you're playing into Chelsea's hands because they have the quality to pass through you, which they did like a knife through butter. I really don't understand why we did it. We were IMO fortunate not to be 3-0 down on 48 minutes and it was down to poor game management (and as you say, probably the worst officiating I've seen in 30 years watching Wolves (I wasn't at Burnden Park though!) The team gets my vocal support throughout the game but as my first time in the north bank upper it was deathly quiet around me. I usually sit in the NB lower or mostly this season the temp stand and it has been much louder. The temp stand was also full of families and older fans but feeds off the south bank. The observation made me realise how important single tier stands are for generating atmosphere. I can understand the flatness from the crowd with the run we've been on but I think the fans need to step up at this moment in time. It's a far cry from last season and even earlier this season and we have our part to play in preventing the rot from setting in because we will go on winless runs and heads will drop. Nuno recognised it himself when he gestured to the crowd repeatedly in the second half to get behind the team.
The thing that sets this lad apart from others of a similar age is that he tends to thrive on more pressure and burden. We're very lucky to have a player of his calibre and a local lad at that. Very excited to watch him develop over the next few years, could be better than Dele Alli with time in my view.
Also, just to add - not sure if it's been mentioned as not going to go through all the thread, but Costa was incredibly poor when he came on again. At one point, even Cav had a word from the sidelines asking what on earth he was doing. Needs a break similar in length to Jota, who looked reinvigorated last night.
Bit of perspective when we have a pop at our front three for a lack of goals, that's eleven games for Eden Hazard without one. Not easy scoring Premier league goals.
To be fair, my mate in the South Bank remarked that the North Bank were still there with five minutes to go....a first for everything
Jeez!! Points well made, if a little dramatically. Makes a valid point about the points loss.......a few feet further back and he could have emphasised the loss digitally.
Just brilliant. Puts us on 19 points and a another half dozen or so by end December and we will be well on track to achieve our primary objective of remaining in the Premier League. Always great to see a player like MGW come through the ranks and excel. Great also to see Jota get a goal and remind us that he could still be a strike partner for Jimenez. Nuno was brave enough to make some changes and it paid off. A draw or a win on Sunday will do just fine.
He looked really skulky kicking the ball around at half time and again like you say when he came on... Think he had a run where Chelsea won the ball back and he just casually sprinted back, Nuno gave him a *******ing and he got ever so slightly better. At least tried putting effort in at that point, even if it didn't always come off.
Was the matchday thread on here poor last night then? Tried posting a comment at half time but the South Bank signal is shoddy.
Not as bad as the past few. Mostly the negative stuff was because we were playing negative football for a fair chunk of the first half. When we actually snapped out of it and started playing our game I didnt really see anything negative.
Surely not. The whole dynamics of the team, the pace, the energy, all came from him and Saiss, who is very underrated. They both must start. Kante got took off last night against our midfield. KANTE!!!!! TOOK OFF!!!
What I have noticed on the Radio today is that it has all been about Chelsea’s shortcomings,how they rested players ahead of the City game,about them being denied a penalty for Boly’s challenge,we bullied them and that they shouldn’t be losing to the likes of Wolves .I heard next to no credit being given to us . I know in the scheme of things the 3 points are the only thing that matters but it is further evidence of the divine right mentality that pervades some clubs in the PL.
