Manchester City — Wolves 1:0. It was disgusting. They treated the Wolves, who classically “ate each other up”, treated Saïss, amicably took some sad Mexican off the pitch. Then they checked a penalty and only then played ten minutes of football.
Ederson. Saved the day. He was freezing for 100 minutes and then realy saved.
Joao Cancelo. Immediately pierced the whole black and orange crowd with a nice pass to Raz. By the way, 20 minutes later he replicated exactly what he had done. And then again. And again. 4 rebounds, 3 shots and 103 assists.
Laporte. Left almost out of action in defence (2 rebounds, interception, a carry), tried to find himself in the element of attack (2 strikes).
Ruben Dias. Difficult to speak Portuguese very well, but I’m sure Ruben blamed his partners, who instead of loading a fucking corner into a fucking mixer on him and Laporte for the two-hundredth time came up with the fucking beauty. Didn’t work at all, by the way.
Zinchenko. The only dangerous cross by City in the half for some reason no one dared to close it down. 3 interceptions, 100 assists.
Rodri. Not sure if it was a voluntary choice, but it was Rodri who jostled with the best anabolic steroid promotion in world football more often than not. Personally solved the Mexican threat. 3 tackles, 3 interceptions.
Gundogan. And almost scored and saved everyone (the usual thanks to Saïss and Kansel). But Coady — again the obvious one — was great as always.
Bernardo. Caught the (regular) countryman off-guard, but drew a penalty.
Grealish. I wonder how much Aston Villa would pay for him…? Even if he had a shot at an empty net and 0 successful attempts to beat a stranger.
Gabriel Jesus. A goal from clear offside is not a statistic you’ll enjoy after the match. And de Bruyne’s super pass was blown away by him.
Sterling. He’s got a lot of fight in him (Saïss and Neves confirm). But when the league record holder (3 in a row!) for missed penalties wandered to the spot, he was frightening but then delighted. He did, however, shoot it in such a way that we have Sa to thank again. So Manchester City — Wolves 1:0!
Wolves are the oddest team in the EPL. That’s neither a praise nor an insult — just a fact.
- They lost a seemingly decent coach and a decent goalkeeper.
- Don’t score goals at all (only the initially hopeless Norwich are worse than them).
- Their new goalkeeper is weird (now that’s no praise). In all the games I’ve seen Saïss have tried to bring in. Against Spurs and United he did well, but against the Scousers, when he ran away from goal and crippled his defender just in case, Jota failed to shoot the frame properly. A teammate, albeit a former one.
- And for all that, quite comfortably settled in 8th place.
What is the Wolves secret? Well, it’s clear that only the Wolf Pack’s tactics save the day.
- 18.2 picks per game (obviously less than the crazy White’s, but still impressive)
- 10 interceptions. It’s a long way to the top spots here, too (Burnley’s was 12.1), but the cumulative total is impressive. There are also 19.4 takeaways per game (City’s is 9.4, just in case).
- That gives our opponents only 11.5 kicks per game. Clearly not first in the league here either, but only the Pensioners, City and Liverpool are better. First three, ie.
- Few shots = few goals. So the Wolves have only conceded 13.