Manchester City John Stones has praised Wolves’ organisation, despite a 3-0 win for the home side the Etihad Stadium.
Wanderers sit 17th in the Premier League table after this weekend’s results, but are only out of the bottom three on goal difference.
It was a really poor performance from Wolves in Manchester.
Julen Lopetegui had set up with the idea to counter-attack. Adama Traore and Hwang Hee-chan provided support for Raul Jimenez in attack.
But Wolves couldn’t really get anywhere Ederson in the City goal.
City dominated the ball in the early stages, but Wolves did do quite well in terms of their defending.
They then grew into the game a bit and started to knock it around well.
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But Kevin De Bruyne picked out Erling Haaland with a cross, and the Norwegian outjumped Nathan Collins to score.
The teams went in at the break with City 1-0 to the good. Lopetegui then hooked all three of his forwards, replacing them with Joao Moutinho, Matheus Cunha and new signing Pablo Sarabia.
Wolves made the worst possible start to the half, with Ruben Neves giving away a penalty. Haaland scored, before then adding a third thanks to an awful mistake by Jose Sa, who gave the ball away to Riyad Mahrez.
For three-quarters of the game, Wolves were really poor.
It was only before City got their first that Wolves looked good.
After the game, £48 million City defender Stones praised Wolves for their shape.
He said (via BBC Sport live, 16:15): “Really good, we always have a difficult game against Wolves. They are very organised and athletic. We had to be patient to get that goal today and break them down. I thought we did so well after the other day. Especially in the first half we weren’t at it and the manager made that clear.
“We knew today we had to hit the ground running and get off to a good start, playing with tempo and that set the game.”
John Stones is being too kind, Wolves have got to improve
Wolves were fairly good in the opening stages against City.
They made it difficult for Pep Guardiola’s team of superstars to break them down.
But after the first goal went in, the good early organisation kind of crumbled. By the end of the game, City were able to fashion 13 efforts at goal, with seven of those efforts on target.
There were several times were both Collins and Maximilian Kilman both got pulled out of position, which was worrying to see.
The playing out from the back is always something that is a concern. While the idea is nice, the execution at the moment isn’t good.