“We changed the system with Wolves in mind,” Frank Lampard said after Chelsea’s 5-2 routing of Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux back in September. “They play three at the back really well and cause teams problems. They are so dangerous on the counter-attack so we changed the system and I thought the players took that on board really well.”
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If there’s one criticism you could aim at Wolves in the past couple of seasons, it’s that predicting their formation and their personnel has been relatively easy.
That doesn’t necessarily make them easier to beat given their intrinsic back-of-the-hand knowledge of that system, but it does give the opposition a week on the training ground to work out how they want to try to counteract them.
Recently Wolves have become far less predictable. It’s still three at the back with two wing-backs, but since early March, Nuno has regularly switched formation. In the past three matches, he has sprung surprises with his personnel as well.
Nuno chose 3-4-3 almost exclusively for the first 18 months of his tenure, then 3-5-2 for the next nine months, before that Chelsea defeat coupled with other poor results saw a switch back to 3-4-3 until just before lockdown.
Since then, he’s switched between the two, often during matches. When Wolves face Chelsea again this weekend, Lampard will find it much harder to predict how Wolves will line up.
Nuno surprisingly introduced Daniel Podence against Everton after the Portuguese forward had played only one minute in Wolves’ previous five post-lockdown matches. His excellent performance that day has yielded two further starts.
That means Wolves now have four effective and viable forwards to pick from alongside guaranteed starter Raul Jimenez: Podence, Adama Traore, Diogo Jota and Pedro Neto. That is strength in depth in attacking areas that many Premier League clubs will envy.
Since the restart, Traore has started five of Wolves’ eight games, Jota also five, Podence three and Neto one.
There are similarities between the quartet — all are generally pacey and direct — and Nuno will assess their form and confidence as well as the weaknesses of the opposition when selecting who starts.
Traore’s strengths are obvious: dribbling from deep, getting Wolves up the field and beating his man time and again to get to the byline. His assists are way up this season, from just one in the league in 2018-19 to nine.
| Player | Assists |
|---|---|
9 | |
3 | |
1 | |
1 |
Traore is also the king of the dribblers, not just at Molineux but in the Premier League. He’s the first player to complete 180 dribbles in a season since Eden Hazard in 2014-15. Jota, Podence and Neto also offer strong returns.
| Player | Dribbles |
|---|---|
6.4 | |
2.64 | |
2.46 | |
2.14 |
Crosses are also a strength of Traore and this is where many of his assists have come from, often teeing up Jimenez in what has been the league’s most productive goalscoring partnership this season.
| Player | Crosses |
|---|---|
6.43 | |
3.47 | |
1.5 | |
1.05 |
Although Traore’s output has greatly improved, he remains frustrating in front of goal, as can be seen from recent spurned chances against Arsenal (when through on goal with the score at 0-1) and Everton (smashed against the bar from six yards).
Perhaps that’s what Nuno was referring to when he said this week: “He has time to improve. He should improve his knowledge of the game. There are some things we have to work on.”
Jota remains Wolves’ most prolific forward behind Jimenez and has scored seven in the league, plus a further nine in the Europa League.
| Player | Goals |
|---|---|
7 | |
4 | |
3 | |
1 |
Podence’s figures in these tables are skewed slightly by his lack of game time. His average is likely to even out throughout a season, but his shots on target per 90 minutes is the highest of the quartet for now.
| Players | Shots on target |
|---|---|
1.05 | |
1.02 | |
0.61 | |
0.42 |
And the £17 million January signing from Olympiakos also leads the way for chances created. His cute chip into the box for Jota at Burnley was a teaser to what he can offer. Interestingly, the two players above the four forwards in the squad for chances created per 90 minutes are Joao Moutinho (2.25) and Morgan Gibbs-White (2.14). Traore is 11th in the league for total chances created across the season, with 47.
| Player | Chances created |
|---|---|
1.76 | |
1.69 | |
1.43 | |
1.18 |
One of the reasons Podence may have been held back by Nuno in the opening months of his Wolves career could be the defensive side of his game.
Former Wolves forward Jordan Graham, who left Molineux last month after five years at the club, told this week’s episode of The Molineux View — The Athletic’s weekly Wolves podcast — that Nuno would have to be confident of the defensive capabilities of his attackers.
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“Nuno has a way he wants each player to play in that position. It isn’t easy,” he says. “He likes to circulate the ball and move it from side to side. He has different patterns of play where players drop into certain holes and pockets to get the ball and other players rotate.
“If you play in front of the wing-back, it’s not like you’re defending as a winger or a full-back. Is the role to mark the full-back? Or are you going to take their winger? Sometimes, it can be confusing, especially when you haven’t played in England before and you don’t know what the other teams play like.
“I was getting a little bit concerned as to why Podence wasn’t getting more game time. I was quite excited, making a new signing for that amount of money. Nuno’s taken his time with him. Wolves have quite a strict way of playing, a rigid formation. It can’t be easy if you’ve come from a less structured side.
“It looks as if Nuno has got it spot-on. Had Podence played in January and not hit the ground running, it could dent his confidence. You might not ever get to the level you should be at because you had a rough start. It’s hard to recover from that. Easing him in and letting him get to see how the other players train has worked really well. He’s hit a good level of performance in the last few games.”
In terms of winning the ball back in the final third, it’s actually Neto who leads the way, with Podence yet to register.
| Player | Poss. won final third |
|---|---|
0.82 | |
0.73 | |
0.49 | |
0 |
| Player | Interceptions |
|---|---|
0.61 | |
0.46 | |
0.37 | |
0.35 |
“It’s huge (to have these options),” says ex-Wolves winger Michael Kightly. “The fact they’re so solid at the back and have been all season is great and they can build from it.
“I’ve been a really big fan of Traore this season but it’s a good play to have him come off the bench. He’s been struggling with the shoulder injury and to bring him on in the last 30 minutes must be a nightmare for defenders — they’re tired and getting into that spell when they’re not quite at it. Then Traore comes on. That’s a good string to their bow.
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“I’ve always been a fan of Neto, he’s a very good player and Jota’s been great this season. They’ve all got loads of qualities and they’ve got pace, which frightens teams. Hopefully, Podence and Neto get more of a run-out and Nuno will be able to chop and change it. Then you get Traore on, fresh as a daisy.”
Graham agrees and suggests Jota and Traore’s physical strength gives them the edge.
“I would trust Traore more to get to the byline and hit a stand-up cross to the back post much more than I would before,” he says. “Before, he’d run through eight players and hit the first man, or drop it out the back, or behind the goal.
“He’s so hard to get the ball off. I find him quite similar to Diogo. You can hit him and you can bump him, but you just bounce off him. These guys in the gym… Diogo’s so strong, his hamstrings, his quads, his glutes. He’s very much like Adama.
“Staying on your feet is so important if you’re in your stride and running at full pelt.”
Traore, Jota, Podence or Neto? A difficult call for Nuno, but even more difficult for Lampard to predict.
(Photo: John Sibley/Pool via Getty Images)
