The match was played at Wolves' home ground and Wolves lined up 352 with defenders T. Gomes, Dawson, Kilman, wingbacks Semedo, Aït-Nouri, midfielders J. Gomes, Lemina, Bellegarde, and strikers Hwang Hee-Chan, Cunha.
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After last week's bad game, the starting backline has been missing a lot of players, and this time the change of formation lined up 433, defenders Dier, Davies, EmersonRoyal, Porro, midfielders Bissouma, Sarr, Højbjerg, and the forward line Sun, Kulusevski, Johnson
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Not only are the defenders missing, but even Maddison, the main attacking midfielder, is injured, so Højbjerg has to be brought up for this game to support the attack and defense with three midfielders.
The Wolves' defense was unfocused at first, though, and with just two minutes to go
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Kulusevski waited for Porro to come up on the right hand side of the box and then suddenly put the ball deeper with his heel, Porro came up and crossed the ball into the ground, Johnson at the far end shook off Semedo who was chasing after him, and pushed the ball directly into the box.
All three Wolves center backs are distracted by Kulusevski and Porro, and no one turns their head to look at Johnson, so that Johnson becomes instantly unmarked as soon as he presses past Semedo, which is a problem for the Wolves' defense
But after the game continued.
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The problems slowly started to arise as Wolves had their two strikers back a little, echoing the three midfielders and allowing the midfield space to densify at this point in time
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's trio of midfielders would have struggled to push forward, missing Maddison, who is primarily capable of delivering passes to the front line.
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The offense was clearly not working well up front, and slowly even the midfield began to be pressured as the Wolves were gradually able to feed passes to the wings, which forced the
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of Porro and Royal had to keep dropping back on defense, and while the Wolves hadn't been able to play a very threatening offense at that point, the two wings on the pair of
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The hold is obvious.
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also wanted to keep attacking, knowing that a one-goal lead wasn't enough, and that it was better to score two goals to be safe.
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Moving up and getting more and more space in the backfield allowed the Wolves to get the rest of the counterattack going, and at the 32:00 mark Lemina was able to get a shot on goal from the right side of the box that was parried away by Vicario.
Hwang Hee Chan and Cunha were highly active, not exactly punching their chances, but they kept pressing the
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Center back.
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With both starting center backs and starting right back now missing, it was clear that the backfield passing and shifting was not as flexible as before, and the time to get the ball out had slowed down a bit, so there was quite a bit of pressure when pressured, and the further the half went on, the more emboldened the Wolves got, knowing that if they pulled away from the flanks any more than they had to.
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The Wolves' two wingbacks would be unable to attack and the centerbacks would be forced to move out of position to defend, leaving the middle of the field open, and the Wolves would just keep pulling their sideline rushes down the field, forcing EmersonRoyal and Bissouma to be carded before the end of the first half, and the whole first half ended up being more of a Wolves attack than a Wolves attack.
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Much.
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And then there were hardly any shots on goal.
The Wolves began to unleash their full physicality at the start of the second half, dropping back a lot on defense and then pressing at high speed on counterattacks.
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The only way to attack was for the three midfielders to push forward, evolving into a situation where the backs had to be charged by the Wolves all the time, and it was clear to see that the
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No possession center in the third midfield with Maddison out of the picture
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In fact, there were several counterattacks that made good advancing passes, only to be intercepted by the Wolves because they missed the timing and angle of the passes
In the 54th minute of the second half, the Wolves took a corner kick that was headed out to the top of the back box and J. Gomes shot straight at the goal, which beat
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Davies produced a deflection and on the sidelines Hwang Hee Chan got a free shot from 10 yards to his right completely offside, but he handled it poorly resulting in a deflection, otherwise Wolves could have equalized at this point in time.
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Substituting Sarr for Bentangcur on 63 minutes, the next
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There seemed to be a change of tactics with Son pulling out of the forward line and delivering the ball all the way out wide to help push the side into the box and Porro going up deeper and constantly generating crosses down the right, which made sense without Maddison's
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Playing unorganized up front, Son could barely get the ball in the box as well, he had to pull out of the box to become an attacking midfielder instead in order to do so, and Porro had to move up even more to join in the attack so that he could just barely push the Wolves back into the
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the tactics are working.
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A couple of good attacks followed, with Kulusevski on the right, supported by Porro, being freer and getting a good chance to pass to Johnson on the right, but Johnson seemed to be tired and seemed to be a bit injured.
