Gary Neville slammed Wolves’ approach in the final stages of their 2-1 defeat to Liverpool at Molineux on Saturday Night Football, suggesting they had “lost the essence of football.”
In a passionate rant on commentary, Neville became more and more frustrated as Wolves knocked the ball around at the back, with the ball going from the defenders to goalkeeper Sam Johnstone a number of times, despite them needing a goal to get back into the game
It left Neville bewildered by Wolves’ tactics, with Gary O’Neil’s side touching the ball just twice in Liverpool’s box in the final 34 minutes of the game. Substitute Hee-Chan Hwang also only touched the ball once in 21 minutes after he replaced striker Jorgen Strand Larsen with Wolves needing an equaliser.
In the end, Wolves suffered a defeat that left them rooted to the the bottom of the table after their joint worst start to a season after six games.
Here’s what Neville, who wasn’t just singling out Wolves, had to say as he criticised the approach a lot of teams down at the bottom of the league now adopt…
“They’ve passed it back to the goalkeeper,” Neville said. “It absolutely drives me crazy. You need a goal. Do they know? Stop it. Honestly, it’s so frustrating.
“I can’t watch this because the reality is you can’t kid football fans. They know exactly what’s going on here. You’ve got to have another idea to try and do something different. I’m not talking about wellying it long and second balls.
“We always blame it on Pep [Guardiola] but Pep’s teams can do it, so I’ve no problem with Guardiola’s team and the way he plays. He’s been one of the greatest coaches of all time. His teams over 10 years have been some of the best we’ve ever watched.
“But we’re now watching teams at the lower end of the table playing six passes between the centre-back and goalkeeper needing a goal with four minutes to go and I can’t accept that.”
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Highlights from the Premier League clash between Wolves and Liverpool
He added: “It’s not just a criticism of Wolves, there’s plenty of teams doing it. It’s got to stop.
“I have no problem with them trying to play out from the back, but there’s got to be some point in the game where you say, ‘Look, we’re struggling to have an impact on the game, we need a goal, we need to create some form of pressure, get the atmosphere in the ground going’.
“There’s 20,000 of these Wolves fans in the stadium and they’re waiting for something.
They’ve passed it back to the goalkeeper. It just drives me crazy, absolutely drives me crazy. You need a goal. Do they know? Stop it. Honestly, it’s so frustrating.
“We’ve got the camera on Gary O’Neil, but I’m looking at the players themselves, they must realise they need to put some urgency into the game. I accept their patterns of play and the ways of playing and systems and rotation, but the job really is to get the ball with quality into your forward’s feet as quickly as possible. That is the aim of football, and from that you can go and play.
“I think a lot of teams have forgotten that is the essence of football.
“Get the ball into the feet of the most talented players as far up the pitch as you can with accuracy. That is it. And that is not the aim of what we’ve seen here or in other games this season, and I accept you haven’t got the ball all the time.”
O’Neil: ‘We were too patient’
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Wolves boss Gary O’Neil says he feels gutted for his side and believes they deserved something from their defeat against Liverpool
Wolves boss Gary O’Neil admitted after the game that his team were too patient at times, suggesting his side’s decision making could have been better as they chased the game.
When asked if the decisions were the ones towards the end of the game when the ball was being passed back to the goalkeeper a lot, O’Neil said: “A little bit. We were a little bit too patient in that part of the game.
“Then there were some other parts where we weren’t patient enough. We get near the goal and try and play through balls between six players when we’ve got players out wide.
“So just some decision making around game state but I’m gutted for the lads because they gave everything
“Everyone inside the changing room is giving everything and doing the best they can. That will always be the case.”
Gary O’Neil said Wolves could have used the ball better in the defeat against Liverpool
He added: “We lost control and went off the game-plan when we scored – caught in the emotion of equalising and we got badly punished.
“It’s another game against tough opposition where we were us – we gave the best version of ourselves.
“Gutted for the lads as they deserved something over the last few weeks against tough opposition, but there’s loads of stuff I love about the group in that performance.
“You don’t want to keep it frantic and open against Liverpool.
“When it went to 1-1, we got carried away and opened the game up too much, but apart from that there were loads of good bits.
“We could have been more intelligent with the ball, we made some mad decisions when we were chasing the game. We just needed to get the ball wide and get the ball in the box, but as you can see from the reaction at the end, that is a group that is fighting
“Another loss, which nobody wants, is tough to take, but if we keep pushing and scrapping and giving everything like we are, we are going to cause some teams problems this year.
Wolves’ approach in focus: Should they have taken more risks?
Neville was critical of Wolves’ lack of urgency in trying to find an equaliser
Sky Sports’ Izzy Christiansen:
“They were playing in a way that understandably lacked belief. Gary O’Neil is an outstanding coach, we saw last season they can play some really good attacking football.
Santiago Bueno passes the ball at the back
“But they seem dejected, the body language is slumped, they’re low. But they have to dig deep and find a way out of this situation they’re in.”
Sky Sports’ Jamie Redknapp:
“That’s a consequence of football now. Managers are scared to take risks. Sir Alex Ferguson would take risks, if you were losing he’d throw two strikers on.
“But with the way teams are set up now, not wanting to lose the midfield battle, maybe not wanting to lose 3-1, 4-1, they do take less risks.
“I don’t think that’s always a good thing. The fans want to see them throwing the kitchen sink at it. You saw with the equaliser it wasn’t great play, they just forced the mistake.”