Andy Thompson has given credit to one Wolves player who was playing an unusual role on Saturday against West Ham United, branding him ‘really good’.
Wolves lost 2-1 to the Hammers and saw their hopes of securing European football take a blow at Molineux.
Wolves put in a fantastic performance in the first-half, and led 1-0 at the break after Pablo Sarabia converted from the spot.
But there was a vastly different performance in the second-half, and West Ham came back through Lucas Paqueta and James Ward Prowse. There was controversy at the end when Max Kilman saw a late goal ruled out by VAR, after Tawanda Chirewa was deemed to be interfering with play from an offside position in front of Lukasz Fabianski.
Gary O’Neil slammed that decision, calling it ‘terrible’.
Despite the frustrating defeat, there were some positives to take and Thompson rather enjoyed the performance of Tommy Doyle in the first-half for Wolves…
Andy Thompson praises Tommy Doyle for first-half performance for Wolves against West Ham
Thompson spoke about the game on Wolves’ Matchday Live Extra show, along with Mikey Burrows and Lee Naylor.
Like everyone else, he was extremely frustrated about the decision by VAR to rule out Kilman’s header.
Ultimately though, Wolves need to look at themselves. The second-half performance was really poor, and so far away from the first-half display.
In that first-half, Wolves arguably looked somewhere near their very best – and Thompson reckons Tommy Doyle had a great game.
He said: “It did (work) in the first-half. I thought the movement from Doyle linking up down the left-hand side here with Doherty was really good.”
Doyle was operating in a very unusual role to what he normally plays.
The 22-year-old has openly admitted his favourite position is to sit in front of the defence as a deep-lying midfielder. But against West Ham, he played from the left side, tucking in to allow Matt Doherty to overlap where possible.
At times though, Doyle – who O’Neil said had ‘unbelievable quality’ earlier this season – also found himself pressing almost as a central striker.
Fair play to Doyle, but he’s wasted out wide
Doyle did have a pretty decent outing in the first-half for Wolves against West Ham – but he’s definitely wasted out there.
Obviously, the plan will not be for him to operate there long-term. He was just playing such a role because of Wolves’ current injury problems.
Mario Lemina played the role too recently, and it just didn’t suit him or the team. Doyle probably did a slightly better job, and it was he who played the through ball for Rayan Ait-Nouri who then went down for the penalty.
Hopefully, we won’t be seeing Doyle in the role again, as he is much more effective picking the ball up in central positions in front of the defence and then picking all kinds of passes with his terrific vision.