Wolves have lost 1-0 to Bournemouth in the Premier League tonight – and Gary O’Neil has one player to thank for stopping his side from being embarrassed.
Wanderers’ winless run in the Premier League has extended to six matches, with Antoine Semenyo scoring the game’s only goal for the visitors.
Wolves welcomed back a few key players to the starting XI, such as Nelson Semedo, Pablo Sarabia, Mario Lemina and Rayan Ait-Nouri – but the home side were really poor on the night.
Gary O’Neil‘s side never looked comfortable in the game, with Bournemouth superior up until they had Milos Kerkez sent off in the 79th minute.
There will be a lot of talk about the decision to rule out Hwang Hee-chan’s goal for a foul in the build up by Matheus Cunha.
But Wanderers were just not at it, and would have been lucky to take a point. In truth, Wolves’ blushes were rather spared tonight by one man…
Jose Sa the only Wolves player to shine in poor 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth
Wolves supporters had been hoping to see the team build on the performance against Arsenal.
They may have lost 2-0 against the Gunners, but it was a good display from Wanderers, and players were rested for this game with Bournemouth.
But Wolves were all at sea, with players sloppy in possession and seemingly lacking energy.
Bournemouth to their credit were very good up until they lost Kerkez. Very possibly, they could have been out of sight by the end of the first-half.
But Wolves remained in the contest because of Jose Sa, who pulled off a number of saves in the game. As per Sofascore, he made five saves, with three of those coming from Bournemouth shots inside the area.
There wasn’t much he could do about the goal from Semenyo, with Max Kilman‘s clearance falling right to the forward’s feet from point-blank range.
Sa can hold his head high
Plenty of Wolves players let themselves down tonight, but Sa is definitely someone who can emerge with a lot of credit.
Without him, this could have been pretty ugly for Wolves.
Just recently, Wolves have been getting linked with new goalkeepers, suggesting that O’Neil may be thinking about making a change.
It was even suggested some of the coaches do not feel he is the right man moving forwards because of his ball-playing and distribution. Those things were actually not too bad against Bournemouth, and he did help to keep Wolves in the game.
He was a bit up and down in the first half of the season. But he is finishing the campaign fairly strong, and making a good case to remain the number one at Molineux.
