Wolves secured their first point since October as Rob Edwards’ side brought an end to their recent run of defeats against Manchester United on Tuesday evening and the Matchday Live Extra team were in position to give their thoughts post-match.
Coming into the game off the back of 11 consecutive defeats in the Premier League, the Old Gold secured their first point since Edwards took charge thanks to Ladislav Krejci’s header moments before half time.
After the final whistle, former Wolves full-backs Andy Thompson and Lee Naylor discussed how the team were able to put in a shift throughout the entire 90 minutes, picking up a point with a makeshift line-up due to several senior absentees and why Wolves need to follow their point with a positive showing at Molineux against West Ham United on Saturday.
An improved 90-minute performance
Thompson: “We’re all getting excited about it because we knew there was something there for us. We knew that we could get something out this Man United game. I know we’ve ended up only taking a point, but we could have had all three with the way the game went. I thought throughout both halves – and that’s been the good thing about tonight – is that we played both halves pretty well, because it’s usually a good half, or half an hour, but we managed the game a lot better in the two halves. There’s still plenty of areas that we need to improve on, and still need to get that confidence and little bit of zip in their play, but overall, we are all pretty happy with what they got out of the game.”
Naylor: “I think it was great character to come back from 1-0 down to Man United. That tells you a lot about how we’re trying to galvanise the squad as a whole, the players’ togetherness, and I think you can see it in their play; you’ve seen them running for each other, making up for each other’s mistakes – because there was mistakes, it wasn’t a perfect performance and there’s loads to improve on. But when you go to a Man United and the games finished and you’re thinking, ‘We could have won that.’”
Being without eight senior players
Naylor: “Before the game, I was scared inside. I’m not going to lie. I looked at the team, I looked at the squad and thought, ‘Oh, I don’t know what’s going to happen here’. But the game started, and it was so slow, and Manchester United were so passive that I thought they were there for the taking. I got that feeling, Thommo got that feeling, and I think you saw it straight from the bat that we could get at these. But on the flip side of that, we’re also playing with a bit of caution because of the position we’re in. The performance on a whole, was a massive shift from the boys, and a fully-deserved point. This is when your luck starts to change, when you put in a bit of graft and a shift. We had a few bits of luck, but also some that went against us. There were good bits, but others where we still need to improve loads. We’ve got so much improvement still to do, but they are improving.”
Thompson: “I’ll echo those comments. It’s been coming throughout this season. We’ve spent five months waiting for that win, and unfortunately it didn’t come, but to come to Manchester United and battle, show the character that they did. We said at the beginning that there was a chance here for us to get something out of the game, and as the game went on, we thought we could have even got the three points, but unfortunately we didn’t. There was a bit of fortune on our side tonight from VAR when it was offside and a clear offside, but Rob will be well chuffed with the result, with the way his team played, the way they battled for everything. I thought we defended really well, and it was a deflected goal again, which goes against us – it could go anywhere, but they all just seem to end up in the back of our net at the minute – but it’s nice to have a few things run in our way. There was the offside and the Mosquera header which Sa did really well to get back and get it off the line because when they showed the replay, it was on the line, so it just shows how close it was to going in.”
Ladislav earns a point on the road 🇨🇿👊 pic.twitter.com/AYK67qTOso
— Wolves (@Wolves) December 31, 2025
Stopping the losing streak
Naylor: “When you go as deep into how bad we’ve been consistently, it’s very, very difficult to turn the corner. It’s ridiculously difficult to turn the corner. But slowly but surely, I can see what Rob’s trying to do. He’s trying to shore us up at the back. That was his main concern, because if you concede, then you’re not going to win games. It’s as simple as that. It’s blatantly obvious that we’ve improve defensively, and that was the first part of his journey to try and do that. Yes, we need to win games, yes, we need to start picking up points, but when you haven’t got the squad that you want and the squad that you’ve inherited, it’s not going to be easy, especially with the way the season had been going. He’s the person that can turn this around. He’s the person that will work harder than anyone else to do it.”
Thompson: “Now we need something to get the home fans back on board, especially with the majority of the fans being home fans, they want to see something. They’re looking at the away games on the television, and it’s been great, but they’ve got to perform in front of their home fans. They’ve got to put on a performance when they can get something out of it. They’re on the road to that; they’re battling in games, we saw it at Villa, we saw it against Arsenal, we saw it against Liverpool and Man United tonight, but these are all teams who are hanging around that top six area of the league. I know we haven’t got the results that we wanted, but we’ve been so close. It’s fine margins in this league and we saw it again tonight. But if you work hard, do the right things, then they even themselves up, and tonight they battled and fought for everything in the game, and you need a little bit of luck sometimes, but if you’re doing the right things and having a go, then it’ll hopefully turn around.”
Starting 2026 with renewed optimism
Thompson: “It's not just the players, you saw the fans and what it meant to them. They went through every emotion tonight with the game; the deflected goal, the offside, us scoring, us just missing an opportunity to get a goal, but I think everyone will be happy with what’s gone on. But they’ll be hoping that it’s going to be something we can build on. We’ve got West Ham at home now and we’ve got to go out there and replicate that performance and even more. If we want to get out of this position that we’re in, then we’ve got to be battling, and it’s going to be tough against West Ham because they’re down their battling as well. The manager’s going to be happy, the fans are going to be happy, but we’ve got to carry it on to the weekend now.”
Thank you for your fantastic support in Manchester today 💛 pic.twitter.com/Y9XjjBT8SZ
— Wolves (@Wolves) December 30, 2025
Doherty and Mosquera’s defensive displays
Naylor: “I thought he [Doherty] was brilliant. His position play was amazing, he was in vital positions when Man United were attacking and one or two of our players were out of position and he just shored us up at the back. There were one or two passes when he just read it so well. He read the situation and we’ve not had that for a bit.”
Thompson: “What I liked about him, as well as doing all those things Nayls has just mentioned, when he had the chance to drive forwards from the back, he did that. And that’s what you’ve got to have at the back. You can’t just have somebody who plays it across, you’ve got to have somebody who when there’s space in front of you will drive on as that causes the Man United players to move, rather than just picking up the player ready for the pass coming, and he did that well tonight. For me, he knows the game, he’s experienced, he knows how to play it, and he showed that tonight.”
Naylor: “It's the way he [Mosquera] goes about his business. I say that because he looks like one of these characters who loves playing football, but he loves the hard bit of it – the running, the tackling, the heading, the fighting – he loves that and he lives off it. He must have done 10 underlaps and about five overlaps today, but they’re not always on, a few were. But his enthusiasm is brilliant and I do not want to take that away from him at all, but you’re in the Premier League and you need to manage your game. You need football intelligence along with that enthusiasm. If he gets that, and if he nurtures himself into that sort of player, then he’ll be one hell of a player, but right now, he’s still very raw at the moment.”
Thompson: “But he’s got to have an off switch because he tries to do so much, he needs to have an off switch to calm down sometimes. He's got all the attributes, but sometimes he needs to calm down. He’s always revving up to go, go, go. But sometimes you’ve got to delay it a bit and take stock, but he doesn’t, he just goes full force and carries on. But I’d rather have him the way he is than not have him at all.”
Thompson and Naylor were talking to Mikey Burrows on Wolves’ official post-match podcast, Matchday Live Extra, which is available to listen to now on all podcast providers.
