Rob Edwards believes his side’s second half performance at Manchester City means they haven’t lost the momentum built over recent weeks, despite defeat.
The Old Gold were trailing 2-0 at the break at the Etihad, but the head coach’s introductions of Rodrigo Gomes and Jorgen Strand Larsen helped swing back the momentum of the game, if not the result.
Wolves pushed until the end, hit the crossbar and asked questions of the champions, but couldn’t find a way of forcing the issue and potentially maintaining their unbeaten run, but their efforts have given Edwards heart to move forward with.
On maintaining momentum despite defeat
“I felt we kept the game where we wanted it to be, even when they had the ball. In the main, we kept it away from our box, limited chances and felt in control even when we were without the ball. Then we were able to start turning up the heat, being a bit more aggressive and opening up as the second half went on. I definitely think we can take a lot from it, even in defeat. People, I suppose, will see a routine victory for City, and I understand, but I don't really feel it was routine. I feel like we were good, but they're better.”
On improving after the break
“Second half we didn't change the shape initially. At first, we wanted to try and be more aggressive in certain moments with our pressing. I thought we upset the rhythm a little bit more, and then we grew into the game. It started to get a little bit more open, and at the right moment we introduced Tolu and went with the diamond and tried to be more aggressive again. We were pushing, we had some moments, we hit the bar, we had set pieces, some almost moments in the final third without making it count.
“But if you open up from the very beginning against this team, you're asking for trouble. The frustration is they score from position where they shouldn't from a cross. We've got three versus one in the box, in the middle of the goal, and we've got to be able to deal with that better. Then the timing of the second goal was very tough for us to take. I know they've scored those two goals, but we limited them to very little again, like we have been doing very consistently for a long time against everyone now and kept pushing to try and get back in it.”
On half-time substitutes making an impact
“We got it out to Jackson a few times in the first half, and we couldn't quite make it happen. I felt Rodrigo might give us something different when we do get that switch of play, maybe be a bit more aggressive and get something going down that right hand side and I thought Jorgen was good.
“We felt with ‘Channy’ we were still playing a striker, but we felt needed a connection to those other midfielders with Arias, Mane, Joao and Andre to give us a little bit of link. I hope it wasn't perceived as a negative change bringing Tolu out of the team. The rationale was we wanted to take the ball more and be able to get behind him in a different type of way. But then I thought Jorgen made a good impact, and I thought Tolu did as well when we introduced him.”
On a tweak in system
“We wanted to try and take the ball more. We weren't quite able to break lines and find real opportunities in the first start to then get behind them. I thought the pressing was excellent, and they played really well, and stopped us doing that. But that was the intention, because if we'd just kicked it back, gone direct or tried to get behind them with one pass today, they take the ball back off us and begin to build again. That was the rationale behind the change, and that's what we tried to do.”
