Matchday Live Extra : No fairytale for the new boss as Wolves punished by Palace

The official Wolves podcast, matchday live extra. The Wolves supporters are delirious! Let's go! Wolves-nil Crystal Palace 2, not the fairytale return, that Rob Edwards was hoping for. There was a much improved defensive performance through much of the first half and a few glimmers of chances early in the second, but when Crystal Palace played a short corner routine that ended up with a Wharton shot, deflecting into the path of Daniel Munoz, who fired it home past a strike in Sam Johnston, just past the hour market, sat the energy from the Wolves players' legs, and six minutes later, Palace had a second Jeremy Pino curling home a beauty behind the underside of the crossbar from the edge of the penalty area. John Alias had a glorious chance off the bench to try and tap home, but it was not to be, and Wolves fell to yet another defeat. Hi, Mikey Burrows, Andy Thompson and Lee Naylor watched it alongside me. There was a lot of hope that we'd kind of built through, and the atmosphere was there, and it felt like we were seeing Wolves growing in confidence in the second period, but once again that failure to react at a key moment cost them dearly. Yeah, it did, and we've said it most of this year, where we've said about just switching off, and we've got caught a few times this year from people either doing short free kicks or short corners, so I think the Brighton goal, when we give away the equaliser, let's come from a short corner, where we've switched off to getting ourselves organised rather than focusing on about where the ball is, because at the end of the day, that's the only thing that's going to hurt you, the positioning of the ball and who's playing with the ball, and again we switched off again today, and that first goal was always going to be important, and unfortunately Crystal Palace got it. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of positives, I'll be honest, there's that organisation that I've seen Rob put onto the players, and I've sort of seen it out there on the pitch, but to be beaten, initially off a set piece from the corner, because that first goal kills it, and players need to switch on. I mean, I've got a thing about bringing everyone back for corners, but when there's too many bodies in there, you sort of look at each other to go, "Well, are you going to go? Am I going to go? Is he going to go?" Do you think there's that fear factor, the reason why they're bringing it back, because they're concerned about there's going to be something that's going to be left? I don't know, I'll be honest, I actually don't know, I just think when you bring that many back, when you bring the whole team back, there's a lot of cause for complication, and players getting in each other's way. People getting in each other's way, people not expecting someone else to do the job, and I just think you overcomplicate things, but for most of the game, I thought, you know, I've seen spells of where we can improve, we have improved, and we've got a little bit of a structure now, so that's what I'm taking from the game, yeah, the set piece. That's one thing as a manager, you'd be like, let's not get beat from a set piece, or switching off in terms of a set piece, and that's what we've got initially beat by. Yeah, because I'm watching Rob down there, he didn't give up shouting, and trying to get his team up after the two goals have gone in, he was still going, he was still trying to get his team right, and that's the important bit, that the manager's still going, and you're hoping that sooner or later that's going to rub up on his team, that effort, that confidence that he's got in his team that he's selected, but to keep going, never give up and keep going, because as now said, for the majority of the game, we did okay, we battled with Crystal Palace, because Crystal Palace are a very good side, don't get me wrong, but again it just takes that bit of a relapse about concentrating on what we're doing, I think we're too more concerned about what's going on in the box, switched off, short corner, deflection could have gone anywhere, but at the moment the way that the things are going, he's just falling to the opposition, unfortunately in the box, and he's finished, so it's important that we do it, and just get on with it, and again, manager's got a week with him now, going on to it, and keep going on, and making sure that they get something out of the derby game at the weekend. He obviously had time over the international break to have a look at things, didn't have all the players with him, and his choice to start off the game was four changes from the side that was selected at Chelsea, and I know Lee Naylor, we all had conversations and messages and all sorts of different things, circumstances kind of collided to decide right, I'm going to go with the two up top, and try and get Manetzi in and around them, I don't think it'll be a long-term plan, but it was something he kind of felt he had to do today with the numbers that he had available. All the thoughts are, I mean, look, I don't know what Rob picked for this game, and before everyone was back, and I didn't know the line-up as it was going into the game, so yeah, I don't think that is what you'll stick with, but when you have these international breaks that were massively important to the countries and the players, it's hard to then get them back and everyone firing, because you're getting, you're not even getting a day with most of them, because they're traveling such long distances, so look, there's plenty of work to be done in time for the next game, and I'm sure that's what it'll be working on, first thing. You look at some of the players he's got, and this is one of those scenarios whereby the work that was done in the summer to rebuild this squad, or attempting to rebuild the squad, you can't work miracles with what we know has been failing over the last couple of months, and that's almost the point I make about, you know, because of the scenario in which he found himself, he's gone with that as the line-up. It may well be very different, Tomo, come seven or eight days time at Villa Park, when he's actually had a chance to to assess everybody that he's got, and try and get a good week of training into them, because organization is one thing, players' confidence is another. It's probably the biggest thing, players' confidence. We're in this run at the moment where we just can't get things right, can we? At both ends of the pitch we concede in, we're not scoring enough goals, and look, so Rob will be disappointed in the results, of course he will, but he hasn't really had enough time out. I know it's been the international break, I know he's been here for just over a week or so, but there's a lot of other players being away on international duty, and look, he'll be spending and throwing absolutely everything at it on the training pitch during this week, and look, he's not going to fail through, not trying. He's going to try everything, and he's going to get these players to be trying and throwing everything at it. Look, I know we've lost today, we're all disappointed, but just got to keep going, just got to try and get on with it, get that belief back into them, because I thought they competed pretty well until that first goal, but that's the difference between this league, and I've said this in prior games, this is the difference in this league, that you think that you're okay and you're safe and all that, for all of a sudden it can just change like that, and you get caught, and that's exactly what the first goal did. Doug, you're on the second one, it's a good finish, but again, the manager will look at how much space he had on the edge of the box, we had the ball give it away, and again, in a vital area, which is important that we can't do it. I'm trying to think of a game where we had a throwing at the Mollinieu, we've given the ball away on our throwing, we've got eight players around there, and we ended up considered it. Burnley, yes it was, it was Burnley, and again, these little things are costing you games at the minute, they're just going against you, and I believe that you make your own look a lot of the time, I know you need the rubber the green a little bit, but I think if you keep doing the right things, throughout training, in games, sooner or later you're hoping that it's going to turn right, and that's what they've got to keep doing, they've got to keep playing, they've just got to keep believing, it's still there to be taken, we can still go on a run, just got to try and get just believing the manager what they brought in. We mentioned conference, it's such a fragile thing, isn't it Nails, and look you played in a season that had a lot of difficulty in the Premier League four walls, you can feel like, oh you know, you're getting a lift, you've got a new person in the building, they believe in you, lots of pats on the back, lots of motivational talks, but body language as soon as you concede, you could see Rob on the touch sign kind of saying to the players come on, it's only one nil, but it just, they visibly wilted. Yeah, it's very difficult because the being on this streak for a very long time, and what was it, was it April? So that's a long time, 16 games without a win, to be to be in this sort of form, and it's not going to be an overnight thing, it's just not, it's not how things work, what works is, you know, if you listen to what Rob was saying, it's that the hard work day in, day out, when you come to work and you commit yourself, that's when you'll start seeing results, that when you commit yourself to this manager, to this football club, when you truly commit yourself, that's when things will start to get better, then you then you build off a structure, and that's what Rob will be doing, he says this is how we play, this is, this is exactly what he'll be doing, because that's what every manager does, you'll try and implement what he wants from the player, from the players, from the formation that he gives out, but as he said in his, in his interview, he will not take anything less than hard work and commitment from any player. But what's the difference, what, what can he inspire in the next seven days, and what might he look at in terms of tweaks, tactical or personnel, Tomo, that he might consider for next weekend? Look, he'll look at, he'll look at absolutely everything, he'll look at his squad, he'll look at what, what he can do with it, and what formation he want to play, depending on the team that he's got available to him, I think it's going to be upbeat in training as well, the upbeat in training, trying to give people that belief, and I'll tell you what, he'll have absolute abundance of of things coming from him, the energy levels that he's got, and it's just, they just need that little bit of luck sometimes I think as well. I know, I know that we can see it in, I know we're having things going against us, but he's going to absolutely throw everything at it that's trying to get this team right, and he'll get his ideas across, say look what he has got, he's got that belief, we saw him in his managerial career with Luton, and what he did there, and the energy what he brought to them, and he'll be doing, trying to do absolutely everything, and he spoke about in his interview, making sure you don't leave anything out there, okay? The goals knocked it out of him in this game, unfortunately, but they tried everything in that first half and say until that the goal went in. Yeah, scoring first has been a problem, a long-held problem for Wolves this season, they have conceded first in nine of 12 matches, and obviously that's not all on Rob, but that is a problem that that seriously needs to be addressed, and it's whether they can do that before January is the question. There's going to be games where we we do concede first, but it's the reaction after, that's got to change, we've got we've got to have the belief that okay that's gone in, let's go let's go and get our goal, let's try and get back into this game, listen, and that's the mentality Rob's got to change around the place, and I think he will, honestly I do, he's very positive in the way he does things, he gets people on the side, that's a massive trait of his, and yeah I think it'll just be a matter of time, but I was happy I seen, you know, little spots of where he's shown in terms of the formation, in terms of how we want people to work, so yeah it was good to see that, that's what I wanted to see from today, from Martinifon, totally honest. A couple of contentious moments in the first half, that one went well this way, one perhaps not, you both thought that Mark Gay was a bit lucky not to get a second yellow card very early on. I think that if he hasn't got a yellow card he's getting one there, for his second one. A foul on Stran Larson, he would have been running through. Yeah he's got to touch on the ball, and he's caught him as he's touched the ball away from him, look say he's given a foul, and he's gone, I think I saw him going in towards his pocket as well, and I think he's realised who it is, and they say like he's changed his mind, because he knows that he's given me yellow already, because like say, that is a yellow card, if he's given the foul it's a yellow card, so if he lets it go and then whatever's happened and then come back to it, I understand that, but if he's given the foul that is a yellow card for me, and his second one would have been his sending off, and again it's just those little fine margins which are just going against us at the minute, because if that goes down to 10 men, it gives us an advantage, which we're desperate to have at the moment, and he's just little things like that are just going against us, and the way that we're doing it, but for me that isn't the second yellow card that he should have been having. And there were two moments, one in either half actually, where Wolves could have conceded a penalty, the first one in the first half had a long old look from Stuart Atwell, the VAR, and there is a lot of contention in the press box that it should have been given as a pen, that it was just inside the right hand corner of the penalty area, eventually the VAR backed up. Referee Anthony Taylor's assertion that it was only just outside. Somebody said it was his back leg that caught him for the initial, which was outside the box, and that was the reason why I didn't give the... I'm just listening to what in the press room. I know, but I'm just looking with a right smile at nails, because part of me feels if that was the other way around, we'd have been screaming "blue murdered" for a penalty. Well, we all thought it was a penalty, didn't we? Initially, we thought it was... The first contact is the ball, so he gets the ball, so nothing else matters. It's simple to me, I'll be honest. What you all chatting for. All right, he's had too much of that chocolate honeycomb. I'm looking to get back into it, so... That was a little gift from the great John Richards to try and boost morale for today. I say, you've both mentioned there is something to take away from today. It's not the result that anybody wanted, and maybe we kind of fooled ourselves a little bit into thinking that it could make an immediate impact, and that was always unlikely, and time, which is always a commodity that is so hard to come by in football management, is going to be a crucial factor. Look, so we all wanted the fairy tales start to his reign as the manager, but unfortunately, we know that it's going to be an uphill battle against everything that he's doing, but what he will do, he won't, before lack of trying and effort coming from him, the players, and everything else in there, they'll try and get it right, and hopefully fingers crossed that they do, and they get it right sooner rather than later, of course, but he won't before the lack of effort from everybody, I think. Boys, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. It's a pleasure, Michael. Obviously, Tomo and I will be at Villapart next week, haven't even asked Nails if he wants to come, but we'll see. We'll see if we can make that transfer, make him a tempting offer that he can't refuse. Jake Paul, Anthony Joshua style to get him there. I'm not suggesting that you fight anyone though, it could still happen. We will see what happens next weekend at Villapart, next Sunday afternoon. Join us for that, when hopefully Wolves finally get their first win of the campaign, and what a place it would be to do it. We will see what unfolds. See you then. Production.