Ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup fourth round tie against Wolverhampton Wanderers, we spoke to Tim Spiers, who covers the club for The Athletic.
He told canaries.co.uk about Adama Traore’s recent departure, Wolves’ defensive strengths, and Bruno Lage playing in the FA Cup on the ZX Spectrum!
canaries.co.uk: It’s been an interesting January transfer window for Wolves with Adama Traore going to Barcelona. He hasn’t played as much this season but always looked a threat when he was playing. Is it a big loss?
TS: It’s definitely a loss, but it sort of became inevitable when it became clear he wasn’t going to sign a new contract, so Wolves’ hands were tied to an extent because he’s only got 18 months left on his deal, so I guess they’re thinking how they can make the most money from what is a uniquely talented player.
With nobody willing to meet their asking price for a permanent deal in January, they’ve decided to send him to Barcelona for basically nothing.
There’s no loan fee involved, they’ll just cover his wages, in the hope that Barcelona take up their sizeable option in the summer, which is around 30 million, or playing for one of the biggest teams in world football massively increases Traore’s profile and there will be other clubs in for him in the summer if other clubs don’t buy him, so it’s not an ideal situation, especially losing a player who, on his day, is too good for any defender.
Everybody’s disappointed to see him go, but they’d much rather he went to Barcelona than Spurs, who are only two points ahead of Wolves in the table. Barcelona is Traore’s boyhood club. He’s a really nice guy, even with all these contract negotiations and issues for the past year, he’s still been making an effort on the field, so fans are still happy for him and hoping he’ll do well because that would ultimately benefit the club with a big sale at the end of it.
canaries.co.uk: Overall this season, with and without Traore, Wolves have been on a positive run. Would you say that it’s been a smooth transition from Nuno Espirito Santo to Bruno Lage?
TS: It was tricky at first in terms of Bruno figuring how he wanted Wolves to play. He came in in the summer looking to transform their playing style. Wolves have notoriously been pragmatic or defensive last season with a low back line, looking to hit teams on the break. When that didn’t work last season, it became very tough to watch.
Lage completely transformed that in the summer to high intensity, front foot, on the ball and high press, but with mixed results in pre-season. Then, as the season started, Wolves were extremely attacking in the first three games. Only Man City had had more shots in the Premier League in the first three games of the season. Wolves looked fantastic to watch, but they lost all three games 1-0.
Lage realised there was no point being that open and attacking and that intense if they’re not able to score. He realised he didn’t have the goalscorers in the squad and Jimenez is understandably going to take time to get back to the levels he was at before his injury.
I think Bruno’s been really smart actually as he’s gone back to Nuno’s style really, certainly defensively, because they know it off the back of their hand and they can do it in their sleep.
When they were shutting Chelsea out a few weeks ago at Molineux, they restricted them to one decent chance in the game and it was amazing to watch them do it so comfortably and so easily. We know that Lage wants to evolve the team but it’s going to take longer than he’d initially hoped.
Despite that, considering this isn’t the style of football and formation he wants, he’s done a fantastic job to get the team to where they are, four points off the Champions League. It shows you just how good this Wolves squad is. The majority of them finished seventh twice in a row under Nuno. A lot of the same players are still here and Lage is getting the best out of them as a unit at the moment, so hopes are high that they can do something really decent this season.
canaries.co.uk: Jimenez has led the way goalscoring-wise in previous seasons. At the moment, you’ve got Hwang, Jimenez and Podence as the joint top scorers in all competitions, so is that a good sign that the goals are being shared more evenly?
TS: That’s really generous! They’re not scoring many goals at all and they’d much rather have somebody in double figures but it’s not been the case. Jimenez has shown moments of being back to his best but I don’t think he’s at the levels he was at before his injury, but there’s patience with that because everybody wants to see him get back to that.
Elsewhere, they’ve just not got the goalscorers in their squad. Only Jimenez and Hwang have hit double figures in any top flight for any club, so they’re trying to generate more goals from players who haven’t done that in the past or they’ll have to look at it in the summer.
What they are doing is relying on this incredible defence. It goes without saying given the record, but they’re one of the hardest teams to beat in Europe, not just the Premier League. They’re in the top five for goals conceded in the top five European leagues. They had this phenomenal run recently of only conceding two goals in eight games and they were to Liverpool and Man City, including one at Man City which was a penalty because the ball hit Joao Moutinho in the ribs and it was deemed handball.
Curiously, they have actually started scoring in the past couple of weeks. They’ve gone from scoring three in eight to eight in three, but it’s hard to put your finger on why because they’re not creating more chances and I think they’ve just been slightly more clinical and had a good run of scoring goals, but I’m not sure that’s going to continue for the rest of the season.
Either way, they get the most out of what they've got.
canaries.co.uk: In terms of the FA Cup, how did the 3-0 win against Sheffield United in the third round go and are you expecting much rotation for Norwich?
TS: Not really. It’s interesting to see how each manager approaches the FA Cup when your team is seventh to twelfth in the league and you're perhaps safe from relegation but you’re not going to challenge the top four. I always get frustrated with managers in that bracket who don’t give the FA Cup a go, but thankfully it looks like Bruno is.
You always get journalists asking foreign managers if they loved watching the FA Cup growing up and they’ll give a stock answer, but Bruno actually did seem to love it and curiously it’s because he played an FA Cup game on the ZX Spectrum in the mid-1980s, which he brought up before the Sheffield United game!
He said he wants to win it and he’s very clear they’re in the competition to win it, which I thought was really bold and refreshing to hear from a manager who could say he’s got other priorities. The league is the priority for Wolves but I think they’ll put a strong team out against Norwich. They made five changes against Sheffield United but it was still a strong team and he’ll do the same this weekend.
It’s a draw that probably suits Wolves okay seen as they’re at home. I expect Norwich to make more changes than Wolves, who will go into it with confidence. They had a really good cup run to the semi-finals under Nuno a couple of years ago and Wolves fans love the cup and don’t need any excuse to get behind the team and get a bit of cup fever going, so hopefully that’s the case.