Wolves have finished the season with a whimper, losing to Liverpool 3-1 at Anfield.
Wanderers have dropped a couple of places to 10th as a result of the loss, and Leicester City beating Southampton 4-1, and Brighton beating West Ham United 3-1.
Wolves got off to a great start, with Pedro Neto tapping in after Jose Sa’s ball over the top was missed by Ibrahima Konate. Raul Jimenez latched onto it and squared for his fellow attacker.
But Sadio Mane equalised for the hosts, before further goals followed from Mo Salah and Andy Robertson.
Wolves unfortunately lost goalscorer Neto after just 22 minutes. He was replaced by Hwang Hee-chan.
The loss of Neto early on was definitely a big blow, as he was looking very sharp.
After scoring, he had fired in great low ball for Leander Dendoncker who might have doubled the visitors’ lead.
Bruno Lage turning to Hwang was a highly questionable decision.
The South Korea international has been in very poor form of late, and has been strongly criticised on social media for his performances.
He was Lage’s first port of call, and it was a similar story for Hwang as in the past few weeks.
He was wasteful, and spurned an excellent chance when one on one with Allison, shooting wide under pressure from the Brazilian.
The Birmingham Mail gave him just 5/10 for his display, stating: “Needs to do more. Wasted the chance to set Wolves away on the counter-attack a couple of times and struggled to link up with Jimenez.
Considering Daniel Podence’s influence was Wolves this season, it is extremely frustrating that the manager did not turn to him ahead of Hwang today.
A bizarre call from Lage as he replaced with Neto with Hwang
Podence has been Wolves’ creative spark this season. And more so since the departure of Adama Traore.
He surely had to be the first person to turn to in the event of any injury to an attacking player.
But Lage turned to Hwang, and the 26-year-old frustratingly turned in another bad performance.
Podence didn’t actually even get on today, so wonders if he was fit enough to play. But he got 15 minutes or so against Norwich City last weekend.
If Podence couldn’t play, then surely Chiquinho would have been the better option. Or even Francisco Trincao, who did eventually get on very late.
Hwang is the Wolves forward who has been in the worst form of late – it is truly strange that he was the man to replace Neto.