Wolverhampton Wanderers drew 0-0 with Aston Villa at the weekend.
Quite how Nuno Espirito Santo’s side did not score in the game is anyone’s guess, with Conor Coady and Romain Saiss especially having golden chances.
The Moroccan ballooning an effort over the crossbar from a yard out was perhaps the worst miss in the Premier League so far this season.
The game was the eighth occasion Wolves have failed to score in the Premier League, and when they do manage to breach defences it’s usually only once or twice.
The lack of a goal threat has been real since the loss of Raul Jimenez to injury.
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Pedro Neto and Ruben Neves have stepped up but it really has been a slog for this team to score goals in the Mexican’s absence.
But watching against Villa, former Molineux goalkeeper Carl Ikeme noticed a potential hidden weapon for Wolves – in perhaps the least likely form on paper.
He said (Wolves official): “A lot of teams now are zonal marking, so no-one is actually assigned to Coady, but they’ll have half-blockers.
“Coads will go a bit unnoticed because he’s not the tallest, so when you have a Saiss or a Jose or maybe a Dendoncker in there, you’re going to be assigning your centre-halves to them, rather than Coads because he’s not known for scoring at all.
“He’s an unknown threat, although he won’t go unnoticed for too long and it might be a way for Wolves to manipulate plays and be a bit creative.”
Coady can be useful from set-pieces
On the evidence of the past two games, maybe Coady should be going up for every set-piece.
Ikeme may be on to something when he suggests the bigger players may take up more of the focus for opposition defenders.
Coady obviously hasn’t ever been a goal threat for Wolves, but perhaps that’s been due to not getting himself in the necessary positions.
He could well have had three in the last two games though, and that would have been most welcome with goals proving hard to come by at the moment.