Dave Edwards believes Wolves have a ‘terrific player’ on their hands in Pablo Sarabia, but concedes he has not yet had the desired impact so far at Molineux.
Sarabia enjoyed his best moment for the club on Saturday when he made two late goal contributions in a 2-1 comeback win against Tottenham Hotspur.
Wolves trailed 1-0 for most of the game after conceding early to Brennan Johnson.
But Gary O’Neil threw Sarabia on for the closing stages, with the player having trained really well in the week according to the manager.
Sarabia scored a possible goal of the season contender just moments after his introduction, before setting up Mario Lemina for the winner.
It was certainly a moment the Spaniard needed.
Dave Edwards says Pablo Sarabia is a terrific player who hasn’t quite lived up to expectation at Wolves
Perhaps inevitably after his amazing cameo, Edwards wrote about Sarabia in his latest Express & Star column.
Sarabia’s time at Wolves so far has been fairly underwhelming. He had signed for just £4 million and many fans felt at the time that this was an amazing bargain.
It still could be, but Sarabia hasn’t quite lived up to his billing yet.
Edwards also feels this is the case, saying of the 31-year-old: “Pablo Sarabia is a terrific player. We have seen little moments of brilliance, but he has not really had that big moment in a game.
“We know he has quality but has he impacted the games enough? I do not think he has.
“Obviously, O’Neil does not think he has either as he has not been starting games of football.
“This has been really important for him to come on in the situation he did. The goal was sensational. That first touch was just magnificent, Hopefully, we can see more of it.”
Back in September, Molineux legend Andy Thompson also said that he had been disappointed with Sarabia’s Wolves stint so far.
Spurs cameo can be catalyst for Sarabia at Wolves
Many Wolves fans will share Edwards’ feelings about Sarabia.
The £90,000-a-week star came in in January and there was a lot of praise for the deal Wolves did. Sarabia is an experienced and versatile player with international pedigree, and he’d just had a very good season on loan at Sporting CP, scoring 21 goals and making 10 assists in 45 games.
So far, Wolves fans have only seen his quality in glimpses, which is a bit of a shame.
But his cameo against Spurs was a reminder of how much ability he has. The goal was an incredible show of technical quality. Arguably, very few players could have finished that chance in the way he did. On the goal, pundit Joe Cole said that ‘only quality players can do that’.
As Edwards says, hopefully Sarabia can now kick on from here.