Wolves beat Burnley 1-0 on Tuesday, but Dave Edwards believes Hugo Bueno struggled – thanks in part to Pablo Sarabia.
Edwards offered his thoughts on the game for the Wolves Weekly podcast, after Hwang Hee-chan’s goal had sunk the Clarets at Molineux.
Hwang scored shortly before half-time, with Wolves pressing Burnley into a mistake on the edge of their own box.
After good work by Mario Lemina, Sarabia and Matheus Cunha got the ball over to Hwang, who made no mistake with his finish, which impressed Amazon pundit Michael Owen.
It wasn’t a good performance from Wolves, but the main thing was getting a win after two straight defeats.
Edwards reckons it wasn’t a good night for Bueno, but that he was not really helped by Sarabia…
Dave Edwards feels Hugo Bueno struggled against Burnley because of Pablo Sarabia
It certainly was not a good performance from Wolves, who were very passive and pedestrian at times.
Burnley were very stubborn though, so it was never likely to be a high-scoring game.
Featuring at left wing-back was Hugo Bueno, who was again playing in place of the injured Rayan Ait-Nouri.
Bueno did not have the best outing and certainly didn’t bomb on anywhere near as much as Nelson Semedo – who was excellent – on the opposite side.
Edwards feels he struggled to have an impact because his link-up with Sarabia wasn’t particularly good.
He said: “Sarabia was our most creative player, but he was also a bit of a hindrance at times as well. He kept coming into that false full-back area, right on Bueno’s toes. They didn’t have that relationship where one would go inside and one would stay out.
“It just wasn’t working, he was killing Hugo Bueno, I felt sorry for him. Every time Bueno got the ball he looked forward and there was just nothing in front of him to play for.”
A mixed bag for Sarabia against Burnley
It made a lot of sense for Gary O’Neil to bring Sarabia into the starting XI against Burnley, given his cameo against Tottenham Hotspur recently and the quick turnaround from the weekend.
Sarabia gave a very interesting performance against Burnley.
There were times when he really frustrated, like when he had the ball on the left in the first-half and did not play either Hwang or Semedo through on goal when there was acres of space through the middle.
Some of his corners were also terrible.
He didn’t really link up with Bueno, as Edwards says, but he is not so used to playing from the left so perhaps it was to be expected.
But he was also arguably Wolves’ most creative player on the night and was involved in the goal, so people can’t be too critical of him. We shall see this weekend if O’Neil felt he did enough to keep his starting berth.