Wolves once again showed their teeth at Molineux on Christmas Eve as they came out 2-1 victors against Chelsea.
Mario Lemina put Wolves in front at the start of the second half before Matt Doherty extended the host’s lead in added time. Chelsea did get one back late on, but it was too little too late and Gary O’Neil’s side saw out the result.
Multiple players shone in the game and will take the headlines. Lemina in particular was exceptional as he covered every blade of grass as well as netted the opener.
Both Joao Gomes and Toti Gomes also performed well as Wolves have now extended their unbeaten run at Molineux to eight games.
It is a credible feat for a club that was seemingly in a crisis in the summer after multiple players and Julen Lopetegui left. However, O’Neil has more than steadied the ship with Wolves now rising up to 11th in the Premier League, level on points with Chelsea.
While many of the players will receive widespread praise for the result, we look at why O’Neil should be equally credited with the result
Gary O’Neil bounced back in style
It has been no secret that Wolves had been below par coming into the Chelsea fixture. O’Neil’s side has only been able to muster two goals combined against strugglers Burnley and Nottingham Forest. Last weekend also saw an abysmal showing as Wolves were heavily beaten by West Ham.
However, this weekend, Wolves bounced back in style. After a tricky start to the game at Molineux, O’Neil took advantage of a stoppage in play to execute a quick team talk.
From here, the hosts managed to get themselves back into the game and ended the first half as the better side. This continued into the second half with Wolves having a couple of half chances before Lemina headed in the opener from a corner.
Then, when Chelsea turned the tide of the game again in search of an equaliser, O’Neil acted. Tommy Doyle was brought on to re-secure the middle of the pitch and push Wolves further forward which he did to great effect.
Matt Doherty and Hugo Bueno were then brought off the bench late on and marvellously combined to get the second.
Every big decision O’Neil made he got right. This is even more impressive if you consider that Fabio Silva, Boubacar Traore and Jean-Ricner Bellegarde were all out with illness which only depleted the options the manager had.
Gary O’Neil ‘delighted’ with substitutes impact
The addition of the subs certainly helped change the game in Wolves’ favour.
Not one of them really put a foot wrong and they helped to perfectly see out what is a big result just before Christmas.
Speaking after the game O’Neil was equally thrilled about their impact from the bench insisting that they were incredible.
He told Wolves: “’Doc’ scores a lot. He gets in the box an awful lot. When he comes on, you know he gives you a goal threat. It was difficult but I didn’t have too many attacking players on the bench, apart from Sasa who didn’t get on, then the rest were young lads. We have three games in six days, so trying to manage the group, looking at who was tired, so I had no real choice but to make the subs that I made.
“Doc and Tommy Doyle are senior pros, who I know when I put them on the pitch when I’m going to get from them. Santi has worked his socks off to make sure he’s ready for when he’s needed, and I thought all the subs had an incredible impact.”