Wolves were hammered by West Ham United on Friday night – and it was not a good evening for Yerson Mosquera.
Wanderers are now all but relegated after the 4-0 thrashing at London Stadium, being 15 points adrift of safety with six games to go.
It was a highly disappointing performance from the team, who perhaps suffered from having not played for so long.
But regardless of that, there were simply too many performances that were unacceptable from Wolves players – and Yerson Mosquera was a point of real frustration in particular.
Yerson Mosquera must cut out the nonsense for Wolves
First things first, Mosquera has had a decent season for Wolves.
It has been an awful one for the club, but Mosquera has been one of the better performers, and it’s been great to see him finally play a lot of games for the first-team without getting injured.
There’s a lot to like about him, and by many accounts, he is a very popular figure around the club and adored by his teammates.
But Mosquera’s antics are threatening to undo all the good.
Against West Ham on Friday, Mosquera got booked for remonstrating with the referee, suggesting he’d been elbowed by Crysencio Summerville. He had already won a free-kick for his side, but he turned that into a negative by asking for his opponent to be booked.
There was no elbow whatsoever, so it was rather embarrassing on Mosquera’s part.
Needing no second invitation, Jarred Gillett quickly brandished a yellow card for the Wolves man. Perhaps that was quick, but Mosquera should know better than to request punishment for an opponent.
That was his 10th league yellow of the season, and he’s now suspended for two games. It’s probably immaterial, because Wolves are down. But that is not the point.
The point is Mosquera must clean up his act because it will eventually sting Wolves when it matters even more.
Mosquera now has 38 yellows in 122 club appearances across his career – 14 of these have come in 33 games for Wolves.
That is, frankly, ridiculous, and takes away from his game so much.
Mosquera is an aggressive player, and strong in the tackle. If he’s on a yellow half the time though, he cannot hope to play in the same way, his best way, for fear of getting sent off. This actually makes him a liability.
We saw after that yellow how he struggled in the game, as he couldn’t get as tight to players or go in as strongly, so it impacted the rest of his – and the team’s – performance.
What Rob Edwards has said about Yerson Mosquera
After the game with West Ham, even Rob Edwards called out Mosquera over his antics.
He said (via E&S): “It certainly is, it’s really frustrating.
“It’s a difficult one to take at the moment because you’ve been playing so well and now we’re missing him for a couple of games in that manner. It’s not good.”
“That kind of thing has to be stamped out of his game.
“It’s part of the game we don’t want to see. Obviously, he gets punished in that manner with the yellow card, now he’s going to learn the hard way and we’re getting punished for it as well as a team.
“He’s a really good player. He’s made a mistake and he’ll learn from it now.”
Edwards says this, but Mosquera has been doing this kind of thing for a while now and has not yet shown signs that he’ll grow out of it, which is a concern. He loves to concern himself with riling up the opposition, getting in their faces, being theatrical and just being a general menace.
Mosquera could be so good. He plays on the edge, but he must stop concerning himself with things not relating to his own game. It simply cannot be good or productive to be this involved in football dark arts.
In more moments he must swap chaos for calm, and avoid disadvantaging his own team.
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