Wolves Fans' Verdict v Southampton: Woeful display

Clive Smith

The team selection set the tone. Our front three had quite a challenge ahead of them. Ball retention in the final third was virtually non-existent. Had we swapped them at half time, having kept it to 0-0 by then, there may have been a different outcome.

How Silva would love a ricochet like Ings had. The poor lad should be taken out of the firing line, his confidence looks shot. Alongside him his two colleagues frankly looked lightweight, naive and out of their depth.

Once we inevitably went a goal behind, and then made the predictable changes, we were up against a defensive wall and running out of time. Southampton seemed to have extra men in every part of the pitch.

We had less possession, fewer shots, fewer corners and made more fouls. Says it all really.

Desperate for something positive, Hoever was MOTM. It was a shame he did not take his man on one on one when well advanced in the first half. Saiss did not look out of place in the centre of defence. Neto brought some quality and excitement in the final twenty minutes.

All things seem pretty miserable at the moment. The missed opportunity the Cup Draw presented hardly helped either. Sunday provides us a chance to bounce back, we managed it at their place last season, lets hope for the same this time around.

Adam Virgo

Awful team selection, negative tactics, embarrassing performance and a golden chance of getting to the Semi Finals has been thrown away at the expense of focusing on a mid-table finish.

Everything I’ve just mentioned screams a lack of ambition and a poor winning mentality. Regardless of our chances of winning the whole thing, we had an opportunity to beat a Southampton side in awful form to progress to the Quarter Finals.

The whole performance from start to finish as a disgrace but as soon as the lineup was released at 4:30pm, it was inevitable what was going to happen. Every fan lives in hope that their team can win and all of us stupidly believed we could somehow get through, even though deep down we all knew scoring a goal wasn’t going to happen with the players we started.

One shot on target in the whole game against a side that’s conceded 12 goals in their last two games is nowhere near good enough. 2-0 flattered us as well, Southampton could have easily scored more.

Neto and Adama should have came on at half time, we were offering very little in attack and with five subs available, we should have made the most of it whilst the game was still 0-0.

All we really do is rely on something special from them both to get us out of situations because they’re our only hope in an attacking sense. Without either of them on the pitch you can see our struggles and then the striker ends up having barely anything to feed off.

Sunday is a must win now as we need an instant reaction after this result and performance. Considering the fact we’ll be full strength and the majority of our players will be fresh, we should be winning and at least putting in a good performance.

Rob Cartwright

I am very disappointed with the team selection. I could not see where we would score. You have to question whether we were really going for a cup run; the team was similar against Chorley but for Boly and Cutrone unavailable.

Would it have been any different if the draw for next round had already been made? I wonder.

We played with really good shape, in the first half, but the match turned out to be a damp squib. So much for the magic of the FA Cup.

Neves & Moutinho were linking well and trying to get the ball forward, but we were toothless up front. Southampton who had picked a team to win were well on top and creating chances.

It was 0-0 at half time and changes should have been made then. Man of the Match Saiss had saved us three times with last gasp tackles or blocks.

Only the one change was made. Again, pre planned with Johnny going off after another decent 45 minutes.

Armstrong missed a great chance, for them, at the restart.

Within five minutes, Ings did score though, with the offside rightly overturned by VAR

Silva had chance to equalise two minutes later, but hit over the bar. I think we all knew at this point that defeat was inevitable.

Two good subs made on 62 minutes, a little late for my liking. It was a further ten minutes until Traore touched the ball. Neto joined with 20 minutes to go to try and rescue the tie.

The rest of the game was completely underwhelming. Dendoncker was anonymous throughout the game. Alt-Nouri played positively. Traore had a chance which was saved well. I cannot recall any other chance created.

Towards the end, an awful pass to Ruddy by Dendoncker, gifted Southampton their second goal and passage to Quarter Finals. This was a great opportunity to progress to the ‘chosen’ tie of the next round. I just don’t understand it.

Russ Evers

Where do you start with this one ?

For those of us of a certain vintage, the beauty of football is captured by the FA Cup. The draw for the third round, the different feeling for cup games and the dreams of Wembley. Some might say that winning the cup is as important if not more so than finishing high in the league.

And so here we were, in the 5th round, at home and having just seemingly rediscovered some of our form with some of our injured players coming back and playing.

And we were up against a team on a bad run of form so everything was set for a potential/probable quarter final place and being 90 minutes from our second semi final at Wembley under Nuno.

Then an hour prior to a ridiculous team time Thursday kick off comes the team sheet. Six changes from a side that was still brittle on confidence and featuring a forward line that few could have predicted.

I then had the same feeling as I did when approaching Villa Park for the semi final against Arsenal when Bully and Robbie Keane did not start.

No attacking threat that day and in Tony Adams book he described the game as men against boys and that is exactly how this one panned out.

Whether we sign Vitinha or not, whether Silva will make it and whether we did the right thing in recalling Gibbs-White-all of those questions are for others to answer but none of them did themselves proud tonight even if MGW should have been awarded a first half penalty.

And when you have 3 of your starting 11 not at the races, everyone else needs to step up and over perform but Moutinho and Dendoncker both had nightmares and the defence as a whole was almost lost without Coady.

I can take defeat and as a Wolves fan its been something you have to be able to do but the manner of defeat is unacceptable.

We had lost before we started tonight and in these trying times when Wolves are the only thing we have as a way of escape from the current climes, to give an admittedly slim chance of glory away to a team who a fortnight ago lost 9-0 is verging on the unforgivable.

Hapless, hopeless and heartbroken.