Liam Keen comment: Wolves heads dropped, squad depth problems and a crucial few weeks

Although the performance offered some positives that Edwards can work with, it was the same old story and proves the monumental task on his hands.

Heads dropped

Wolves were calmer, more organised and more competitive against Palace, despite not offering a lot going forward and not having much control over the contest.

Palace took the lead in the 63rd minute - at a time when Wolves were enjoying a better spell - and the reaction from the players was worrying.

Heads immediately dropped, shoulders were shrugged and no leaders stood up to rally the troops. Edwards desperately tried to do it from the sidelines and summer signing Tolu Arokodare responded by trying to gee-up his team-mates.

But none of the leaders on the pitch showed their mettle. Wolves never looked likely to win the game at any stage, but particularly after going a goal behind.

The confidence will naturally be low when the team has consistently lost games and consistently been criticised, but the players must drag something out of themselves to stay in games or get back into them.

Finding a result from somewhere is the only way they will have any chance of getting some momentum.

"The heads did drop, but I don't think the performance level dropped," Edwards said when asked about the reaction to going behind.

"I know then they got the second goal, but I don't think that was from everyone's heads dropping or maybe a lack of leadership, I didn't see that.

"I thought we tried to get back on the front foot and tried to show some purpose.

"Clearly, there's one or two that are lacking some belief and confidence anyway, and that's understandable from the position that we're in.

"You've got to be able to handle that, the pressure, the expectation that this crowd are going to put on us.

"We've got to be able to handle that. You sense that little bit of frustration when the goals go in and you can hear it around the place. I understand it.

"I know they'll be really disappointed with another defeat. I get that, but what we have to do, we have to get back to work really quickly.

"We've got quite a lot of preparation time going into another massive game next, so we've got to try and look at the things that we did OK.

"I don't think there were loads of things that we did great, but I don't think there were loads of things we did badly.

"There are some things there to improve as well and we've got to try and eradicate certain bits quite quickly."

Squad depth

The squad is lacking in a lot of areas and there was only so much Edwards could do in a short space of time to prepare them for the Palace game.

A head coach also cannot account for certain individual decisions and with the squad he has available, he would have expected more in some situations.

Hwang Hee-chan is in desperately bad form and will be low on confidence, but he is an experienced player nonetheless.

As a result, it is criminal for him to lazily give the ball away on the edge of the box like he did, resulting in Palace's second goal.

It was a spectacular finish from Yeremy Pino, which makes it very unfortunate, but it was also very avoidable from a player that should do better.

At 2-0 down, Wolves then had a big chance to get a goal back.

David Moller Wolfe put the ball on a plate for Jhon Arias, but he fluffed his lines from a matter of yards and also got in the way of a Jorgen Strand Larsen tap-in in the process.

Arias has been exceptionally poor since signing in the summer, but a player of his obvious quality has to do better than that.

Both Hwang and Arias came off the bench and made big mistakes that Edwards could not account for, highlighting the lack of depth in this squad.

Crucial period

Wolves now have seven games remaining in 2025 and they will be crucial to any potential comeback.

Starting with the West Midlands derby at Villa on Sunday, Wolves play Manchester United both home and away over the festive period, as well as home clashes against Nottingham Forest and Brentford and trips to face Arsenal and Liverpool.

It is a very difficult seven-game run, against some in-form teams, but it is likely to be critical to Wolves' survival chances.

Wolves will need a good January transfer window in their fight to stay up, but the odds of the club sanctioning funds this winter will depend on performances and results in the coming weeks.

Put it this way, if Wolves are still on two points by January, after 19 Premier League games, it would not make much sense to spend with relegation just around the corner. The club need to be in the mix to stay up to warrant splashing the cash.

That is why the next seven games will be so important and in reality, Wolves may need eight to 10 points in these matches for it to make sense to invest in the team.

Otherwise, it will be a chance to prepare for the Championship instead.