Podcast presenter Dave Azzopardi has questioned the decision from Wolves manager Julen Lopetegui to bring off Adama Traore at halftime in the club’s most recent game.
What’s the latest on Adama Traore and Wolves?
In the Premier League this weekend, the Molineux outfit were unable to help themselves in their question to avoid the drop as they fell to their 14 defeat of the season.
Indeed, despite Hwang Hee-chan levelling the scores against Newcastle United in the second half, a late winner from Miguel Almiron settled the defeat after Alexander Isak had netted an opener in the first 45.
Going in 1-0 down at halftime, it seems as though Lopetegui wasn’t happy with his team’s performance and opted to mix things up by bringing Traore off for Neto.
While speaking on Talking Wolves after the game, Azzopardi seemed to question the decision, claiming that he was “surprised” by it with the winger causing Dan Burn some trouble.
He explained (2:46): “Adama, I was surprised to see brought off at halftime, especially against Dan Burn.
“Who by the way, just before the penalty shout was a bit of a nasty challenge on [Ruben] Neves, to be fair. I didn’t know what he was piping up and shouting in the face of Neves.
“But Dan Burn got, you know, he was having a tough game I thought at times against Adama Traore. So I was really surprised that [Daniel] Podence stayed on for as long as he did.”
Who played better for Wolves? Traore, Neto or Podence?
By the sounds of it, it seems Azzopardi would have rather seen Neto come on for Podence instead of Traore if a substitute was going to be made.
When you look at the players’ stats on SofaScore, Traore actually had the highest player rating of 6.6 and Podence who played the most amount of minutes (63 compared to the 45 the other two got) had a lowly 6.3 rating.
What’s more, Traore completed four out of five attempted dribbles which is better than the other two wingers, while he also won five out of seven ground duels when Neto won none and Podence also managed five but out of 13 attempted.
However, Traore did give the ball away 11 times in his half, while Neto lost it just nine times (Podence lost it 11 times too but played longer), and the Spaniard also had the least successful pass completion record.
Lopetegui could argue that his team lost the half with Traore on 1-0, and drew the other half 1-1 after his sub – so perhaps it was a good decision. Even so, it wasn’t enough to win the game.
