The morning after the night before.

A few reflections, my own, without emotion.

There is no shame in losing to Wolves away, they’re a very good team & our performance was ‘ok’, we’ve played worse this season & picked up points. There is a ‘but’ though’.

Let’s start with the positives.

Player wise, 2 stood out & it’s no surprise for me who they are. Guaita & Zaha. Thought Vicente was excellent last night. Relieved a hell of a load of pressure off the defence by clearing out from crosses & led the defence.

It’s easy to look at Jairo, Tyrick & Cheick as being our best players so far this season, for me, Guaita has been exceptional & arguably better than any other keeper in the league. He might be the best I’ve seen in a Palace shirt. Really hope he signs a contract extension soon.

Wilf, no goal for him & the Wolves defence played him well. He was though a handful all night & the only player until Eze came on who looked to turn & take us up the pitch at pace. In tight areas, he looked to turn & create, not afraid to take risks & worked hard.

I know I say it a lot, I enjoy watching Zaha, he is the best player I’ve ever seen in a Palace shirt. For 5 seconds last night my mind drifted to the devastation Wilf would cause on defences if he was in that Wolves team. He carries too much of our attacking weight on him.

As I say, this wasn’t a bad performance, significantly better than Wolves away past season & Brighton. We looked to keep the ball better & created more chances. Let’s not kid ourselves though, the way we were set up, we were always going to concede.

To keep our solidity, RH set us up incredibly narrow. When Wolves had the ball, they allowed Coady & the midfield the freedom of an out ball to either wing. They could relieve pressure easily, they could get into our final third quickly.

With the quality of Wolves, it comes as no surprise both goals came from crosses. You simply can’t give quality teams that open opportunity to put the ball in our box. When we did win the ball back, we were so narrow that Luka & Jairo were stood on top of each other.

On Luka & Jairo, I’m going to tweet something that goes against opinion. The caveat, I’m a massive Jairo fan. Both had poor games & Hodgson set them up where they couldn’t succeed. I’ve seen lots of criticism for Luka, I honestly feel he had a better game than Jairo.

Both though were picking up the ball too deep, turning too slow & then checking with a sideways or backwards pass. Jairo was pulled out of position too many times, PVA shouted several times for help as JR had lost his runner. Luka was vocal & at least got his head up to pass.

For all of that, our midfield 2 were too functional, sat deep & played safe. I blame RH more than I do either player. And here is the heart of my frustration. This is the most talented & balanced Palace squad that I have seen. It has been expensively built so it can create.

Once again though, what we saw last night was a team set-up not to play to our strengths but to totally stop Wolves. We are formulaic. Roy is formulaic. This moan isn’t simply that Eze should be playing, it’s that we have players who are good enough & can be trusted with the ball

We may well have lost being a little more open, Wolves may well have played through us down the middle but when you are 9 points clear of the relegation zone of much prefer us taking that risk from the 1st min & give our players a chance to create.

Set up like we did last night we are there to nick games. I get it versus City & Liverpool. This squad though is good enough to compete versus the others. I’m not saying all out attack, simply 1 or 2 notches along the spectrum towards creativity.

So here we are back to Roy. He has done an incredible job since he joined. A case can be made for him being our greatest manager. Roy will keep us up, his formula keeps us up but you can’t help but feel there is more in this squad than we are seeing.

This isn’t a Roy out tweet, just a desire for him to wake up one morning & go ‘f*ck it, let’s have a go them today’!

Whilst I’m swearing, ‘f*ck VAR’. Sucking the life out of football & making a science out of a game played in the moment, full of emotion.

Final thought is for a Wolves player. Connor Coady was excellent last night. A leader & a great player. He did not stop coaching the team on how to marshal Zaha, on the ball he was like a quarter back spraying passes wide. England’s best centre back.