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From failing to defend 16 against Titans to taking 3 for 22 against RCB, Prasidh has seen both the highs and lows this past week

Karthik Krishnaswamy28-May-2022We cannot know what Prasidh Krishna thought and felt between May 24 in Kolkata and May 27 in Ahmedabad, but we can guess that those thoughts and feelings weren’t always pleasant. And we can guess that he played back in his mind, more than once, the events of the final over of Qualifier 1, which he bowled with Gujarat Titans needing 16 to win, and David Miller finished the game in the first three balls.6, 6, 6.

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Three days later, Prasidh is bowling to Virat Kohli in the second over of Qualifier 2. He’s bowled three balls already, all of them quick – 140, 141 and 147kph – and with varying degrees of inswing.He sends down the fourth ball, and the effort he makes to hit the pitch as hard as he possibly can causes him to spring off his feet upon releasing the ball. Like his height, his build, and his pace, this quirk in his action is redolent of Ishant Sharma, the man he’s been tipped to take over from in India’s Test-match attack.And the effort causes the ball, landing just short of a length in the fifth-stump channel, to rear off the pitch. Kohli fences at it and nicks off.This sort of bounce, from this sort of length, is Prasidh’s biggest strength. This pitch in Ahmedabad is designed to maximise the threat of this sort of ball. And this sort of ball, behaving in this manner, is among Kohli’s least favourite to face, particularly early in his innings.The perfect plan, executed by the perfect man for the job.

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When Prasidh begins the 19th over of Royal Challengers Bangalore’s innings, they are 146 for 6. Rajasthan Royals’ bowlers have had an excellent match so far, but Dinesh Karthik is at the crease, looking to spoil their good work in the next 12 balls.Prasidh begins the over with a death-overs economy rate of 11.37 for the season. Of all the bowlers to have gone at above 11 in this phase, he’s the only one to have bowled more than 100 balls. The others have either not played often enough, or have bowled more of their overs in phases they are better suited to. Prasidh, playing for a team without out-and-out end-overs options, has little choice but to bowl at this time.And it’s only three days since he ran into Miller.His first ball is wide of off stump, and on the fuller side of a good length. It’s wide enough to make Karthik reach for the ball even though he’s taken a big, early step across his stumps, and it’s full enough to make him look to hit it down the ground, but it isn’t so full that it’s a straightforward task. And the ball behaves unusually. It clocks 144kph, but it comes out with the seam scrambled, and it bites into the pitch and stops on Karthik. He’s through his shot early, and catches it with the toe-end of his bat. Instead of clearing long-on, the ball plops gently into the fielder’s hands.Did this wicket come about by accident or design? Prasidh probably didn’t intend for the ball to stop on Karthik, but the wide line seemed like a sound idea for two reasons. He was making it harder for Karthik to access the smaller square boundary, which was on the leg side, and Royals may have made it a point to try and deny Karthik leg-side access anyway – soon after the wicket fell, Shiva Jayaraman from ESPNcricinfo’s stats team noted that Karthik’s leg-side strike rate of 291.52 in IPL 2022 was the highest of any batter in any season.It’s possible, of course, that the wicket was just the sort of chance event that’s always swimming about in the bouillabaisse of randomness that is T20, but sometimes, a bowler deserves a bit of luck.Sometimes, a bowler deserves to have a new batter to bowl to – hello, Wanindu Hasaranga – so he can spear a yorker at his feet and leave his middle and leg stumps splattered on the ground. Goodbye, Wanindu Hasaranga.

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How do you react to going through something like that last over against Titans? How do you step back from the emotional swirl of the moment and examine it in a manner approaching objectivity? How do you find space for learning and growth in the middle ground between beating yourself up for losing your team a winnable game and dismissing what you’ve gone through as something that could happen to any bowler in this fickle and unforgiving format?According to Kumar Sangakkara, Royals’ head coach, the process begins with the player being honest – with himself and his team.”Special mention to Prasidh,” he told after Royals wrapped up a seven-wicket win over Royal Challengers and sealed their place in Sunday’s final. “Sixteen to defend in the last game, three sixes by Miller, and that’s a huge dent in your confidence with just a couple of days to turn it around, and the way he responded at training, the way he was honest with me and the rest of the group about what he could do better, was really impressive to see. He’s a very special talent.”Sangakkara elaborated on that point in his post-match press conference. He suggested that where Prasidh had gone wrong in the game against Titans was in a lack of clarity about his plans to Miller. Watch those three balls again, and this certainly seems to be the case – a wide yorker executed imperfectly, not slanted far enough across the left-hander; a slower ball offering easy (in relative terms) leg-side access; then a switch to round the wicket and a full ball angled into Miller’s arc.”The only thing you’ve got to understand is whether it was an executional error, or just a lack of general clarity and awareness,” Sangakkara said. “If it’s just an executional error it’s very simple to rectify. It’s skill versus skill, bowler versus batter, you try and execute the best ball, to the field that you’ve set, the batter gets on top of you, that’s fine. If you miss your mark you immediately know, well, I bowled the right delivery, I just didn’t get it right, you walk back to your mark and then you go again.”The real key is to have clarity at the top of the mark: number one, the fields that you’ve set; number two, the strengths of the batter as discussed and the plans that you’ve set beforehand. If nothing has changed in terms of the match that is being played, you try and simply go back to those plans that you’re in control of.”Prasidh is exceptionally skilled. He thinks very deeply and quite a lot about how he plays, and the game, which is a very good thing, but at the same time, to arrange your bowling and the execution in a manageable form where you try and just concentrate on the things that you can control, and not worry too much about, you know, anything else that can distract you.”The other thing is, you’ve just got to be honest and own your skill, and how you apply that skill. And there’s of course trust, where he knows that if there’s anything that myself or the rest of the coaches will contribute to him, it’s always with the idea of getting him better and making him even more special than he already is.”It all works together as a combination, but the character he’s shown, a day to turn around a very tough performance in the last game, and he just showed that he’s got what it takes to succeed at any level.”

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The challenge Prasidh came through in Ahmedabad on May 27 wasn’t the same one he suffered through in Kolkata on May 24. His early success came during a phase he has excelled in right through the season – he had a powerplay economy rate of 6.64 coming into the game – on a pitch made for his style of bowling, and by the time he had to bowl at the death, Royals were already largely in control.But life doesn’t follow neatly symmetric narrative arcs, and that’s okay. Some day in the not-too-distant future, Prasidh may successfully defend a small number of runs in the final over of a high-stakes game. For now, you have the pleasure of watching a thrillingly talented cricketer grow to his full potential.

“I got a couple of on-drives in this innings and as a batsman, you know that you have to be doing a lot of things correct to hit an on-drive,” Agarwal says

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Hamilton16-Feb-2020Sometimes, you can tell a lot about a batsman by how he puts away a half-volley. The bowler was James Neesham, and the batsman was Mayank Agarwal, batting on 34. The ball was full and a little floaty, angling in towards off stump.Agarwal brought his bat down perfectly straight and presented its full face to the ball, which sped away to the straight boundary after bisecting umpire and non-striker. The straight drive to the on, the shot that made Sachin Tendulkar nod in approval whenever he played it, probably involuntarily but possibly not.This was the seventh four of Agarwal’s innings, and he had also hit a six by then. Some of those shots had come off better deliveries than this one, and some – such as an uppercut off Scott Kuggeleijn, played with both feet in the air – had required a greater exercise of his dexterity and hand-eye coordination.This, though, was perhaps the most important shot of his innings. This, and a virtual replica in Neesham’s next over, off a delivery of similar line but better length, not quite as full.”I got a couple of on-drives in this innings and as a batsman, you know that you have to be doing a lot of things correct to hit an on-drive,” Agarwal later said. “When I got a couple of those, it gave me the assurance that was required.”Agarwal was certainly in need of assurance. He had landed in New Zealand in the middle of January and batted 11 times since then, for India A, India, and the Indians. He hadn’t made a single fifty in those 11 innings.More than the scores themselves, the nature of some of his dismissals – particularly in the second and third ODIs – had pointed to a technical issue, wherein his trigger movement was getting him into too much of a closed-off position, with his front shoulder much further to the off side than his back shoulder, forcing him to play around his body and square up to compensate.Agarwal wasn’t too keen on dissecting the technical adjustments he’d had to make but revealed that he had indeed been getting too closed-off, and that he had worked on the issue with Vikram Rathour, India’s batting coach, after his early dismissal on the first day of this warm-up match.The efforts certainly seemed to bear fruit, never more emphatically than when he drove Neesham down the ground. No shot is better at telling batsmen that they are properly balanced, and properly aligned at the crease, than the straight- or on-drive. It tells them that their head isn’t falling over, and their front leg isn’t going too far across and getting in the way of their bat coming down straight. If he was still getting too closed-off, Agarwal might have had to play around his front pad, and work the same balls squarer, through midwicket or even square leg.The effect of being better aligned was apparent through the rest of his innings too – his footwork and weight transfer just looked more precise, whatever shot he played – and he flowed on to 81 before retiring at lunch. This may have been just a warm-up match, and one lacking first-class status, but runs are runs, and, perhaps more importantly in the lead-up to the first Test in Wellington, fluency is fluency.The two candidates to open with Agarwal, meanwhile, were both out to induckers from Daryl Mitchell, Prithvi Shaw bowled and Shubman Gill lbw. Both planted their front foot too firmly and both drove a little too loosely. But while Gill was out for his second low score of the match, Shaw made a shot-a-minute 39 off 31 balls, putting away even marginal errors in line and length, and more or less sealed his spot alongside Agarwal.

The Yankees, trailing by three at the bottom of the fourth in an elimination Game 3 on Tuesday, needed a huge boost with the Blue Jays threatening to sweep the series. So Aaron Judge decided to take matters into his own hands.

The famed pinstripes slugger smashed one off the left-field foul pole for a three-run homer for New York, tying the game 6–6 and infusing some much-needed momentum into a team looking to claw its way back from a 2–0 ALDS series hole vs. Toronto.

Naturally, the hit brought fans both in the stadium and online to their feet (literally and metaphorically, depending on the crowd), but no group had as strong or as funny a reaction as the Yankees dugout, which cameras caught freaking out as Judge made his way around the diamond.

This screen grab in particular is quite illustrative of the mood in the Bronx at that moment:

The following inning, the Yankees managed to take the lead on a Jazz Chisholm Jr. home run, then kept it for a final 9–6 tally. And now that they've pulled off the clutch win, thereby living to see another game, both the team and onlookers will point to the Judge homer—and the subsequent reaction from his teammates—as the moment it all changed.

Mic’d Up: McCarty breaks down the MLS Cup – why benching Suárez was a “career-defining” call, how Müller made Vancouver must-watch, and which side he thinks has the edge.

In the lead-up to the 2025 MLS Cup, Dax McCarty was asked to pick a combined XI from the two finalists: Inter Miami and the Vancouver Whitecaps. It’s a familiar exercise before a big game, largely because it’s an easy way to spotlight players to watch and the matchups that could ultimately decide things.

This one, though, wasn’t so easy. McCarty genuinely struggled. There was simply too much talent to choose from, he says. It stressed him out – and, oddly enough, made him even more excited for the final.

“Both of these teams are loaded,” the longtime MLS midfielder turned Apple TV analyst told GOAL. “It’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as an analyst. You go through both teams and it’s impossible. If everyone had to put together a combined XI for these teams, I think they’d all be different.”

Such is the nature of this final. On one side: Lionel Messi and friends, leading an Inter Miami team chasing immortality. On the other hand: Vancouver, no plucky underdog, but a group headlined by Thomas Muller and supported by Sebastian Berhalter, Andrés Cubas, Tristan Blackmon, and Emmanuel Sabbi – all playing the best soccer of their careers.

McCarty previewed the matchup in the latest edition of Mic’d Up, GOAL’s recurring feature that brings the perspective of analysts, announcers, and other voices on the state of soccer in the U.S. and beyond.

Getty Images SportON THE MLS PLAYOFFS

GOAL: Every year, there's this debate and discussion about what the MLS Cup Playoffs should look like and, every year, that doesn't really matter because they turn out to be chaotic and entertaining anyway. What has been your big takeaway from this postseason, given everything we've seen?

MCCARTY: The playoffs have been dramatic. They've been exciting. I couldn't have asked for much more, to be completely honest.  I think we've seen drama. I think we've seen great games. I think we've seen great coaching. I think that's a kind of a big out thing that sticks out for me in terms of, I think, where we're at in MLS. 

Of course, we've had great players throughout Major League Soccer's existence, and we've had superstars, and we've had really good teams, but I think one thing that's definitely been an outlier this year, but also in these playoffs, because we just saw it in the conference finals, is that the level of coaching has improved dramatically. That's not to say that we haven't had great coaching in the past. I just think that the teams now, especially the teams in the conference finals, that's a proof of concept that you don't necessarily need to have a manager who has all this knowledge of the quirky MLS rules and calendar to be successful. That was kind of a narrative that a lot of people bought into, and certainly with the likes of Bob Bradley and Bruce Arena, the Sigi Schmids, the Brian Schmetzers, that holds a lot of water: the success that domestic coaches have had in MLS. 

I think this year, specifically, especially if you look at the conference finals and all four coaches being in the conference finals in their first year, I don't think that that's necessarily the case now anymore. I think that you can look outside the box. You can be a little bit more creative. The global market is certainly true for a player pool, but I think now that's shifting to also being true for a coaching pool as well. 

AdvertisementGetty Images SportON MESSI AND INTER MIAMI

GOAL: You've been around this team for a long time, but none of us have ever seen anything like Messi and Inter Miami. They're an outlier in the sense that they can just outscore you, and there's not much you can do to stop it. What do you think about them?

MCCARTY: Yeah, they certainly seem to be a juggernaut right now, the likes of which we haven't seen, especially in the playoffs. Inter Miami had an up-and-down season. If we want to take their season as a whole, yes, they had some very high highs, but they've also had some lows, and they've also not won a trophy this year. You have to obviously take their season in totality to really judge everything that's happening, but if we want to break it down in just their playoff run, it's been spectacular. 

I think Javier Mascherano made the biggest and best decision of his young coaching career to put Luis Suarez on the bench. I've been vocal that that was the right decision, and it must have been a difficult decision, but Inter Miami is certainly finding their best form at the right time, and it's because they have balance now. They've got young legs around Lionel Messi. He's always had a sort of free role, but now, with younger legs around him, it's even more free. He's free to do what he does best, which is score spectacular goals, but he's also free to create and to drop a little bit deeper in midfield and kind of be that conduit between midfield and attack.

One thing you said that really stands out is that you're not going to really be able to keep Inter Miami off the score sheet. That doesn't seem to be something that is likely to happen, so you're going to have to outscore them. You're going to have to hope that their back line, which has been significantly better recently, kind of reverts back to the mistake-prone back line that we saw a few months ago, but your focus has to be on Messi. 

GOAL: How do you stop them? If you're playing in a one-game cup final, what do you do about it?

It frustrates me to no end when I see teams just giving Messi time and space on the ball in midfield and not tracking his runs into the box. Go back to the first goal that he scored against FC Cincinnati in that Eastern Conference semifinal, and it's unacceptable for Messi to be scoring a header in that type of situation. It's a great play. It's a great ball by Silvetti, so don't take anything away from the actual attacking movement in play, but you have to make sure that when Messi gets the ball in the final third, he's going to look to pass it and then get the ball back at some point in the box so he can finish in one touch. It frustrates me when teams don't game plan for that, and when players lose track of where he is, because he's going to get his chances and he's going to beat you in certain ways, but don't let him beat you in the obvious ways. 

That's kind of where I'm at with it. Look, Vancouver, they've done it already this year, right? So if there's one team that I think matches up really well with Inter Miami, and who won't be scared to go in there and go toe to toe with them, as far as goalscoring is concerned, it's definitely this Vancouver Whitecaps team.

GettyON PRESSURE

GOAL: Whenever you get to a cup final, there's pressure, right? For Inter Miami, though, it's a different beast because the world is watching Messi, fairly or unfairly. How much pressure are they under?

MCCARTY: Inter Miami is under a different level of pressure, and anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves.

This is a team that's been built to win trophies, been built to win every single trophy that they compete for. Full credit to David Beckham and the Mas brothers and their ownership group for swinging for the fences. You couldn't have made a better signing, obviously, with Leo Messi. If he's not still the best player in the world, he's certainly still in the top five or 10, and he's definitely the best player in Major League Soccer. So now it's about how you maximize his time here in Major League Soccer by filling that trophy cabinet up. 

Lionel Messi has been a transcendent signing for the league. I think his legacy and his career are set in stone in terms of being the greatest player that's ever lived, but with that comes an added responsibility that, if you take his MLS legacy and put it off to the side, he's going to be judged on on the trophies that he's won, an MLS Cup being one of the most important. So there is an extra amount of pressure on Inter Miami now, especially with the form they're in and them being able to host the final and play at home. Then you add in the fact that Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, two of the greatest players of this generation, are retiring after this. It would be seen as a massive, massive disappointment if they do not win MLS Cup. There's no other way to put it. You shouldn't sugarcoat it. I don't know if I'd go as far to say the season would be some sort of catastrophic failure, because I believe that Lionel Messi is going to win back-to-back MVPs, but certainly you expect them to win trophies, and if they go a whole season without winning a trophy, that has to be seen as a disappointment.

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ImagnON MULLER'S IMPACT IN VANCOUVER

GOAL: You know what it's like to play with a superstar, and I'm sure there were times with that Red Bull team that you looked around and said, 'We have Thierry Henry and they don't, so we'll be fine'. The Whitecaps brought in their superstar, Thomas Muller, and added him to a team that was already very, very good. How does bringing in someone like that make a team go from very good to great?

MCCARTY: Yeah, there's a different level of confidence that flows through that locker room when you know you have a superstar you can rely on….I've been impressed with Thomas Muller on the field. How can you not be? His goal-scoring return has been excellent. He's fit in tactically with exactly what Jesper Sorensen wants to accomplish, but it's also off the field where you're more impressed. 

The fact that he has come in and he has elevated the level of every single player around him, he has raised the expectations for what that club is. Vancouver has always been a really good club. They've been a well-run club that has had success in the past. They've won multiple Canadian championships. They've been a pretty consistent qualifier for the playoffs, but they haven't really been able to get over the hump and get over the line when it comes to really challenging and being, I think, in the spotlight within the national conversation of Major League Soccer. They're firmly in that conversation now. It's not just because they've gone on a good run this year. They have so many fun storylines to talk about all throughout that team, and Muller is absolutely one of them in the way that he's changed that team and galvanized them to be more confident. Sebastian Bearhalter, the steps that he has taken this year. Sorensen,  how impressive he has been in replacing a very good coach in Vanni Sartini, and almost taking that team to another level. 

The way that I'll end the conversation about Vancouver is the fact that they are a must-see team every time they are on the field. They are fun to watch. They have a distinct identity and style of play, and they play the same whether they're at home or on the road. That is something that is rare to find in Major League Soccer. You won't find a more well-balanced team in terms of a team that can hurt you and outscore you in attack, and then also a team that can defend and has an identity to keep clean sheets. Talk all you want about Inter Miami and the talent they have and the way that they're playing an attack. Absolutely, it's deserved, but Vancouver has been the more impressive team throughout the season in terms of their balance and in terms of the fact that they can beat you in a multitude of different ways.

Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim said he avoids using social media in order to protect himself after he was revealed to be the top target of online abuse in English football. An investigation by the BBC found that Amorim received more abuse than any other figure in the game during the weekend of United's 2-2 draw with Tottenham in November, followed by Liverpool manager Arne Slot.

Amorim receives most vile abuse according to report

The BBC investigation showed that Amorim received more than 160 online messages described as 'extremely abusive' on the weekend of November 8-9, bearing the brunt of some 2000 messages flagged by data science company Signify. They included death threats and hate speech, breaking the rules of the platforms they were posted on including X, Instagram and TikTok.

AdvertisementAFPAmorim: Social media abuse 'normal' but I don't read it

Amorim told a press conference: "First of all, nowadays it is normal in any profession, when you are exposed, like we are exposed, it's harder, but I don't read it. I'm not faking it – I don't read it. I protect myself from everything. I don't watch TV when they are talking about Manchester [United], not because I don't agree most of the times. I agree with a lot of things that you guys say. But it is a way of me being healthy because it's enough. When we lose, when we draw, I know that we play bad, my feeling as a coach is enough. I don't need another another [person]'s feelings about around the club. So for me, this is the only way, there is no other way. The only way is protect myself."

Amorim: Extra money from social media promotion 'not worth it'

Amorim has no official account on X and the official Instagram page set up in his name has had no updates since 2020. He said he is missing out on extra income from social media endorsements and promotions but said it was a price worth paying to not have to witness all the abuse.

He added: "Of course, I lose money in sponsors, in Instagram. I could earn a lot of money. But for me, the quality of life, the protection of my family the way I can live a normal life – because I guarantee you, I live a normal life – it is not worth it. Some more dollars or pounds is not worth it. So I protect myself, and no one can be tougher than me when we lose, and when we lose when we don't play well. So that is the only way. But it's normal nowadays. Is really normal to have that abuse. So for me it's the only way to survive in this world."

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Getty Images SportAmorim guarded about injury issues before West Ham

Amorim revealed that two players were fresh injury doubts ahead of Thursday's game against West Ham, but would not reveal who they were. However, he confirmed that Matheus Cunha is back after missing the last two games with a knock sustained in training, while Benjamin Sesko and Harry Maguire are still out.

"We have two doubts, I will not tell you today because it will tell you the way we are going to approach, but the rest of the squad is good," said the coach.

West Ham are 17th in the Premier League and they will be without playmaker Lucas Paqueta after he was sent off for arguing with the referee in their last outing against Liverpool. The game will see Amorim come up against compatriot and new Hammers boss Nuno Espirito Santo, whose Nottingham Forest side beat United on two occasions last season.

"I had no doubts that he would have success, no matter what the club," Amorim said of Nuno. "He is really experienced. He knows how to work with different with different squads. He understands really well the league, and that is a plus. He's really smart, preparing the games, understanding the environment of the game. So it's going to be a tough match."

United earned a vital 2-1 win over Crystal Palace in their last game and will be desperate to make amends for their most recent home game, when they were beaten 1-0 by Everton despite the Toffees playing the majority of the game with 10 men.

Chelsea picked up their second Premier League win in a row after a 3-0 home thrashing against Wolverhampton Wanderers. The Blues put in a clinical second-half display to pick up another three points and propel them up to second in the top flight.

The first 45 minutes went by without anything of note happening, although it was a half dominated by Enzo Maresca’s side. It took them just six minutes of the second half for them to break the deadlock.

Malo Gusto scored his first goal for the club, heading home a cross after finding himself unmarked in the penalty box.

14 minutes after the Frenchman’s goal, Chelsea found the back of the net again. This time, it was Joao Pedro who scored, firing home a loose ball from 12 yards out. It was brilliant play from substitute Estevao just seconds after coming on, who took the ball on the outside and sent a low cross into the box.

Chelsea made it 3-0 with 17 minutes to go. It was former Wolves attacker Pedro Neto who scored, coming back to haunt his former club. He finished off an incisive counter-attack to secure the points for his side.

It was a strong performance from the Blues, with a couple of players really standing out.

Chelsea’s best players vs. Wolves

One of the standout players in Blue was summer signing Alejandro Garnacho. The Argentine set up two of the three goals at Stamford Bridge, and has now scored or assisted three goals in his last two games across all competitions.

His work for both assists was impressive. For Gusto’s goal, Garnacho stood a cross up to the back post, making it easy for him to head home.

He perfectly executed the counter-attack for the Blues’ second goal, putting an inch-perfect cross on a plate for Neto to score.

The other man who stood out for Maresca’s side was Garnacho’s fellow Argentine international, Enzo Fernandez. He controlled the midfield once again, just as he did in the Blues’ last Premier League game away to Tottenham Hotspur.

It was, in many ways, effortless from the Chelsea midfielder, who took the captain’s armband with Reece James on the bench. He created two chances, completed 97% of his passes and completed four out of four long balls.

As well as the likes of Garnacho and Fernandez played against Wolves, there was one Chelsea star who didn’t look at his best.

The Chelsea player who struggled vs. Wolves

This was certainly a game that you would have expected Chelsea to win. The Old Gold are in dire straits at the moment, currently without a manager and with just two points to their name in the Premier League.

However, one player who could not capitalise on that poor form was striker Liam Delap. The former Ipswich Town star was starting his first top-flight game since the 30th of August, but looked far from his best.

It was a game that Delap simply couldn’t get into. He played just over an hour before being replaced by Estavao.

In that time, the 22-year-old managed just 15 touches, fewer than goalkeeper Robert Sanchez (30), completed six from seven attempted passes, and had two shots.

Touches

16

Passes completed

6/7

Ground duels won

2/3

Touches in Wolves box

2

Shots

2

Expected goals

0.12xG

Dom Smith of The Standard, noted how lacklustre Delap’s performance was against Wolves. He gave him a 5/10 for his efforts, explaining that he ‘struggled with the physicality’ of the Old Gold backline.

It will be interesting to see if Maresca keeps faith in Delap or decides to rotate him out of the side after the international break. The Blues have options up front, with Marc Guiu and Joao Pedro capable of leading the line, and Neto operating there late in the game.

It may well take the Englishman a few games to get back up to speed. After such a long lay-off with injury, perhaps there was too much expectation for him to hit the ground running.

However, against what is a Wolves team in disarray, this felt like a good opportunity to make a nuisance of himself and even bag a goal.

Chalkboard

Maresca has some alternative options if he does decide to switch things up at centre-forward. Delap certainly left a lot to be desired with his showing against the Old Gold.

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