Why was Jose Sa omitted from Wolves’ starting XI by Gary O’Neil?

National World - LocalTV

A look at the goalkeeper situation at Wolves.

Transcript

00:00On to Wolves, and obviously, you know, not a great start and real question marks being

00:05asked following that defeat away at Brentford. I mean, conceding five goals is really inexcusable

00:11in a Premier League game, but scoring three goals, you do expect to maybe come away with

00:16some kind of result. And it was a crazy afternoon in Brentford, eight goals throughout the game.

00:22I mean, how do Wolves sort of assess that? You know, there was some positives maybe with

00:27Strand-Larsen getting his first Premier League goal. It hasn't quite hit the ground running

00:32and obviously, you know, Kounia's still scoring, but there is big problems defensively for

00:38Wolves. And, you know, how do they sort of go about this now that Manchester City are

00:42home next, which they obviously won last season. It's quite a crazy situation to be in so far,

00:48so early on in the season as well.

00:50Yeah, it's unbelievable how many goals Wolves are leaking at the moment. Three per game

00:54on average is just simply not good enough. And that'll get most managers sacked. If it

00:58wasn't for this really difficult fixture around the start of the season, I think Gary O'Neill

01:02probably would have seen the exit door. Obviously, there's a lot of belief from Matt Hobbs and

01:07the whole Wolves board that he will be able to turn things around. And that's why we've

01:10not seen any action taken just yet. But you can't be losing 5-3 away at Brentford. I know

01:15it's an away tie, but Brentford haven't exactly set the world alight. They have been scoring

01:19early goals. They've been starting games well, but they've also been quite leaky defensively.

01:24In the end, it was a very kind of end-to-end clash and Brentford, the more clinical Wolves

01:28positionally just terrible at the back. 8-0 and left back. I just don't have any assurances

01:34on him anymore. And defensively, maybe in a back three when he can play a bit further

01:38up the field and you have someone like Totti tucking in, it works a bit better. But with

01:42so many injuries, Gary O'Neill, to be fair to him, he has been limited with his selections

01:46and it has cost Wolves. Obviously, it's a very tough game coming up against Manchester

01:49City. Probably not going to be much reprieve in that game either and a trip to Brighton

01:54as well. Two teams that can score plenty of goals and Wolves, they probably need to change

01:58their system or at least something needs to change unless the manager will have to go.

02:02There was obviously a massive change with Jose Sarr, the club's number one for the past

02:08three or four seasons. Shipped straight out for Sam Johnston, the back-up keeper at Crystal

02:14Palace. I mean, that is a decision that if it works, you're seen as a massive favourable

02:21with the fans. If it doesn't work, which it probably hasn't, you could say, with the amount

02:25of goals they're now conceding, that has to go down to the manager's decision. It's a

02:31crazy situation. How does Jose Sarr get back into the side? He's completely been outcast.

02:38He was obviously linked with Saudi in the summer as well. It's a massive decision that

02:43Gary O'Neill's probably got wrong.

02:45Essentially, I think time will tell, they've been leaking goals no matter what the goalkeeper

02:50is. Of course, Jose Sarr conceded six against Chelsea. We can't be forgetting that. He kept

02:54getting beaten at his near post consistently. His distribution wasn't good enough. The confidence

02:59had gone in him, to be honest. I know over the years he's been a great goalkeeper, but

03:02his confidence just wasn't there. Sam Johnston, you'd hope that he'd maybe hit the ground

03:07running a little bit better, but when you're continuing on from so many goals being conceded,

03:11it is difficult to do that. I think cut Johnston a little bit of slack for now, but it's not

03:16exactly a good overview at the moment, is it, with how many goals are going in? Is it

03:20more the defence at fault? Is it the goalkeepers? Is it a knock-on effect where the goalkeepers

03:24haven't got that confidence because of the defence in front of them? I think it's probably

03:28a mix of all of those elements. Stuff really needs to improve soon. Otherwise, as you say,

03:34it's a very difficult situation in goal at Wolves.

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