Why in-form Wolves lost at home to Watford in Gameweek 9

It was as if somebody wound back time as Watford proved the Fantasy Premier League coupon busters on Saturday afternoon.

Not only were in vogue outfit Wolves surprisingly overturned on their patch, but the Hornets key Fantasy assets were all ones long-believed to have been dormant.

We’ve run the rule over Watford’s 2-0 win at Molineux to find out what went wrong for Nuno Espírito Santo’s side.

Wolves 0-2 Watford

Goals: Etienne Capoue (£5.0m), Roberto Pereyra (£6.2m)

Assists: Abdoulaye Doucouré x2 (£5.9m)

Watford manager Javi Gracia revealed that he targetted Wolves’ wing-back areas to bring them crashing back down to earth on Saturday.

The newly-promoted side had been the surprise package of 2018/19 thus far and had been offering incredible FPL defensive value too. Between Gameweek 1 and 8 they allowed just five big chances, level with Manchester City on 0.63 per game. Against Watford, they allowed two, nearly quadrupling their average for the season coming into the match.

Ironically, Wolves allowed marginally fewer shots inside the penalty area than usual. Between the season-opening draw against Everton and the Gameweek 8 win at Crystal Palace, they averaged 5.25 efforts in that area of the pitch compared to just five against Watford.

Passes in the final third in Wolves (left) vs Watford (right) | Completed passes are green

In a way, that shows that Gracia knew exactly what he was doing against Wolves, guiding Watford’s attacking play in specific areas to hurt their opponents, as can be seen from the heat map above.

“When you’re playing against Wolves you have to defend well against the wing-backs because many times they are very deep and you need to defend well in those situations. We know where we can find spaces to play and we felt comfortable in the first half. We created good lines for passes, we created the possibility to have good possession – not only keeping possession but creating chances to score and I think we did it better in the first half than the second.” – Javi Gracia

However, Gracia still admitted Wolves were hard to break down. Owners of their assets will have to hope that holds true in Gameweek 10.

“It’s not easy. They didn’t concede many chances, they’re always a compact team and are well-organised and today has been a very good game.” – Javi Gracia

The result for Watford was made all the more impressive by the fact that Gracia made four changes to the side thrashed at home by Bournemouth in Gameweek 8.

Three of them were enforced with Jose Holebas (£4.8m) and Christian Kabasele (£4.5m) suspended while Troy Deeney (£6.0m) missing out with a hamstring problem.

“He has a hamstring strain but I think he’ll be ready for the next game, I think so.” – Javi Gracia

Adam Masina (£4.3m), Adrian Mariappa (£4.2m) and Isaac Success (£4.5m) were brought into the side to replace those absentees while Andre Gray (£6.0m) dropped to the bench to allow FPL midfielder Gerard Deulofeu (£5.4m) to make his return in the unorthodox position of centre-forward. That was according to the team-sheet anyway, with Gracia referring to him as more of a number 10 after the match.

“Playing with one striker and Roberto (Pereyra), Gerard (Deulofeu) and Will (Hughes) behind him you can find another style of play that you can’t do when you play with two strikers. Today I know Gerard is not in the best condition yet but he’s helped the team to play well and get a good result as well.” – Javi Gracia

Wolves manager Nuno named an unchanged side for the ninth match in a row, a new Premier League record. However, the defeat on Saturday may cause him to make some changes for when they travel to Brighton in Gameweek 10.

“But it is a good point (that my players may be feeling their places are secure). We didn’t play good (against Watford), we didn’t play well, we didn’t perform, so when you don’t perform, you don’t get the result, and it was a disappointing day of course.” – Nuno

Given that he has not made a single alteration to his starting XI this season, it is difficult to predict where he might rotate next week. Going just on the substitutions made against Watford, Jonny (£4.5m) was hooked at half-time and replacement with Rúben Vinagre (£4.3m). In the second half, Ivan Cavaleiro (£5.3m) came on for Raúl Jiménez (£5.7m) and Adama Traoré (£5.5m) swapped in for Matt Doherty (£4.8m).

While it was a disappointing afternoon for Wolves, with discouraging statistics to back it up, their days as FPL options are not yet over. Chasing matches is not something they have been adept at since Nuno took over. Bearing in mind that they won the Championship at a canter, it should be no surprise that Wolves are much more comfortable when in control of matches.

Between Gameweek 1 and 8 they averaged 2.25 big chances per game, the sixth best in the league. Against Watford, they did not register a single one. Their 10 goal attempts and four shots in the box were also below their season averages of 13.75 and 7.63 per game respectively.

Wolves have conceded the first goal just 11 times under Nuno but they have come from behind to win just once. That was a dramatic 2-1 victory at Bristol City last December. As there was an element of fortune about Etienne Capoue‘s (£5.0m) opening strike from distance, with Rui Patrício (£4.6m) blindsided, it seems to fair to say that even in the Premier League they will not find themselves in similar situations too often. For that reason, it is worth retaining faith in Wolves assets for now. That is, of course, if they can stop more teams targetting the space behind their full-backs like Watford did.

Wolves XI (3-4-3): Patrício; Boly, Coady, Bennett; Jonny (Vinagre 45′), Moutinho, Neves, Doherty (Traoré 72′); Jota, Jiménez (Cavaleiro 60′), Costa.

Watford XI (4-4-2): Foster; Masina, Cathcart, Mariappa, Kiko Femenia; Pereyra, Capoue, Doucouré, Hughes; Success (Prödl 75 | Wilmot 88′), Deulofeu (Gray 69′).

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