Tim Spiers has been speaking on the latest edition of The Athletic’s The Molineux View and he has been talking about all things relating to Wolves after they were thrashed 4-0 by West Ham United.
One of the topics that came up while Spiers tried to work out what went wrong on Sunday was the form of Joao Moutinho.
It seems as if Spiers does not think that the former Porto man is a guaranteed starter anymore and that his passing against West Ham had no impact on the game.
He said: “I am a bit worried about Moutinho, it’s been a while since he really dominated a game.
“Moutinho and [Ruben] Neves played 192 passes between them, they saw an awful lot of the ball but of those 192 passes, they only played one key pass between them.
“Moutinho his pass accuracy was 97%, so he barely gave it away, but he didn’t do anything with it.
“So, despite the fact he was so heavily involved in the game in terms of seeing the ball, he was really quite anonymous.
“I do worry about the Moutinho issue because, for me, he doesn’t guarantee a starting spot for the first time in his Wolves career, and I would be having [Leander] Dendoncker in there with Neves.”
Do you agree with Spiers?
No, he is still a class act
Yes, needs a spell on the bench
TIF Thoughts…
Moutinho, who is valued at £7.2m by Transfermarkt, turned in a poor display of 5.75 against the Hammers, and in truth, he hasn’t been that great this season as his average rating in the league is only 6.44.
Since joining Wolves from Monaco for £5.04m in the summer of 2018, the Portuguese international has made 104 appearances scored two goals and provided 21 assists.
However, since January this year, Moutinho has failed to score or provide an assist in the Premier League (20 matches).
So, perhaps Spiers is right and it is time for Leander Dendoncker to come into the side. It will be intriguing to see if Moutinho starts against Fulham this weekend.