Wolves have faced back-to-back matches against tough opponents, meeting Liverpool last week and Manchester City this week, yet losing both games by a narrow 1-0 margin. Their defense has been stout, conceding only 14 goals so far, ranking them fourth in the Premier League behind Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool. However, the offense has been a bit lackluster, with 12 goals scored against bottom-ranked Norwich, and Wolves are ranked 8th in the Premier League thanks to their solid defense.
Host City played a 433 formation with Dias, Larporte, Cancelo, Zinchenko at the back, Rodri, Gundogan, B.Silva in midfield and Sterling, Jesus, Grealish up front.
The Wolves, on the other hand, played a 352 formation with three center backs in Coady, Saiss, and Kilman, wingbacks in Semedo and Nouri, midfielders in Neves, Dendoncker, and Moutinho, and a forward line in Traore and Jimenez.
City started the game in control of the midfield, and the effective attacks in the first half mainly came from the right side, as Guardiola studied Wolves quite deeply. In the last game, Wolves left back Nouri managed to close down Salah, and Liverpool's goal came after Nouri went off the pitch with no energy left, and Salah scored in the last minute with an assist.
In this game, City had Sterling and Jesus switching positions in a U-shaped run down the right, with Sterling slanting in and then meandering around to receive the ball at center forward and Jesus making a similar run down the right, with the two likely to make a reverse offside combination at any time. Right back Cancelo played a direct pass to the pair on the right, forcing Nouri up to defend, thus leaving an opening on the Wolves' left.
Pep Guardiola knows how good Nouri was against Salah, he is fast, reactive, precise with his feet, has excellent positional sense and is calm and collected, no matter how Salah swings or dinks the ball, Nouri is able to keep a close eye on him and prevent him from getting a chance to cut in or pass the ball. As a result, Guardiola deliberately drew Nouri out of the defense, allowing Sterling and Jesus to have a chance.
This tactic paid off dramatically as the Wolves defense looked stretched on the left, Saiss had his hands full and midfielder Moutinho was too old to keep up with City's quick passes, resulting in Nouri having to step up to break up Cancelo's crosses. Despite the pressure on Wolves, Saiss and Coady were excellent and always managed to break up attacks at the last minute.
However, Wolves also have an attacking force in Traore, and City were wary of this, killing him on sight and desperately trying to put him down when they saw him about to get the ball. City are not as good at tracking back on the ball as they were against Liverpool last week, so the whole defense was on the lookout for Traore, and even when he had the ball, five of City's men immediately scrambled to get in front of him and block him.
In an attempt to stop City's onslaught, Wolves became more and more aggressive, with more physical collisions and more fireworks between the two sides in the latter part of the first half, Rodri was clearly getting more and more disgruntled, having already received a yellow card, and was a little unhappy with the referee's decision, which Jimenez tried to add fuel to the fire, and was deliberately trying to stir up trouble in Rodri's direction in the latter part of the first half.
Before the end of the half, Rodri was pushed by Jimenez when he had the ball, the action was quite obvious and the referee gave Jimenez a yellow card. As a result, when Rodri passed the ball, instead of exiting to safety, Jimenez deliberately broke up the pass, the referee saw it clearly and immediately gave another yellow card and Jimenez was sent off with a red card.
Jimenez's move was really unwise, actively provoking the opponent is not a good strategy, the opponent will be on guard and the referee will be quick to stop it. Normally, Jimenez should have found a way for Rodri to put him down, but instead he still did the street soccer style of provocation (this type of provocation is more common in Central and South American or street soccer, while in European soccer it is more common to fake a fall to lure the opponent to a card).
As a result, Wolves started the second half one man short and City started to attack in full. In the 56th minute, Foden replaced Gundogan and City intended to attack in full. Coach Raj of Wolves realized that it was hard to resist and wanted to replace Hwang Hee Chan, but he should have taken off Moutinho, who didn't have much effect on the attack and defense. however, when Hwang Hee Chan was about to come on the field, in the 66th minute, B.Silva crossed a ball from the right side of the penalty area, Moutinho raised his hand up when he blocked the ball and turned it into a handball, and Sterling hit the penalty.
Hwang Hee Chan then replaced striker Traore as City continued to press Wolves. In the 73rd minute, De Bruyne came on to replace Grealish who didn't have much to do and City went on a frantic attack. However, Coach Raj brought on Trincao & Podence in the 82nd & 86th minutes, resulting in extra time in the 91st minute when Tilman came up with a header from the far post, Ederson reacted quickly to keep the ball out or Wolves would have equalized in the final moments.
