Julen Lopetegui admits he made a mistake with his starting line-up for Wolverhampton Wanderers’ 3-0 defeat to Manchester City. Erling Haaland bagged a hat-trick at The Etihad to condemn 17th-placed Wolves to just their second defeat in five Premier League games under Lopetegui. Wolves trailed 1-0 at half-time when Lopetegui made three changes to transform his forward line. Adama Traore, Raul Jimenez and Hwang Hee-chan were ineffective in the first half, and they were swiftly replaced by new signing Pablo Sarabia, Matheus Cunha and Joao Moutinho. Explaining his three changes,
Julien Lopetegui said: “Maybe because when you, as a coach, make three changes it’s your fault in the line-up or your fault in the game plan. This is not about the players that I have changed, it’s about me. We tried to change the situation to be more aggressive with the ball. We changed the system. I think we started better, that was my impression, but the first time that they arrived in our box it was a penalty against us. We didn’t have time to show we can improve. We tried but it was more difficult. In the end we shot 10 times, they shot 13, but we didn’t score any goals.”
Wolves held City until the 40th minute when Haaland headed home Kevin De Bruyne’s cross. The Norwegian added two further goals in the opening 10 minutes of the second half, first from the penalty spot before Jose Sa presented City’s leading marksman with a gift for his hat-trick.
Julien Lopetegui added: “We didn’t do what we had in our mind with the game plan. In the first half we weren’t able to arrive in their box. Against this kind of team, when you are only defending, in the end you are going to suffer a goal. They have big quality. It was a pity because we tried to do different things.”
