Bruno Lage has hailed his Wolverhampton Wanderers entertainers after they produced an exhilarating performance to beat Everton.
Bruno Lage said: “I think the message during the week was very clear: to come to win the game against a strong opponent, but we wanted to be better with the ball. Today we put in a good performance and managed the ball well. This team has the quality and understands we can have the ball more than our opponent – sometimes it’s not possible but we need to try. We controlled everything in the first half and created a lot of chances. I think we deserved a better result in the first half.”
Lage anticipated Everton would start in a 4-4-2 shape and started with Francisco Trincao instead of Adama Traore to exploit the space behind the visitors’ midfield – a tactic which worked perfectly in the first half. Rafa Benitez responded after half-time by changing Everton’s shape and the game became more frenetic as a result.
Bruno Lage added: “They changed the system, they tried to put one more midfielder in and went 4-3-3. It was simple to find Raul and Hwang between the lines and then they changed, so we needed to find (Nelson) Semedo and Rayan (Ait-Nouri). We didn’t adapt and kept trying to find the same spaces and they did everything to cause us problems. Even then, I think we created chances to score more goals.”
There were a number of impressive performers in old gold, none more so than centre-back Kilman who scored the first professional goal of his career with a well-placed header. Kilman is the only player who has played every minute under Lage in league and cup, highlighting his importance to the new regime.
Bruno Lage said: “He deserves it, but the most important thing is he deserves to stay in the team. Max gave a good performance, solid, the way he defended and the way he played with the ball. I’m happy with him but he needs to continue to work. We cannot sleep on the performance and the result. We need to keep going. My players need to have ambition to win more to put Wolves in a different standard.”
