After equalising early on, Wolverhampton Wanderers would have been thinking that today was the day to beat Pep Guardiola's Manchester City side having not done so since 2019.

The first half was promising for Lage's side, despite going into half time 3-1 down, but ultimately they were defeated brutally 5-1.

Their attacking transitions at times were flawless and were demonstrative of Wolves' slightly tweaked direct playing style in the 3-5-2 system.

There was a clear identity to their play and it hurt Guardiola's side at times.

Though City, like true champions, felt their way back into the game whenever it looked as though the Old Gold were coming into their own, and nullified their opponents, restricting them to just seven shots in the entire game with 0 big chances.

The inclusion of Chiquinho was a positive surprise, and his directness was Wolves' biggest threat at times. Though his involvement in the starting XI meant that he took Jonny's spot as a right wing-back, with the Spaniard shifting into right centre-back.

At 5 foot 9, it was always a risk from Wolves to deploy Jonny as a centre-back, and although they conceded five, you can understand the thinking - with Manchester City happy to keep the ball on the ground, rather than through high crosses into the box for a target man (until next season at least with Haaland).

Although it was most certainly a Kevin De Bruyne masterclass, having scored his first hat-trick with an additional goal to follow, two players stood out for all the wrong reasons for Wolves.

Those players were Jose Sá and Willy Boly, with the latter having been described as "terrible" for his defensive performances previous.

With a FotMob rating of 4.4, courtesy of his 0/5 long accurate long balls, 0/1 tackles won, 1 clearance, 1 interception, 1/3 ground duels won and 0/1 aerial duels won - it's safe to say that Boly had a defensive disasterclass against City - who ran absolute riot at Molineux.

In the second half, the majority of City's overloads came down their right hand side, with Boly clearly targeted as a weak point of the Wolves defence.

Being a natural right footer, the Frenchman looked awkward at left centre-back in the Old Gold back-three and lost the ball every 4.9 touches, to the point where the question must be posed as to why Boly was deployed on the left over Toti Gomes - who is a natural left-footer and could be a viable replacement for the potentially departing Romain Saiss for next season.

In other news: Lage can unearth Wolves' new Jota in "magic" £2m-rated talent who has "explosiveness"