Wolves: Ruben Neves stole the show against Watford

by James Thompson share

3 minute read 11/3/2022 | 10:06am

Wolves had no issue putting their disappointing run of form in the Premier League behind them after comfortably beating relegation battlers Watford 4-0 at Molineux on Thursday night.

Raul Jimenez opened the scoring for the Old Gold after 13 minutes before two goals in the space of five minutes put the hosts 3-0 up with just 21 minutes on the clock.

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As the final whistle was approaching, Neves added even more misery on Roy Hodgson’s side by getting his name on the scoresheet with a beautiful chipped goal to wrap up what was a very pleasing night for the home supporters.

While Jimenez may have scored his sixth league goal of the season, and his first since their 2-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur last month, it was the Portuguese midfielder who stole the show for Bruno Lage’s team last night.

With 110 touches of the ball, Neves – who has been praised in the past by Tim Spiers for his “sensational” eye for goal – racked up an impressive pass accuracy percentage of 96%, with 94 passes completed out of 98 attempted. He also completed 19 accurate long balls, one cross and one key pass, as per SofaScore.

Despite the hefty scoreline, Wolves only had one more shot at goal than the Hornets (9) throughout the game, but thankfully their Portuguese midfield maestro did his bit to help the Old Gold keep another clean sheet. with three tackles and one interception made, also winning five out of his eight duels.

This display ultimately earned the 24-year-old an impressive overall match rating of 8.4/10, making him the highest-rated player on the pitch last night according to SofaScore.

Birmingham Live also picked up on Neves’ solid performance by labelling him as the “best player on the pitch,” along with being “absolutely everywhere in midfield” and “a million miles too good for his Watford counterparts”.

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Taking all this into account, it’s safe to say that the £36m-rated star stole the show on this occasion and played a massive part in his team’s victory.

If every Wolves player can deliver a similar level of performance like the one Neves gave against Watford, they would certainly give themselves a great chance of climbing up the table and securing European football for 2022/23.

In other news: Lage must now unleash “threatening” 19 y/o Wolves prodigy who’s “growing all the time”