Nuno Espirito Santo on his 50th birthday said he had no cause to celebrate coming back from a premier league defeat and wanted something extraordinary.
After the injury of his target man Raul Jimenez, Nuno has been struggling with a centre forward who can carry the team on his shoulders when called upon and had t rely on Fabio Silver, the youngster from Portugal.
In their EPL fixture against Arsenal, Nuno started his new signing Willian Jose alongside Neto and Podence who are very sharp upfront but still had some problems controlling the game.
Arsenal as usual kept majority of possession in the beginning half and kept knocking on the goal of Wolves. After 9 minutes of play, Bukayo Saka netted the first for Arsenal but was ruled out for an offside. This was a warning sign that Wolverhampton Wanderers needed to take seriously but didn’t.
Nicolas Pepe who had been under a lot of criticism by Arsenal fans found the opening from a sweet pass by Alexandre Lacazette to put Arsenal in the lead.
On the brink of half time, Daniel Podence cuts the opponents defense open with a through ball that found Willian Jose who was ready to unleash his shoot but was tripped from behind by David Luiz. The referee had no choice than to point to the penalty spot and send Luiz off as he impeded a goal scoring opportunity and his action was justified by VAR.
Arsenal were now ten men against Wolves who desperately needed a win at the Molineux Stadium to kick start their confidence building. Ruben Neves took responsibility and as usual converted the spot kick to bring Wolves to parity.
This fixture had taken a different turn now as Arsenal would have to adopt a strategy to contain the pace of Neto and Troare operating from the wings for Wolves with a man deficit. Some minutes into the second half, Joao Muotinho was allowed space in a shooting rang and did justice with a rocketing shoot that landed at the back of the Arsenal goal.
Wolves now had the lead and control over the game as thing got even worse for Mikel Arteta and his men. Bernd Leno rushed out of his lines to clear a lose ball that was been chased by Adama Troare and a split-second decision caused Leno to handle the ball with his hands. Arsenal were reduced to nine men against eleven of Wolves and they held on to their lead until the final whistle.
