Johnny Phillips: Ruben Neves shows his value off the ball
Celebrate your wins. Don’t apologise for doing that – it is what we are all in it for.
The wins. Football doesn’t always deliver victories in the way it did for Wolves supporters last Saturday; a complete performance against top opposition in front of a home crowd creating a wall of sound. Every member of the team on top of his game. Fans couldn’t get enough. The post-match analysis was long and loud. Pubs were heaving, match reports devoured, social media eulogies spilling out in abundance.
That is what winning is all about. Such is the fickle nature of the game, it could all be forgotten if today’s result proves to be different by five o’clock this evening. Enjoy those wins. Nuno Espirito Santo will take satisfaction from the victory over Villa too, but he will be cautioning against his players getting as carried away as those in the stands. No team wants to be playing its best football of the season in October. Nuno will be demanding more of the same – and better – between now and May.
There is little to add about that floodlit Molineux performance that hasn’t been said and written this past week, but there were nuances to the victory that bode well. Ruben Neves gave the truest indication yet of what an £15 million pound player with Champions League experience looks like. And that includes an aspect of his game management that was overshadowed by all his good work on and off the ball.
The context. After 11 minutes Ivan Cavaleiro is crudely taken out by Robert Snodgrass as Wolves break down the left. It is a tackle Snodgrass knew would draw a yellow card and he was prepared to take it because his defence had lost their position. Twenty-two minutes in and Ahmed Elmohamady rakes the calf of Diogo Jota. The referee Tim Robinson misses it, Jota is aggrieved. Four minutes before half-time, Jota bursts forward on the counter-attack and, off the ball, Conor Hourihane trips up the advancing Cavaleiro. It is the final straw. Villa recover and move back up field and more tackles fly in before Robinson brings proceedings to a halt when Matt Doherty is upended by Keinan Davis.
In a shot, Neves is in the referee’s ear. He points to Hourihane’s offence down field. There have been too many like that. He is making sure the referee knows it. As Robinson calls Hourihane over to caution him, Villa captain John Terry arrives on the scene. Nobody does this more effectively than Terry. Aside from the top defender he has been throughout his long career, he offers a masterclass in managing the officials. Constantly keeping channels of dialogue open. It begins in the tunnel before the teams have even reached the pitch. Always a friendly word to start with. And then as the game develops he makes sure it is his narrative that the referee hears first.
It is a distraction for the referee and a nuisance for the opposition, but Terry is not operating outside the laws of the game. He is looking for every edge he can get for his team. Unfortunately, this is a major part of elite professional sport. Corinthian values do not exist any longer. Does it have any effect on the officials? They are top professionals too but they are not robots. They are listening, maybe some of it gets through.
Take Sadio Mane’s sending off during the recent Manchester City victory over Liverpool in the Premier League. Watch that back. Mane raises his boot up high as he challenges for a ball with City keeper Ederson but there is nothing other than intent to win the ball from the Liverpool forward. It is what happens next that is telling. As both players hit the deck several City players are straight over to the referee to voice their opinions. Not one Liverpool player appears within shouting distance as the referee gathers his thoughts ahead of the decision.
There may have been a couple of seconds after that challenge when the official is weighing up his options. It looked a red. Was it a definite red though? A small degree of natural, human doubt. But once those seconds are filled with City players confirming the referee’s first instincts then the decision is done and dusted. Referees don’t change their mind on the advice of players, but they do hear what those players are saying. They do hear the managers as they head down the tunnel at half-time. They do hear the crowd.
As Robinson left the Molineux pitch at half-time, Doherty strolled over and kept him company. Another word or two. Perhaps a reminder about the tackles that had been coming in from Villa’s players. When the teams re-emerged for the second half, a different game unfolded. Villa were not winning the physical battle any longer. Did the words of Neves and Doherty get through? Or were Wolves just so superior on the pitch that it had no relevance? We don’t know.
What is known is that Terry, as a senior international player, is on first name terms with every referee in the land. “Hi John, how’s things?” they say as the teams line up in the tunnel. No harm in that. Most of his Villa team-mates are familiar to the officials too. But for Neves and his compatriots that is not the case. It makes matters just that little bit harder, not having that natural discourse with the officials. Seeing Neves stand up for his team-mates on Saturday – quick to impose his narrative on proceedings – will have encouraged Nuno, because along with all the impressive work Neves did with the ball at his feet, there were other battles to be won out there too.
