Gary O’Neil believes his Wolves side paid the price for going “gung-ho” against Liverpool and allowing their emotions to get the better of them. Having fallen behind in first-half stoppage time to an Ibrahima Konate header, the struggling Midlanders equalised 11 minutes after the break when Rayan Ait-Nouri capitalised on a defensive mix-up.
Wolves, though, were level for only five minutes after Diogo Jota was hauled down by Nelson Semedo inside the penalty area and Mohamed Salah converted from the spot to earn the Reds a 2-1 win.
And O’Neil explained how his team veered from the gameplan having been caught up in the excitement of restoring parity.
“The lads performed excellently and gave everything,” he said. “We lost control and went off script for a minute, we got carried away after we scored and went chasing things we shouldn’t.
“We opened the game up and got badly punished for that lapse. Of course there are some other things we don’t do perfectly, a bit too patient in the build-up at the end and then not patient enough when trying to thread it through seven Red players on the edge of the box.”
O’Neil added: “The error was one from emotion. When we were in a controlled shape and structure, as talented as our group is you don’t want to open the game up to crazy situations against Liverpool as they have some real top talent that can hurt you.
“We tried to be aggressive from a good structure, we didn’t sit back. We have huge faith in the team that we can come up with plans that can cause big teams problems but we don’t need to become gung-ho and wide open.
