FA Cup 2018/19: Shrewsbury Town vs Wolves

In a FA Cup fourth round filled with shocks and upsets, Wolves were handed a very late get out of jail free card by Matt Doherty. Shrewsbury had forced themselves into a two-goal lead and looked set to defeat a strong Wolves side. The Premier League visitors never really looked that much of a threat until the system was tweaked ever so slightly with Raul Jimenez coming off the bench.

In this FA Cup tactical analysis, we shall look at how Shrewsbury almost sent Nuno’s side packing, how Wolves got back into it and also the enigma that is Adama Traore.

Team news

Nuno opted for a strong side with a perhaps rather questionable front two of Helder Costa and Adama Traore. Both wide players by trade, they struggled to really make an impact in the first half . It was only when Traore was moved out to his favoured right-hand side that he really started to turn it on, but well discuss him more later.

Ryan Giles was brought in at left wing-back and didn’t do anything to harm his chances of being involved in the squad for years to come. Ruddy was also brought in for Rui Patricio, as he had been against Liverpool, and we shall be putting the spotlight on the ex-Norwich man as well throughout this article.

Sam Ricketts kept faith with the same side that drew the previous week at Blackpool. While they may have sat quite deep at times, it worked rather well for Shrewsbury. Their opener, for example, came from a swift breakaway after Neves seemingly lost his footing in the middle of the park. We shall investigate just how that happened now.

A split second makes the difference

To give some context to the above image, the ball has been headed towards Neves by a Shrewsbury defender from the near-hand side. Now, 99 times out of 100, Neves brings the ball down with ease and looks to build another attack.

The two players circled, Gibbs-White and Rangers loanee Greg Docherty, have both got different ideas as to what’s about to happen. Gibbs-White is banking on it being one of those 99 out of 100 times, whereas Docherty is banking it on being the one. Ultimately, that’s what makes the difference.