WOLVES PLAYER RATINGS

Sunderland beat bottom of the table Wolverhampton Wanderers by two goals to nil. During a brilliant opening half an hour, we took the lead via Nordi Mukiele. After this, we were content to sit back and defend our slender advantage and tried to create chances through counter attacking. In the second 45, we were admittedly sloppy and on a different day could have been punished. Fortunately, in stoppage time, substitute Chemsdine Talbi broke forward and attempted to ping it to Eliezer Mayenda but caused a Wolves’ defender to inadvertently send it beyond his own goalkeeper to wrap up the result.

ROBIN ROEFS: 8/10

Due to some poorly aimed shooting from the visitors, our 'keeper wasn’t too busy today. When he was called upon he was good, commanding his box effectively and making three saves late on. One was fairly tame, one was at his near post after we’d scored the second (still a good stop with his leg though) and the other one was the best and kept us ahead by a goal.

NORDI MUKIELE: 9.5/10

Defensively sublime and scored the opening goal. A lot of our attacking threat was generated through his excellent long throwing that, more often than not, found one of our players in the box.

DAN BALLARD: 9/10

Very good at the back, drawing a few fouls and rarely being bested by their attackers.

OMAR ALDERETE: 8/10

Played his part in the clean sheet, making numerous clearances throughout the game.

TRAI HUME: 8.5/10

Very little threat was generated down their right hand side, which is testament to how he played out on our left. He got the assist for Mukiele’s goal too.

GRANIT XHAKA: 8/10

He did well enough, coping well physically in particular. There were one or two instances when he gave the ball away or paused for too long to allow them to break away, those are relatively minor gripes however.

NOAH SADIKI: 8.5/10

I think he covered every blade of grass, which is impressive considering he was clearly carrying a knock (he went down a few times for treatment in the second half and had to be brought off eventually). Seemed to be always winning fouls to break up their attacks.

BERTRAND TRAORE: 5/10

Unfortunately, what he was doing today (or rather attempting to do) just wasn’t working. He clearly was trying to drop back to open up a gap in their defensive line to allow one of our attackers space to run into and then be passed the ball. This half-worked once, when he laid it off and then Isidor would have been away had he not been fouled. He just needed to be more direct and have a go himself.

CHRIS RIGG: 6/10

The youngster kept giving the ball away in the first half by carelessly passing into space. He does gain some credit through getting back and doing well to cut out one of their players at one point.

ENZO LE FEE: 7/10

An imperfect performance definitely but had a few moments to shine.

WILSON ISIDOR: 6/10

He had a bright opening half an hour but was cut out pretty well after this period. There was one chance in the second half that went wide but he didn’t hold the ball up very well in this match as a whole.

SUBS:

CHEMSDINE TALBI: 8/10

The Moroccan came on for Traore and immediately offered that directness we’d been lacking. Through this directness, our second goal was created.

LUTSHAREL GEERTUIDA: 6.5/10

Just the four touches but what he did do was good.

ELIEZER MAYENDA: 6.5/10

Played his part in the second goal through his run and could have gotten us a third with another run too.

DAN NEIL: N/A

Came on at the death to replace Sadiki. That was his 200th appearance in a Sunderland shirt.