Wolves were comfortably beaten by West Ham United on Sunday – and there was once again no opportunity for Sasa Kalajdzic to make an impact.
Wanderers turned in an awful performance at the London Stadium.
Gary O’Neil‘s team were extremely sloppy, and some of the defending at times was atrocious. Really, they made it all too easy for West Ham, who were clinical when their moments in front of goal came.
Wolves showed signs of life in the second-half and thought they’d got a goal back through Pablo Sarabia, but the Spaniard’s strike was ruled out for offside.
Eventually, Jarrod Bowen killed the game with a third goal for West Ham, and it was just a very disappointing day, and the 3-0 result was comprehensive.
O’Neil strangely waited quite a while before making changes in the game, and he didn’t actually turn to Kalajdzic, who must now be considering his future at Molineux…
Sasa Kalajdzic is being underused at Wolves and is probably considering his future
Wolves were looking for a way back into the contest on Sunday, but the only changes O’Neil made were Tommy Doyle for Mario Lemina, Matt Doherty for Nelson Semedo and Rayan Ait-Nouri for Toti Gomes.
All of these changes came at the 70-minute mark and beyond.
Quite simply, this was just baffling management from O’Neil.
We know that Silva is really not in the manager’s plans and the narrative at the moment is that he will be leaving in January. The youngster seemingly just hasn’t convinced O’Neil and has barely featured in the last couple of months.
But Kalajdzic has also barely had a kick lately. In the last four Premier League games, Kalajdzic has made two cameo appearances right at the end, and for the other two he’s just been left on the bench as an unused sub.
You can perhaps understand him not playing against Burnley because Wolves led in that game. But against Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and West Ham, Wolves were never in a winning position.
Kalajdzic is fit to play now after his injury problems and at the end of the day, he is an experienced striker with a record of 24 goals and 12 assists in 64 games for Stuttgart before he came to Molineux.
Given his 6ft 7in frame, he obviously offers something very different for Wolves, and an entirely new headache for the opposition.
So why is the £35,000-a-week striker not being given more of a chance by O’Neil?
The head coach has done many great things this season, but it is starting to feel a bit like he is overreliant on Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan.
It also feels as though he just doesn’t trust Kalajdzic to make an impact.
The Austrian must be completely baffled at this point. Wolves are not playing well right now and are struggling to pick up points again. It would be no surprise if we soon started to get reports of him being frustrated and considering his future.
