A brace, and Raúl Jiménez takes the afternoon — 8.75
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Raúl Jiménez provided it, and the 8.75 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Everton were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Fer López was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Raúl Jiménez. 2‑1 against Everton, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Everton spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. André wants continental football; whether Wolverhampton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wolverhampton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Wolverhampton scored in the 103th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.36 for the rest of it.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Kieran Trippier was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Wolverhampton and Arsenal, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Wolverhampton has been clear about where Hwang Hee-Chan stands, which is more than many ever get.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
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Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Enso González is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“I watch every Wolverhampton game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Wycombe Wanderers runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Wolverhampton can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Wolverhampton, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and André reports back to Wolverhampton with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Enso González is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Wolverhampton asked and Norwich City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Level with 87 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Wolverhampton had all but put away. Nottingham Forest will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Tottenham did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $13.2M for Wilson Odobert, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The offer from Sheffield United for Hwang Hee-Chan was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Wolverhampton have gone to Leicester City with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Wolverhampton heard it as anything else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hwang Hee-Chan and Wolverhampton agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. John Egan has just signed for Wolverhampton, and for once the answer mattered.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Newcastle United have kept their man, and Wolverhampton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.