Wolves need to fix Raul Jimenez problem as Bruno Lage suffers major blow before Tottenham

Wolverhampton Wanderers slipped to a first Premier League defeat of 2022 at the hands of Arsenal on Thursday night.

Gabriel Magalhães tapped in the winner midway through the first half and Arsenal - who had Gabriel Martinelli sent off in the 69th minute - clung on for three points.

Wolves spurned the chance to move above Arsenal in the Premier League table and lost ground in the race for fourth place.

Arsenal moved five points clear of eighth-placed Wolves, who suffered their first league defeat in two months.

But Bruno Lage's side can make up for their first defeat in six league matches in the remainder of the month, when they face Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City, Arsenal (again) and West Ham.

Wolves have reached the business end of the season and it's important to say...

“We are better players than them. Believe.”

Those words formed part of Lage’s half-time team talk, and Wolves’ players must now cling onto them for the remainder of this month.

Wolves’ squad isn’t short on quality and the way Arsenal approached yesterday’s game suggests that they felt inferior.

Even before the Gunners opened the scoring, they were quite happy to run the clock down and frustrate Wolves’ players and the raucous home crowd.

"We saw the way they celebrated the win and that shows the level we are. I didn't see Arsenal celebrating like this in the past 10 years - it was like they won the league,” Wolves midfielder Ruben Neves said in his post-match interview.

Wolves must now prove they are superior when they meet Arsenal again in two weeks’ time.

With the games against the teams around them coming thick and fast, all is not lost for Lage and Wolves.

A current Wolves forward hasn’t scored from open play in a Premier League game since Raul