Toti Gomes(Image: Jack Thomas)
Wolves defender Toti Gomes felt that a “couple of mistakes” proved costly for his side in their 2-0 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday.
The Old Gold were beaten by the Seagulls at Molineux at the weekend, with Danny Welbeck and Brajan Gruda on target for the visitors. Welbeck put Albion in front from the penalty spot shortly before the half-hour mark, while Gruda rounded off the victory for the away side five minutes from time.
The result was Wolves’ first home defeat since February, and leaves them 14th in the Premier League table, on 41 points from 36 matches played. The Seagulls moved onto 55 points from 36 games with their win, leaving them ninth in the division.
Vítor Pereira’s side have now registered consecutive defeats following their six-match winning run that hauled them clear of the relegation zone.
Reflecting on Saturday’s loss, Gomes told his club’s website: “We tried our best. We wanted to keep a good momentum.
“Even though we lost the last game, we knew we were coming in a good moment. We planned properly this week for this game, but we made a couple of mistakes at the beginning, and they were crucial and they scored. In the end, they scored their goals and deserved it.”
The visitors took the lead off the back of one of those mistakes, with Matheus Cunha robbed of possession on the edge of his own area by Mats Wieffer, before bringing the Albion midfielder down for the penalty that Welbeck went on to convert.
“This happens sometimes,” Gomes said.
“Of course, if you had the chance to replay it, we would have kept the ball, not playing in that area because it was dangerous, they were going \[to have\] a good pressure to recover the ball, and after it was a penalty.”
With his side trailing at the hour mark, Pereira opted to make a quadruple substitution to get back into the game, sending on Rodrigo Gomes, Pablo Sarabia, Jean-Ricner Bellegarde and Jorgen Strand Larsen from the bench.
“It’s good when you have fresh players. They can give a different thing from the other ones that were already playing,” Gomes said.
“We tried to build from those players that came in, but of course they were doing well, they were defending. At the end, it was a fair one (result) for them.”
After Gruda had sealed the win for Brighton late on, Pereira also introduced 17-year-old Mateus Mane from the bench to make his first-team debut for the club, and Gomes said of the youngster: “He’s been training with us for a while, it’s been a long time. Making his debut is always good, we’ve been helping him a lot since he’s young and I’m very happy for him.”