They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but Wolves and their social media team offered it to Nottingham Forest piping hot.
The two Premier League strugglers faced off at Molineux on Saturday, knowing a win for either would take them out of the relegation zone. There hasn’t been much to shout about for the two Midlands outfits, both enduring miserable starts to the new season.
Newly promoted Forest had managed just five points from their first nine games back in the top flight, with Wolves amassing just one more and manager Bruno Lage paying the price. It always promised to be a nervy encounter, with the hosts' blunt attack meaning matches are almost exclusively nail-biters.
Steve Davis was in the Wolves dugout, leading out his boyhood team for the second time during his stint as caretaker boss. But if there was any deliberations over his team talk, they were removed when Forest’s social media team did all the hard work for him.
On the morning of the game - in a post which was subsequently deleted - Forest’s official account mocked up striker Emmanuel Dennis tickling three wolves with the caption ‘Playtime’. It was a risky ploy from the visitors and one which backfired as a Ruben Neves penalty earned Wolves a timely and hard-fought win.
In a game of few chances, they were given a golden one to take the lead following the break, when they were awarded a penalty for a handball after a lengthy VAR check. Forest keeper Dean Henderson went the right way, but was unable to stop the powerfully struck spot-kick.
Steve Cooper’s side had toiled for much of the afternoon, but had a chance from 12 yards themselves after Matheus Nunes was adjudged to have fouled Ryan Yates in the box. However, Jose Sa, who is nursing a fracture in his wrist, pulled off a spectacular save to deny Brennan Johnson. And Wolves would hold on for just their second win of the season to move them out of the bottom three and leave Forest rooted to the bottom.
Unsurprisingly, Wolves’ own social media team were quick to the punch in response to the earlier post, with an image of an axe chopping down a tree, accompanied with the caption ‘Playtime’s Over’. Matchwinner Neves also got in on the act, putting an image of himself along with a trio of wolves with the same caption as the club.
Davis revealed post-match that Wolves skipper Neves was quick to make sure the dressing room had seen the tweet - even if the boss was hoping to keep it under wraps: "We were aware of it - we were going to mention it in the team talk, but I spoke to Ruben and he had already put it on the players chat."
Speaking after the full-time whistle, Neves told Premier League Productions: "We spoke about it being a difficult start all week, we knew the importance. We had a fantastic first half, Nottingham just tried to slow down the game. We had a lot of chances in the first half. Second half we played really well again, we scored.”
He added: "We conceded a penalty in the set play, we were struggling after the set play because we wanted to keep the ball. But Jose Sa is a fantastic goalkeeper, he showed it last season, he's showing it again, importantly he saved a really important penalty for us."
