Nuno forgives Silva for blowing golden chance
WOLVES boss Nuno Espirito Santo defended Fabio Silva after his teen ace missed a golden chance to give them a victory they deserved.
The 18-year-old, who cost-Wolves £35million from Porto, could have sealed all three points when he was put in one-on-one with keeper Kasper Schmeichel with just 12 minutes left.
But the Leicester man managed to block his shot and later Nuno refused to blame his young star.
“I think all the credit should go to Schmeichel,” he said. “Fabio’s action was good.You must test the keeper in those situations.
“He’s a talent. He’s learning and he’s growing. You have to be a threat and he will give us that for sure.
“We had some good chances and some shots from outside the box. One of the main jobs has been to try and stabilise the defence and we showed signs of that.”
Silva tried to put it low and straight and wily old Fox Schmeichel got the faintest of touches with his boot to stop him in his tracks.
Wolves were good value had they banked the points and Ruben Neves was left cursing one real miss and another speculative effort. But they could have seen it all snatched away from them right near the end when ace predator Jamie Vardy, above, who had come off the bench, threatened to do exactly what he does best. He made a great run to meet Marc Albrighton’s centre and got his head to it but it flashed just wide of the post.
Brendan Rodgers said: ““Everyone here thought it was a goal. I had my arms up! It’s great to have him back and he’ll get more game time on Wednesday.”
It was the home side who probably felt more aggrieved not to be ahead at the interval after having the best two chances by far.
In the 11th minute, Wolves should have gone ahead when Leicester failed to get a Joao Moutinho corner clear and were lucky not to pay the price.
The ball ended up falling to Neves in space 12 yards out, but the midfielder blazed the ball over with a clear route to goal.
Five minutes later, Wolves carved the visitors open down their right flank. Pedro Neto showed a clean pair of heels to both Jonny Evans and Youri Tielemans as he cut his way to the by-line before cutting it back straight into the path of Adama Traore, whose shot was superbly diverted for a corner by James Justin.
Rodgers said: “It was a fair result.”
WOLVES (3-4-3): Patricio 7; Dendoncker 7, Coady 7, Kilman 7; Semedo 6, Moutinho 7, Neves 7, Jonny 6 (Hoever 46, 6); Traore 8, Jose 6 (Silva 61, 6), Neto 8 (Gibbs-White 88). .
LEICESTER (4-2-3-1): Schmeichel 7; Pereira 7, Evans 8, Soyuncu 7, Justin 7; Tielemans 7, Choudhury 8; Perez 6 (Albrighton 61, 6), Maddison 7, Barnes 7; Iheanacho 6 (Vardy 61, 7).