Leeds United 2 Wolves 1

I won’t labour the point about our squad because you all know the story.

Bruno Lage certainly does. The Premier League now allows five substitutions and he only made one today, underlining just how chronic the situation has become.

Even with Jimenez, Traore, Semedo and now Moutinho, we’d still be several bodies short but those players were badly missed as Wolves competed well but fell short against an average, injury-hit Leeds.

A brilliant opening goal that saw all those promising pre-season elements come together was soon forgotten as white shirts pressed us into submission and levelled things up.

Time and again we gave the ball away in our own defensive third, with the full backs particularly culpable. It was Ait-Nouri at fault for the equaliser but Jonny was just as guilty at times on the opposite side.

Sa should have kept out the near post shot and he wobbled in the first half, which didn’t help our jittery defence and the wider team establish any sort of pattern of play.

Still, we should have gone in ahead with Dendoncker squandering a one-on-one just before the whistle.

The big Belgian also saw a powerful header saved after the break as he again was the focal point of most of our attacking moves.

And therein lies a massive problem. We cannot be relying on him to be our go-to finisher if we’re serious about doing anything this season. He’s excellent at making the runs and credit to him for that, but has a consistently terrible conversion rate.

Podence, Gibbs-White and particularly Neto were all easy on the eye as Wolves dominated a good half an hour of the second half but there was nothing on the end of it. Every time it’s individual brilliance or bust and that’s not a recipe for success.

If you want to take a positive it would be Pedro Neto. He gave Leeds a torrid time throughout and was unlucky his tenacity didn’t produce greater returns.

The team also looked comfortable in their shape for a long part of that second half allowing that attacking trio to ask questions, even though a second goal failed to materialise.

Most disappointing would be how little Leeds had to do to win the game, scoring with their only real attack of the second half and seeing it out comfortably from there with Bruno powerless to make any decisive moves.

If there’s no activity off the pitch again this week then the pressure already feels high for next weekend’s Molineux opener.