When Rayan Ait-Nouri didn’t make the bench for Wolverhampton Wanderers’ recent 1-0 win at Leeds United — even with Romain Saiss playing as a makeshift wing-back — you wondered if we’d be seeing much of the teenager this season.
As we saw last season with Bruno Jordao and Leo Campana and this season with Vitinha, who can’t get a spot on the bench at the moment, talented youngsters on the fringes of the Wolves squad can find it hard to make the transition from back-up to his first-team picture. Max Kilman hadn’t started in the league this year until a few weeks ago.
But an injury to Fernando Marcal and a need to balance the side with genuine width against defensive-minded, counter-attacking opposition in Crystal Palace saw the door open for Ait-Nouri on Friday night. It’s safe to say he took his chance.
Wolves haven’t had a No 3 for a while. Quite literally. Their last player to wear the No 3 shirt was Barry…
