LIVERPOOL, England (Reuters) -Rayan Ait Nouri grabbed the winner five minutes into stoppage-time as Wolverhampton Wanderers moved off the foot of the table with a 2-1 victory over Everton on Monday in manager Julen Lopetegui’s first Premier League game in charge.
Ait Nouri scored from close range at the back post after a quick break from the visitors to spark wild celebrations from the players and the bench, and leave Frank Lampard’s strugglers walking off the Goodison Park pitch to boos.
Wolves climbed two places to 18th with 13 points from 16 games, one place and one point behind Everton, who are now in freefall following a six-week break in the Premier League season for the World Cup.
The victory will be a big boost for Lopetegui and Wolves, whose last away Premier League win came in March, also at Goodison Park. They had taken only three points on the road from a possible 33 since then.
But in the opposite dugout there will be a sinking feeling for Lampard. His team were the better on the day, but while Wolves took their chances, Everton were wasteful and got punished for that profligacy.
“It was a final for us and every game will be a final now,” Wolves captain Ruben Neves told BBC’s Match of the Day. “As a team we did very well and handled Everton’s pressure. It’s a really hard place to come and play but I think we deserved the win.
“He (Lopetegui) is a really experienced manager. He has been working at big teams before and everyone is improving a lot.”
Everton hit the front inside seven minutes with their first goal from a corner all season. Dwight McNeil swung in the set-piece and an unmarked Yerry Mina headed in his first Premier League goal for two years.
But Wolves struck back midway through the first half with a well-worked corner of their own that allowed Joao Moutinho to clip the ball to the back post and Daniel Podence provided a neat volley finish.
‘A SICKENER’
Everton had chances to win it from there, including a Ben Godfrey shot that was cleared of the line. But as the crowd bayed them forward in search of a second goal, they were hit with a sucker-punch from Ait Nouri.
“It’s a bit of a sickener,” Everton defender James Tarkowski said. “We understand the frustration (of the fans) because the results aren’t good enough, but I thought we were the better side so we have to take positives from that and keep our heads up.
“We’re together as a group. We back the manager and he backs us. We have performed poorly at times this season but that definitely wasn’t (the case today). If we put one of our chances away then I think we’d have won the game comfortably.”
Wolves host Manchester United and Everton travel to Manchester City in their next games on Saturday.
(Reporting by Nick Said, editing by Ed Osmond and Hugh Lawson)
