Is Bruno Lage A Good Manager Or Should He Go?

[t3ch]

selling neves and jonny is definitely the way to make our squad better

 

[1986]

If we are going to part ways with Lage , then surely this will happen shortly after the end of the season , to allow time for the new Manager to get to know his players and plan etc .
If Lage is still here mid June , then it's fair to say that they will keep him .

Who knows - perhaps the replacement has already been lined up .

 

[prawnking]

Some key questions.
Has Bruno improved results? Compared to last season yes but not by much.
Has he improved any of the playing squad? No, Kilman has come along but it was Nuno who introduced him to the first team.
Is he getting the most out of the current playing squad? Hell no
Do we have an identity? No
Does he have good in game management? No, 14 defeats from 16 when falling behind.
Clueless tactics when leading v Arsenal and Leeds.
Are we at least pleasing on the eye? No other than about 6-7 games it’s been hard to watch.
Has his transfer business been good? Sa yes Chiquina possibly the rest no. Yes he’s not been backed well but who sanctioned Hwang signing? Who sanctioned Traore going out on loan? Who sanctioned MGW going out on loan leaving us with 3 senior CM.
Seems harsh being so critical when we’ll come top half at least.
But it’s nieve to use just that as a yard stick, the last 2 home games we’ve looked a disorganised mess out of possession and predictable in possession.
Form since Spurs away is awful, form isn’t a on and on switch which some think it is.

Hang on... There's enough fair criticism to send Bruno's way without over-egging it.

It's a bit harsh to give a definitive 'no' on player improvement when Kilman has fully been established as a first XI centre back and been linked strongly with an England call-up. Bit rich giving Nuno the credit for that. I'd say Moutinho and Neves have been back to close to their best again too for much of the season

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Hang on... There's enough fair criticism to send Bruno's way without over-egging it.

It's a bit harsh to give a definitive 'no' on player improvement when Kilman has fully been established as a first XI centre back and been linked strongly with an England call-up. Bit rich giving Nuno the credit for that. I'd say Moutinho and Neves have been back to close to their best again too for much of the season

Moutinho has benefited from having a proper break and playing once a week. I think others also suffered for the same reason but everyone can understand it with Moutinho as he’s significantly older.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Moutinho has benefited from having a proper break and playing once a week. I think others also suffered for the same reason but everyone can understand it with Moutinho as he’s significantly older.

But it was Nuno's insistence that having a small squad (despite knowing we'd be playing a million games in the Europa season) that lead to burnout.

 

[Tony Towner]

I think it depends on when you ask the question.
In February the following was true
Kilman, Saiss, Neves and Coady were having their best seasons in a Wolves shirt
Moutinho was back to his best
RAN and Semedo had both improved significantly from the prior season.
Since then they've all been either injured or degrees of crap.
It would be disingenuous to not give credit for the former, but injuries aside has to take some accountability for the latter as he does the coinciding results and performances

 

[Tredman]

God I wish this season were just over and he was gone.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

If he was to go, who would we replace him with?

I really like what Cooper has done, but there's no way we go down that road.

I guess Fonseca is likely, but you'd have thought we'd have gone for him rather than Lage in the first place, so it seems unlikely.

 

[prawnking]

Moutinho has benefited from having a proper break and playing once a week. I think others also suffered for the same reason but everyone can understand it with Moutinho as he’s significantly older.

All good and bad things at the club are no doubt due to multiple factors, I just think shifting blame to and credit away from Bruno for everything is wrong.

It not just giving a false account of his tenure so far (which has hardly been a disaster), it's also letting other people at the club (including senior management and some players) off the hook

 

[Wilf Wolf]

But it was Nuno's insistence that having a small squad (despite knowing we'd be playing a million games in the Europa season) that lead to burnout.

I’m not sure Nuno anticipated a two week break between seasons due to Covid and then the resulting compacted season resulting in two games a week as often as not. Silly Nuno!

 

[prawnking]

I guess Fonseca is likely, but you'd have thought we'd have gone for him rather than Lage in the first place, so it seems unlikely.

I saw reports back then that we had approached him, and been rejected

 

[prawnking]

I’m not sure Nuno anticipated a two week break between seasons due to Covid and then the resulting compacted season resulting in two games a week as often as not. Silly Nuno!

Whose fault was the misguided attempt at a radical playing evolution with tired players and virtually no pre-season, which hampered the campaign from start to finish?

 

[Del Woppio]

Like it or not, he's going nowhere at the moment, and probably won't be unless we're hovering around 13th, ten or so games into the new season. We're in an absolutely terrible spot of form, but the board will certainly be minded to assume that it's just that, and it doesn't actually matter in the scheme of things.

I'm pretty convinced that we're going to see a massive player churn in the Summer, and changing the manager and coaching staff will be viewed as adding unnecessary upheaval when he's neither proved to be a success or disaster, and you can pick bits of both out to suit your mood. As with most things, the truth is in the middle ground, and it's not often that people are sacked for being 'OK', in the wider scheme of things. Going down the Watford route and getting rid of managers after a couple of months of shit form won't do us any favours. I doubt many of the 60-odd % in the poll above are particularly confident that he's going to be a long term success, but he's getting the benefit of the doubt in a binary question.

At the end of the day, if you think a manager is shit and should be sacked, you'll be right in the fullness of time in 90% of cases, they'll pretty much all get sacked for underperformance eventually. We all know he'll have fuck all to do with the transfers we make, and rightly so as he hasn't earned that. I'm sure there's a stylistic alignment, so hopefully we'll get players more suited to a more intense style, and if he still can't get a tune out them, then we move on to the next. I think we definitely need to get away from the counter-attacking low block, and we're in for a really important Summer.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

I’m not sure Nuno anticipated a two week break between seasons due to Covid and then the resulting compacted season resulting in two games a week as often as not. Silly Nuno!

Eh? He/Fosun didn't help to alleviate it in the window after the Europa though did they?

Nor did have enough bodies in the squad when they did know we'd possibly have a 60+ game season if we did well at the start of the Europa season either. We haven't signed a first team midfielder other than Dendoncker since the season we were promoted! If you think that's ok then fine, but IMO that's why both Neves and Moutinho looked jaded last season.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Whose fault was the misguided attempt at a radical playing evolution with tired players and virtually no pre-season, which hampered the campaign from start to finish?

Can’t argue with that other than to say after the Sevilla game he knew something had to change if we were to progress. It really went tits up when Raul got injured though.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Eh? He/Fosun didn't help to alleviate it in the window after the Europa though did they?

Nor did have enough bodies in the squad when they did know we'd possibly have a 60+ game season if we did well at the start of the Europa season either. We haven't signed a first team midfielder other than Dendoncker since the season we were promoted! If you think that's ok then fine, but IMO that's why both Neves and Moutinho looked jaded last season.

Where have I said lack of signings is ok? There’s no doubt that Covid brought the lack of signings into sharp focus but I’m sure we’d have been about where we are this season if Raul hadn’t been injured. The loss of a proper break and then preseason had as much impact as the small squad. Its a shame Vitinha wasn’t a year older as I think he may well have had a more significant role and would have made a big difference.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Where have I said lack of signings is ok? There’s no doubt that Covid brought the lack of signings into sharp focus but I’m sure we’d have been about where we are this season if Raul hadn’t been injured. The loss of a proper break and then preseason had as much impact as the small squad. Its a shame Vitinha wasn’t a year older as I think he may well have had a more significant role and would have made a big difference.

Well you hinted at it with your snarky response to me suggesting that Nuno should have made sure we had a bigger squad, more signings = bigger squad.

Yes Covid impacted us, we couldn't have foreseen Covid, but we all knew at the start of the Europa season that we'd be playing a lot of games! We started the season in July for god's sake, that lack of foresight/arrogance has gradually become more and more of an issue since, and Covid and the Raul injury compounded it.

 

[Del Woppio]

Aye, there was a feeling on here that our medical team were wizards and we were impervious to injuries, and judging by the recruitment I suspect that was also a sentiment held at the club. We were basically famous for having a small squad and never rotating, and I actually think that was what ultimately did for Nuno - he didn't have any options to mix things up. I'm pretty sure that was entirely by his design though, and hopefully it changes quite dramatically

 

[YoungWolf]

The having a small squad thing was not an issue until covid. Our fitness record wasn't by luck under Nuno, it was due to a very good coaching philosophy that clearly linked in very well with the the multi-disciplinary team (medical, sports science, analysis).

Covid wrecked that for two reasons. One the uncertainty of having players unavailable of having to isolate meaning more rotation was naturally needed but also that we basically played last season with no pre-season. That's where you get your foundations set. We had one week to prepare for the first game of the season against Sheffield United. There were always going to be more injuries as a result. At that point it was probably for us to adapt as a club better in that situation. Though we probably did sign more players that summer, they just didn't work out very well

 

[Tony Towner]

Whose fault was the misguided attempt at a radical playing evolution with tired players and virtually no pre-season, which hampered the campaign from start to finish?

The consistent thing is in the last 2 Summers Bruno and Nuno have both wanted to evolve the playing style. We think we know Nuno was the driving force behind getting Semedo and wanted to go 4 at the back. Projection on my behalf, but I doubt he wanted £35m spent on a kid up front rather than a centre half and a centre midfielder to evolve that style.

This year we think we know that Bruno wanted to play with a 4, higher up the pitch with higher intensity, this failed again because the players weren't brought in to deliver that.

On the issue of playing squad size, Jeff went on record in the car crash video as saying the squad was too small and needed more depth, which was broadly took as a swipe at Nuno, but somehow managed to oversee a process which left us 1 first team squad member less at the end of the August window than we ended the previous season with.

In summary there is plenty that both managers have done wrong in the last couple of seasons, but both wanted to evolve the style of play because they could see the ceiling that 343/352 with the personnel we have. There are no guarantees that either would have been successful with that and doesn't excuse the soporific, risk free crap both have served up for a large chunk of 2 seasons but the primary blame for the relative failure of both attempts to evolve the style sits above them