Is Bruno Lage A Good Manager Or Should He Go?

[Tony Towner]

14/15 games before the World Cup, I doubt he'll be there after it unless the recruitment is fantastic

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Do you not agree @MARKakaJIM ?

How do you see things panning out for Wolves next season?

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Do you not agree @MARKakaJIM ?

How do you see things panning out for Wolves next season?

I have no idea, the curtain has barely fell on the last one and there's very little movement one way or another so far. It could be anything.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

I have no idea, the curtain has barely fell on the last one and there's very little movement one way or another so far. It could be anything.

Well it's easy to sit on the fence i guess..

We can only go on what we know, or expect at the moment.

And at the moment all signs point to Neves and Moutinho leaving, given we haven't signed a CM since Dendoncker, and our transfer strategy seems to have swung to a sell to buy from where it was i think it's very unlikely we will improve on that central midfield pairing come August.

Plus our extremely poor form since February, i'm surprised to get a "wow" response from you to me expecting a tough season, especially having just sat through Shi's interview (have you watched/read it yet??). All things currently point to exactly that.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Well it's easy to sit on the fence i guess..

We can only go on what we know, or expect at the moment.

And at the moment all signs point to Neves and Moutinho leaving, given we haven't signed a CM since Dendoncker, and our transfer strategy seems to have swung to a sell to buy from where it was i think it's very unlikely we will improve on that central midfield pairing come August.

Plus our extremely poor form since February, i'm surprised to get a "wow" response from you to me expecting a tough season, especially having just sat through Shi's interview (have you watched/read it yet??). All things currently point to exactly that.

The surprised reaction was more at your change in mentality than anything specific in your post, you've generally been more positive than most in recent times.

There's very little set in stone at the moment, there's been a terrible run of form to the end of the season and some players futures up in the air but pretty much everyone is leaping to the worst possible conclusion at every turn. I can't see the point even getting wound up by my own guesswork and conjecture, I'd rather wait for the bad news to actually happen first.

Maybe in a month or two all the best players have gone and been replaced by dross, then I'd be fully on board with the worst expectations. Alternatively there might be a couple of big names out the door and bunch of exciting prospects through the door to ponder over in the run up to the new season.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Ah, yeah, that's fair enough Mark. I was delayed in my criticisms of Lage to the same ferocity as others, as i felt and still do think to an extent that he deserved a bit of credit for the good run, (our best Prem run ever) but the turning point for me was witnessing a player like Jonny phoning it in against Brighton.

He's lost the players, and i'm struggling to think of an example ever where the players ever get back onside, it's also why i think he is keen on the idea of selling and bringing in a lot of players as he wants to get rid of the Old Guard/those that disagree with him, but i don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Even now i don't think we need major surgery, but it looks like we are going to get that anyway.

I don't think Lage is likely to pull the players in we require to get near to replacing those we lose, and that Ask Wolves of Jeff, was just awful, i hope when you come to watch it you can dig out something positive from it, because i am REALLY struggling!

Even a quick glance on Twitter hasn't helped and there are normally optimistic types on there, even if they are WUMing.

 

[The Bear]

Currently I'm at the point where next season's prospects have more to do with Jeff & Co and our transfer activity than the manager.

 

[jd1981]

I wouldn’t say those who are worrying are doing it by guess work the form since Spurs away and performance levels were alarming. It’s not a bit of bad form it’s trend currently. He’s got very little credit in the bank to support the fact he’ll improve things going into next season.
The guess work is more having faith in a manager who has one successful season under his belt, one very poor and one average to be kind.

 

[jd1981]

Jeff and the boys at the top are equally complicit if it does go south next season that’s for sure.
Firstly employing Lage.
Secondly having numerous poor transfer windows that leaves you at a point when your midfielders left will be Donk, MGW and Cundle.
How many millions will be needed to bring that up to even PL quality?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Ok. So he clearly isn't going anywhere any time soon (it obviously would have happened by now if we were going to take action).

Let's assume we give him a budget of some sorts (£20-30m+ on top of sales?) this summer.

What is his brief, by what yardstick should he be measured? Because a repeat of the last 14 games can't go on, and our overriding style of play and performance level isn't sustainable, as shown by the metrics and actually watching us every week.

I suspect he won't be our manager in 2023 as I simply don't think he's up to it, but what would persuade us as a whole that he's the man to take us forward?

 

[YoungWolf]

I think a big improvement in general performance is needed, and results should follow if we've done the right transfer business. Pretty much all season we gave up more chances than we created and that only got worse towards the end of the season.

Even if you don't believe in xG we had the third lowest number of shots in the league (403) and the 5th lowest number of shots on targets (134). As our defence reverted to the mean (our xG against was 5th worst in league in the end...) it just showed how unsustainable how we play really is. That all needs to change quite drastically to put us back on course to being a half decent side

 

[Del Woppio]

I think hovering around 10th-12th is as good as it can get realistically; the squad of players available on September 1st this year is going to be wank compared to that time 4 years ago, so we've got to be realistic in terms of what success means for us.

The quality of the football absolutely has to improve though, we've been treated to absolute shite for over two years now. I want to see quicker passing, third man runs, and an end to horseshoe of doom. I want us to be able to finish the sentence "Wolves' style of play is", properly and unambiguously. I'm not expecting it to work all the time, but at least to be able to see what we're trying to do. I also want to see that he's learned some lessons personally, and see an improvement in his in-game management, and his responses to goals, opposition system changes.

I know a lot of that is going to be at least partially dependent on the recruitment being right, but he needs to do better at stamping his style on the club. I still have - it's doubtless blind optimism/romance - some belief that his footballing ideas are really attractive. He's got until the break for the world cup, for me, to show it on the pitch

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

As for where I am (whether I want him here at all is neither here nor there, I don't get to decide and he's obviously staying in at least the short term):

I don't see us finishing higher than 10th unless there are some surprising (ie better than we would reasonably expect at this point) and immediately successful incomings. He'll get sacked if we're in a relegation battle as we break for the World Cup. So fundamentally it has to be a sign that we can play better football than we currently do, that he's learned from his errors in 2021/22 (especially our record when we concede first), that there actually is a vision beyond playing a watered down, soulless version of the bad bits of Nuno's football. We changed from Nuno because we wanted better/something different - we're getting neither at the moment. He also has to improve his communication, it's really poor and that seems to transmit to the players when we're not playing well.

I can accept that he hasn't necessarily been given a great hand so far - although all managers always want new players, so it's far from a unique situation - but that line wears increasingly thin as time goes on.

2021/22 has gone now and I'm happy to partially wipe the slate clean, it's not healthy to go into a season actively wanting the manager to go. But he's under quite a lot of pressure before a ball's kicked.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Given that this summer is some sort of 'reset' then I'd be happy with any position above 15th provided I could see an improvement in the football and some sort of plan.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Given that this summer is some sort of 'reset' then I'd be happy with any position above 15th provided I could see an improvement in the football and some sort of plan.

I know that you mean this, but in reality i don't think it's true.

If we are 15th you wouldn't be happy, regardless.

 

[Johnny75]

I'll give him 10 games. If we haven't won more than 2 I think he'll be binned.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

So long as we are not in a relegation battle and playing football that doesn’t make your eyes bleed I’ll be happy. He has been underwhelmeing so far but it isn’t his fault our succession planning to replace players like Saiss, Boly, Moutinho and Raul has been almost non-existent. He wouldn’t be the man I’d choose to rebuild but it looks like he is going to be, so arms length from 18th will do so long as the foundations for long term improvement are evident.

 

[Deano]

A mid table finish and staying clear of a relegation battle will be a good season for Wolves as they're not only going to have lost a fairly large number of players that (fitness permitting) always made the match day squad but also there are quite a few leaders/popular dressing room figures going out.

Having said the above, when you finish mid table the style of play is important as it's all you've really got (apart from maybe a cup run) so we definitely need to see a better style of play incorporating more goals. I expect to see very few games of the ilk of this season, at home where for 60 mins, the opposing goalkeeper could have brought his deck chair.

If we can see an identifiable way that we are trying to play and some of the new players we bring in show good signs I will be happy. I am pretty worried that we are still living massively off that first window in the Premier League and now some of those players have left/are leaving/coming to the latter part of their careers, we desperately need another good window, I don't even care if this comes about by pure luck at the moment.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

We have to actually start fucking entertaining for a start.

 

[Tony Towner]

Now the ambition has moved away from Europe and onto midtable then there needs to be more emphasis on the entertainment.

Pragmatic football is acceptable as a means to an end to stay up or to make an unlikely run for the top 6 as seemed a possibility in February. It's not acceptable for an also ran though, particularly when you are being charged entertainment industry prices.

As we are now only in the PL to make the numbers up, I'd like to see the FA Cup taken seriously. The chances are the final will be Big 6 v Big 6, but another semi shouldn't be out of the question with the right attitude and luck with the draw.

Hopefully this won't be the year we go down, the type of team we want to be always does sooner or later.

Finally, I'd like to see some honesty from Lage pre and post match and consistency on his recruitment statements.