Let's talk about Nuno....

[prawnking]

On the last para. You, and only you, has made this suggestion that only an a elite club should spend £35m on potential, then try to claim that your own assertion is inconsistent with previous claims regarding our status. Classic strawman argument that.

Andy is right, you are hard work.

The final paragraph was phrased as a question, but you can show me any other non elite clubs who have made that kind of outlay on 'ugly ducklings' if you like.

I'm sorry some of you find people who don't just nod along with neat consensus (based mainly on wide-eyed optimism and best case scenarios) hard work, but I'm not just going to agree for the sake of it.

I don't think this was a 'calculated gamble', I think leaving us with just a kid up front and having to pull back the unknown quantity that is Cutrone is a bit of a cock up

 

[Wilf Wolf]

It may be now they are injured but it wasn’t that way earlier in the season and we still didn’t click much. Nuno is naturally cautious and that has translated to the team whatever the personnel on the pitch.
Transition is when thing but there is also regression and we have regressed in the first half of the season. We now can’t keep a. Lean sheet and can’t score enough goals so it’s a testing time for Nuno. Last season the team picked itself in all competitions. Bar a couple of minor changes. This season there has been far more tinkering, changing, tweaking even before the injuries. It’s a tough spell but then that’s what he is paid to sort. I hope he does it and takes us on to he next level even if he is struggling with it all at the moment.

So you expect changing from a rigid formation should happen within a few games and then everything should settle down just like that? It would be hard enough with a settled team, but with the level of injuries it will take a lot longer.

 

[redvictor]

The final paragraph was phrased as a question, but you can show me any other non elite clubs who have made that kind of outlay on 'ugly ducklings' if you like.

I'm sorry some of you find people who don't just nod along with neat consensus (based mainly on wide-eyed optimism and best case scenarios) hard work, but I'm not just going to agree for the sake of it.

I don't think this was a 'calculated gamble', I think leaving us with just a kid up front and having to pull back the unknown quantity that is Cutrone is a bit of a cock up

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If only we all had it.

 

[Carsy]

I know Silva is young and inexperienced but so was Robbie Keane, but when he made is debut you could see that he had something special. Watching Silva I have yet to see something that makes him look any other than average. I really hope that he proves me wrong.

Very had to compare the two .

keane was rapid and explosive which people notice a lot more (traore for example)

silva has moved to a new country during a pandemic, has been thrown in at the deep end into a team which is struggling creatively (although yes he has missed a couple) he’s also a ‘young’ 18 year old with hardly any experience .

 

[prawnking]

I think you will get the final answer when we turn into a beautiful swan. Unfortunately the ugly duckling bit isn’t a great watch at all and not very enjoyable.

The ugly duckling bit is fine, but the transformation shouldn't be being done right now in the harsh glare of the PL, being flogged on the left wing for 80 mins. It doesn't help anyone.

It also won't help our developing players if they're playing and getting beaten every week and dropping down the league. Can we remember that while we're getting misty-eyed about what our 2022/23 line up will be?

 

[Carsy]

Personally my concern would be the lack of creativity. Even when we had everyone (minus jonny) at the start of the season, we didn’t look great. Yes we can say can we had a ridiculously long season last year etc , but if we don’t create chances, then what can we expect.

my concern would be is how raul recovers. Let’s up he comes back the same player.

blooding the youngsters this season due to injuries May reap rewards on a couple of years, I just hope the likes of neves stick around for the ride .

 

[Paul]

I'm sorry some of you find people who don't just nod along with neat consensus (based mainly on wide-eyed optimism and best case scenarios) hard work, but I'm not just going to agree for the sake of it.

And long may your pragmatic views reign ! In a world that's shit where we need to cling to the slightest comfort we need your dour sceptical views to gently tread on our fingers on the clifftop of reality and remind us the glass is always half empty if you look hard enough. You are a credit to your kind, don't let everyone tell you differently

 

[Haggstone]

The final paragraph was phrased as a question, but you can show me any other non elite clubs who have made that kind of outlay on 'ugly ducklings' if you like.

I'm sorry some of you find people who don't just nod along with neat consensus (based mainly on wide-eyed optimism and best case scenarios) hard work, but I'm not just going to agree for the sake of it.

I don't think this was a 'calculated gamble', I think leaving us with just a kid up front and having to pull back the unknown quantity that is Cutrone is a bit of a cock up

I’ll pass thanks. Safe in the knowledge that if we aspire to be better than other ‘non elite’ clubs we may have to do things differently.

 

[prawnking]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If only we all had it.

I knew very little of Fabio before he joined, and like most of us, would have expected a solitary, expensive striker signing to be vaguely fit for purpose in the scenario we find ourselves in.

He really isn't, and the club should have had some inkling of that before he signed on, and mitigated it by either getting someone else into the squad who was more ready to do a job right now, or have another plan within the existing squad.

 

[prawnking]

I’ll pass thanks.

Well I can't take you seriously if you won't give me names

For the record, I'm pretty sure there aren't any clubs like us making these kind of visionary/vanity signings

 

[Paul]

Knew Prawnking reminded me of somebody

 

[prawnking]

And long may your pragmatic views reign ! In a world that's shit where we need to cling to the slightest comfort we need your dour sceptical views to gently tread on our fingers on the clifftop of reality and remind us the glass is always half empty if you look hard enough. You are a credit to your kind, don't let everyone tell you differently

Sometimes a dissenting voice has to make itself heard above the din of mutual back slapping

 

[redvictor]

I knew very little of Fabio before he joined, and like most of us, would have expected a solitary, expensive striker signing to be vaguely fit for purpose in the scenario we find ourselves in.

He really isn't, and the club should have had some inkling of that before he signed on, and mitigated it by either getting someone else into the squad who was more ready to do a job right now, or have another plan within the existing squad.

Hard to imagine in any scenario that Raul would break his skull though. Out of 20 scenarios that would have been rock bottom on the list. As others have said having a back up striker who would be a bench warmer for every game is difficult to get. If i was one i certainly wouldn't want to take the pay to just watch someone else in my position every match. But that is me..

 

[slink]

But that's what happens when you only play one striker and only have one senior striker in the squad.

Everyone's nodding their heads and talking about fan expectations and what a player Fabio could be in a couple of years, but are we really a club that can invest that much in a player and then expect to hardly play him? Cos he doesn't look like he should be playing more than a few mins here and there when a game is won. Has there ever been that kind of luxurious precedent set elsewhere at a club our size?

It's sounds like something an elite club would do, but I read on here daily how we should lower our expectations and being 14th is fine. Which is it?

We are a club that have done it so yes we are a club that can do that. In your opinion he looks like he should only be playing when the game is won and that's fine but i disagree. He's shown enough for me that he could definitely be more than that player right now. I don't think the deal is one many clubs have done to be fair in the fact that he's so young and not expected to play too much but most transfers especially of young players are like that. Chelsea spent £70 million+ on Havertz and that's not paying off at the moment, he looks terrible at times but anyone that has seen him play before his move knows how good he is and that Chelsea and their fans need to be patient. Can Lampard and Chelsea afford to wait for him and several others to come good, well the answer should be yes but football is a here and now business so it's probably no.

I would say it is generally something the "big clubs" do more than others but that's generally because as i said earlier football is mostly a here and now business and patience is something clubs and fans don't have. There's a lot gone wrong this season following on from last, no pre season, injuries, new players have come in, tried to transition to a new style, changed formation etc.. Even with that performances aren't absolutely terrible, have they dipped yes and we got tanked a couple of times but games have been won/lost on really fine lines even more so than usual. I do think though that even with all that has gone wrong we should be doing better than we are and i think Nuno is at fault for part of that of course but so are some of the players. We have made more errors which have cost us and if you take out pretty the big errors such as Rui against Newcastle and Spurs, Moutinho and Semedo giving away really poor penalties then who knows where we would be. Errors are a part of the game but those 4 errors are ones the players shouldn't be making.

With all of that and other things on top such as no fans and Nuno obviously struggling, i don't think it's unreasonable to lower our expectations but i also don't think it's unreasonable to think we should be doing better. But if we take those errors out of those games we're probably 6 or 7 points better off and around 8th/9th, would that be good enough? I don't know but it does show how fine the margins are. Personally i don't mind us having a season where we aren't quite as good as i understand things haven't gone to plan but i do think we should be finishing higher than where we are however as i said above it's only fine margins and errors we don;t expect that are stopping us being there despite all that's gone wrong.

 

[prawnking]

Knew Prawnking reminded me of somebody

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I think tonight I'm going to restart the Thursday night clapping, but do it for those poor souls in football management and recruitment. They have it so hard, you just don't realise. Impossible job

 

[Paul]

Hard to imagine in any scenario that Raul would break his skull though. Out of 20 scenarios that would have been rock bottom on the list. As others have said having a back up striker who would be a bench warmer for every game is difficult to get. If i was one i certainly wouldn't want to take the pay to just watch someone else in my position every match. But that is me..

What you have to ask yourself is had Raul not been injured, how many minutes do you think Silva would have got, the odd ten or fifteen every now and again. maybe ?

 

[redvictor]

I personally think this is a good idea. I doubt Nuno reads twitter/fb/instagram, but he would sure see this. https://www.gofundme.com/f/nuno-ban...m_medium=social&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

 

[prawnking]

Hard to imagine in any scenario that Raul would break his skull though. Out of 20 scenarios that would have been rock bottom on the list. As others have said having a back up striker who would be a bench warmer for every game is difficult to get. If i was one i certainly wouldn't want to take the pay to just watch someone else in my position every match. But that is me..

As I've already said, this argument kind of works if we sign Fabio in September 2019.

Signing him in September 2020, six months into a global pandemic, after the longest season and shortest pre-season in our history, when we're undergoing a playing evolution and our only striker (who played almost every minute of that longest season in our history) has just become a dad... well there are a few scenarios there that should have made us think twice

 

[redvictor]

What you have to ask yourself is had Raul not been injured, how many minutes do you think Silva would have got, the odd ten or fifteen every now and again. maybe ?

Yea, that and the odd cup game. I've already voiced my opinion on Fabio. He was here to learn from Raul, and he was bought as a prospect, not a main striker. Part of that fee is because others were sniffing at a "great" prospect (apparently), and part of it was the brexit rules changing. I think they overpaid, but for sure Wolves scouting team know way more than us " managers" on here, as much as we like to think differently.

 

[redvictor]

As I've already said, this argument kind of works if we sign Fabio in September 2019.

Signing him in September 2020, six months into a global pandemic, after the longest season and shortest pre-season in our history, when we're undergoing a playing evolution and our only striker (who played almost every minute of that longest season in our history) has just become a dad... well there are a few scenarios there that should have made us think twice

See my post above