Let's talk about Nuno....

[prawnking]

If the answer is 'with better players we win more' then the club surely has some culpability for leaving us with a Raul backup who's about 18 months shy of being up to it?

 

[White Wolf]

Bit late to the party but I think that Nuno is the right man for the job. He's surpassed expectations and got us to overperform in both Prem seasons so far.

He's not infallible and has had spells of getting things wrong tactically, whatever we were doing at the start of 19/20 as the best example plus some specific games such as Burnley away this year. Happens to every manager though - Guardiola had City as a very inconsistent and quite confused mess for most of last season, and it wasn't until late 2020 that he seems to have found the right formula for them to get their groove back.

The way we played in 19/20, though it led us to getting pretty close to European spots while also balancing the Europa League, wasn't something that would have led to us consistently making the top spots IMO. It was his decision to push for this transition and attempt to move away from the cautious football to take us to the next level and I'm supportive of it. The transition has led to some disappointing results and some pretty rubbish games so far, but for me as long as we don't turn into a completely dire outfit that is battling against relegation, then I think he has earned enough credit from getting us to overperform to make this transition season work, especially when we have also had a lot of extenuating circumstances making things worse.

 

[PuntsWolf]

I agree with the fine margins, I also think having better players helps.

Take Vardy away from Leicester and they'd struggle, not as much as us but they wouldn't be where they are

“Struggle”

What like when Leicester B stuffed Braga 4-0.

 

[Del Woppio]

If the answer is 'with better players we win more' then the club surely has some culpability for leaving us with a Raul backup who's about 18 months shy of being up to it?

You misunderstand the rules. When we win, or don't get injuries, or have a success in the transfer market, it's because we've done everything right. When those things don't happen, it's unlucky and it can't be helped.

 

[Jinky]

Good read, that. Reasoned debate from the majority.

For me, Nuno is the right man for the job. I would prefer he stopped with the cliches at this point - "we need to find solutions" - well yeah, can you actually do it instead of saying it after every game when we've just dropped points?

He is a brilliant manager, a very likable character and he appears to be a superb man manager behind the scenes, which of course we don't get to see. However, like all managers, he has his blind spots and we are absolutely allowed to discuss these without being made to feel like we are somehow betraying the club.

I have found myself getting increasingly frustrated with his defensive/passive tactics - and how long he takes to make substitutions when the game is there to be won. Cutrone is the most recent and perfect example. Get him on 20 minutes earlier and let the lad have a fair chance of winning us the game. Fabio was flogged at that point - offering nothing. It doesn't matter how many injuries we had last night, the game was there to be won - but instead he brings on Hoever, leaves Cutrone on the bench, they score and then the poor bastard comes on 2-1 down, with 15 minutes left on the clock and teammates who's heads had noticeably dropped. Make the change sooner, Nuno.

We all knew he was cautious before he managed his first game for us. It's not really been an issue before because we haven't been in this sort of position. Now we are and we're starting to see that he can be quite stubborn. I hope he lets the handbrake off soon when a game is there to be won. The injuries are one thing, but playing Fabio Silva left wing, and leaving him on for 80 minutes is all on Nuno.

Still love the bloke, though.

 

[AndyWolves]

“Struggle”

What like when Leicester B stuffed Braga 4-0.

He missed Leicester at home to villa - lost 1-0
0-0 vrs Arsenal he comes on with 30 minutes to go and scores the winner
1-1 Vs palace where he played 25 minutes

Apart from these he's played 90 in every single PL game, so yes, I think they'd struggle, and I'll say this bit again, not as much as we have. Or, in others they struggle, but less than we have without Raul.

He has 11 goals and 8 assists in 16 PL games. Leicester have 31 goals in total

 

[prawnking]

Important to remember we haven't been without Raul all season though, he's missed half our games so far. But we still looked disjointed and unconvincing when he was playing, and he himself looked like he was struggling a bit (he still managed to knock a few goals in of course).

If we'd had the same thing happen to Adama, Coady or Neves it would have been a blow, but we had answers in the squad to mitigate it to a greater degree

 

[PuntsWolf]

He missed Leicester at home to villa - lost 1-0
0-0 vrs Arsenal he comes on with 30 minutes to go and scores the winner
1-1 Vs palace where he played 25 minutes

Apart from these he's played 90 in every single PL game, so yes, I think they'd struggle, and I'll say this bit again, not as much as we have. Or, in others they struggle, but less than we have without Raul.

He has 11 goals and 8 assists in 16 PL games. Leicester have 31 goals in total

Team missing best player not doing as well shocker. “Struggle” is a ridiculous statement though.

And as Prawn says. If our whole success is based on one player being able to play 90 mins every week, wouldn’t it be sound logic to have some kind of contingency plan...

But ignoring that, i don’t think we’ve actually “struggled” without him. We weren’t great when he was playing. I’d argue our best performances have been without him. He isn’t the reason we have won 1 of last 8.

 

[Haggstone]

You misunderstand the rules. When we win, or don't get injuries, or have a success in the transfer market, it's because we've done everything right. When those things don't happen, it's unlucky and it can't be helped.

Just on this because it gets brought up a lot, I suppose some prefer to give the club the benefit of the doubt where others are quicker to offer constructive criticism. You are going to end up with friction in that situation I suppose. As always the truth is probably somewhere in between.

It’s funny because during the Morgan/Moxey era I had you pegged as the former. Strange that you appear to have changed position when we actually are a half decent team.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

It's easy to blame our poor form on the loss of Raul but I'm not convinced he would have made that much difference in quite a few of the games he has missed. When Nuno indicated a change of style I think many, if not most, of us hoped that we would be less reliant on wide players creating chances from open play. We hoped for a bit of guile and more than the occasional through ball from the midfield. As it is, not much going forward has changed, most chances come from out wide. We went into the season with just three wide options, Neto, Traore and Pod, and Pod has played more centrally. That means that as soon as we are relying on other players out wide we drop a level.

Yesterday we started with Silva on the left and I don't think he's dribbled past a player yet, and then we replaced him with Hoever who looks extremely composed but he is most certainly not a winger. Our wide players probably work harder than anyone in our team which is why they have been the most substituted players in Nuno's time yet a couple of injuries has left us with no decent options and let's face it nobody expected Traore to go a whole season uninjured. It's probably as big an oversight as meaningful cover for Raul, as whoever plays centre forward is massively reliant on the wide players to create chances.

 

[Del Woppio]

Just on this because it gets brought up a lot, I suppose some prefer to give the club the benefit of the doubt where others are quicker to offer constructive criticism. You are going to end up with friction in that situation I suppose. As always the truth is probably somewhere in between.

It’s funny because during the Morgan/Moxey era I had you pegged as the former. Strange that you appear to have changed position when we actually are a half decent team.

tbf since Morgan bought us I've had two kids and two divorces, maybe it's weathered my optimism somewhat :lol:

 

[Tony Towner]

He missed Leicester at home to villa - lost 1-0
0-0 vrs Arsenal he comes on with 30 minutes to go and scores the winner
1-1 Vs palace where he played 25 minutes

Apart from these he's played 90 in every single PL game, so yes, I think they'd struggle, and I'll say this bit again, not as much as we have. Or, in others they struggle, but less than we have without Raul.

He has 11 goals and 8 assists in 16 PL games. Leicester have 31 goals in total

He's scored 3 times more penalties than we've had in total and some of those assists are for those penalties so that's skuing the figures. Take that out and it's 5 and 5. Not that any of that is really relevant

 

[Haggstone]

If the answer is 'with better players we win more' then the club surely has some culpability for leaving us with a Raul backup who's about 18 months shy of being up to it?

I would say some culpability with a healthy dose of sympathy from me. It’s not like Jeff forgot to pick Raul MKII up off the shelf while doing his weekly food shop is it? I mean we probably could have signed Bobby Read (et al) to sit on the bench and he probably would have given us more than Silva has. Not enough to stop this down turn in form and results since Rauls injury though.

 

[AndyWolves]

Team missing best player not doing as well shocker. “Struggle” is a ridiculous statement though.

And as Prawn says. If our whole success is based on one player being able to play 90 mins every week, wouldn’t it be sound logic to have some kind of contingency plan...

But ignoring that, i don’t think we’ve actually “struggled” without him. We weren’t great when he was playing. I’d argue our best performances have been without him. He isn’t the reason we have won 1 of last 8.

So back to my original point, teams do better when they have better players available.

We all know we should have had a better back up for Raul.

 

[prawnking]

We all know we should have had a better back up for Raul.

You say that, but I've still read people maintaining it was a near-impossibility

 

[Premier Quality]

Important to remember we haven't been without Raul all season though, he's missed half our games so far. But we still looked disjointed and unconvincing when he was playing, and he himself looked like he was struggling a bit (he still managed to knock a few goals in of course).

If we'd had the same thing happen to Adama, Coady or Neves it would have been a blow, but we had answers in the squad to mitigate it to a greater degree

Whilst we weren’t playing brilliantly as we “transitioned”, we were picking up a good tally of points. It’s only since rauls injury that we’ve fallen away.

 

[AndyWolves]

You say that, but I've still read people maintaining it was a near-impossibility

Its very hard to do, it's no way easy for a club like wolves to do.

I liked the idea of signing Silva as opposed to signing someone like Nelson Oliveria to sit on the bench.

We don't have Europa this season and we've done ok before with Raul up front. Signing someone who will learn and grow and will come into his prime when Raul starts to hit his Giroud years makes perfect sense. We identified Silva as someone who we think will be a star, it makes more sense to use our resources on someone who will grow into an asset for the club rather than someone who will leave with no resale value. The club took a calculated risk in that it left us short up top and unfortunately that risk has come home to roost.

So, I'm happy with the approach the club took it's just unfortunate how it turned out.

Edit. I wouldn't be opposed to a Josh King type who could fill in if we really needed it

 

[prawnking]

Whilst we weren’t playing brilliantly as we “transitioned”, we were picking up a good tally of points. It’s only since rauls injury that we’ve fallen away.

Our points tally has been worse since his injury but our goalscoring hasn't suffered weirdly (I thought it would have done till I looked) and since Spurs we've probably looked at our most convincing performance-wise, bar the second half at Brighton and second half last night.

 

[Haggstone]

You say that, but I've still read people maintaining it was a near-impossibility

Common sense tells be it would be pretty bloody hard. Ironically, people’s reluctance to name names because it’s ‘not their job to know about this stuff’ hasn’t convinced me to think differently. Funny that.

 

[prawnking]

Common sense tells be it would be pretty bloody hard. Ironically, people’s reluctance to name names because it’s ‘not their job to know about this stuff’ hasn’t convinced me to think differently. Funny that.

You say don't start with victim stuff but you still rely on the crutch of blaming forum members much more readily than the club employees who actually make these calls