Palace 2-0 Wolves: Verdict Thread

[Alan]

I'd like to think that they wouldn't cook the books in a way that could be deciphered via forum maths, but...

 

[WolfMan]

There's a charge by companies for using a credit card I believe, but I'm sure someone has posted before they won't let you pay in person in cash either

Yeah I was more thinking along the lines of is there a benefit in some obscure accounting way that's not obvious - having just researched it, basically there isn't.

There is a charge companies have to pay for card transactions but when you go to Tesco or even the local cornershop, they don't say ok that's 50p plus a £6 admin charge, for the obvious reason most people would say fuck that I'll go somewhere else.

And that's what it boils down to essentially, the fact Wolves fans can't go anywhere else, so they've thought we'll fleece a bit more off them. It's disgraceful really.

 

[Del Woppio]

Then there's something shonky in that. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

I'd imagine it includes accruals for bonuses, management and coaching staff (and pay offs?), medical, commercial, academy coaching, scouts and all that too. Maybe even paye expenses I guess.

 

[The Bear]

Can you even buy tickets on General sale now?

YoungWolf couldn't buy one just a few days before the Everton game and he had to use a members supporter number.

 

[PuntsWolf]

My favourite page @swissramble had us at £95m as Del says.

Since then we’ve had a fair amount of contract extensions. Neto And Raul would have got big rises. Kilman has now had two so he’s probably on a lot more now. Plus we’ve bought in Semedo who is probably on of our biggest earners, but I’d like to think Marcal, Hoever, Fabio and RAN aren’t on more than 120k between them.

Did shift a fair amount out though. Jota, Cutrone, Costa, Doherty, Bonatini, Vinagre is probably 150k off a week possibly more depending on wage contribution.

Long story short. Our wage bill is small in relation to other clubs, and even even better when you consider wages:turnover ratio.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Patricio was said to be on 100k a week too.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Patricio was said to be on 100k a week too.

That won’t be on the accounts published in March though. But I have no doubt that this season the wage bill has shrunk (or certainly no bigger) from last years.

 

[WolfMan]

View attachment 4561
My favourite page @swissramble had us at £95m as Del says.

Since then we’ve had a fair amount of contract extensions. Neto And Raul would have got big rises. Kilman has now had two so he’s probably on a lot more now. Plus we’ve bought in Semedo who is probably on of our biggest earners, but I’d like to think Marcal, Hoever, Fabio and RAN aren’t on more than 120k between them.

Did shift a fair amount out though. Jota, Cutrone, Costa, Doherty, Bonatini, Vinagre is probably 150k off a week possibly more depending on wage contribution.

Long story short. Our wage bill is small in relation to fisher clubs, and even even better when you consider wages:turnover ratio.

That's really interesting, read somewhere wages rather than transfer spend is a much more reliable indicator of league position so two 7th and one 13th place finish really has us punching above our weight.

 

[PuntsWolf]

That's really interesting, read somewhere wages rather than transfer spend is a much more reliable indicator of league position so two 7th and one 13th place finish really has us punching above our weight.

It does have that correlation.

However ours is skewed slightly because we have such a small squad, so we haven’t got that many players on big money. Plus we generally have a young squad, where generally players under 21-23 are on less than say an established player in their late twenties.

So for example, I’d say our wages per first team player are probably quite a bit higher than Brighton’s, but they’ve got a lot more players in their squad.

 

[WolfMan]

It does have that correlation.

However ours is skewed slightly because we have such a small squad, so we haven’t got that many players on big money. Plus we generally have a young squad, where generally players under 21-23 are on less than say an established player in their late twenties.

So for example, I’d say our wages per first team player are probably quite a bit higher than Brighton’s, but they’ve got a lot more players in their squad.

Playing devils advocate could that be a perceived advantage of the way the club is being run? I suppose it depends on whether the approach can scale up in terms of league position relative to wages or whether we've hit a ceiling.

 

[Haggstone]

Playing devils advocate could that be a perceived advantage of the way the club is being run? I suppose it depends on whether the approach can scale up in terms of league position relative to wages or whether we've hit a ceiling.

Works fine until you start to get injuries or you need to adapt the way you play because teams work you out eventually. We had almost no injuries and had ‘our way of playing’ in season 1 in the prem, more often than not it worked.

Finnishing 7th is about the ceiling for that strategy because the top six have the depth and quality to be more consistent. Hitting that ceiling just isn’t sustainable season after season though for the reasons given above.

 

[Tony Towner]

I think we all saw the flaw last season. Jeff said he did, his response was to reduce the first team squad by 1

 

[Throbber3]

That's really interesting, read somewhere wages rather than transfer spend is a much more reliable indicator of league position so two 7th and one 13th place finish really has us punching above our weight.

Yes it did but it also was being matched by Fosun rhetoric and statements of grandeur regarding the dreaded ambition word in those first two seasons and now their buys since have often been a little naive ( Fabio and Semedo for north of 65 million is ridiculous and well debated) Loans for WJ and Vitinha were not successful, RAN is still a work in progress but looks decent value so far. Jury still out on Podence , Hoever and the loan on Trincao. Sa and Hwang look fine to me so far but overall its not a wonderful hit rate since the two 7th places.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Playing devils advocate could that be a perceived advantage of the way the club is being run? I suppose it depends on whether the approach can scale up in terms of league position relative to wages or whether we've hit a ceiling.

It’s perfectly fine and I tend to agree with the small squad mantra. But you need your young/squad players to be good enough to be used. In the EL season we were basically only wiling to use 13 players. Kilman, Vinagre, Burr, MGW, Jordao and even Podence before lockdown weren’t trusted to be used and they probably weren’t good enough at the time (or still now) in the majority of cases. The answers has always been somewhere in the middle. You don’t want 20 senior outfield players (unless you have Europe and cup runs to keep them occupied) but you can’t have only 15 outfield players who are willing to use, particularly when 3 of them have a patchy injury record and you are losing players to an international tournament.

 

[Throbber3]

It’s perfectly fine and I tend to agree with the small squad mantra. But you need your young/squad players to be good enough to be used. In the EL season we were basically only wiling to use 13 players. Kilman, Vinagre, Burr, MGW, Jordao and even Podence before lockdown weren’t trusted to be used and they probably weren’t good enough at the time (or still now) in the majority of cases. The answers has always been somewhere in the middle. You don’t want 20 senior outfield players (unless you have Europe and cup runs to keep them occupied) but you can’t have only 15 outfield players who are willing to use, particularly when 3 of them have a patchy injury record and you are losing players to an international tournament.

Exactly. We have been short in certain areas and overstaffed in others. A quality AM , CH and back up CF were the main issues. Hwang covers the third of those bases. We still need the other two if we are to play in a style Lage wanted us too , or appeared to want us to by his early game set ups and instructions.

 

[Paul]

Then there's something shonky in that. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

You do know there's more than just the players at Wolves don't you ?

 

[From Distant Shores]

We'll post a profit of around £50m in the next accounts I reckon, unless there's been a significant repayment of Fosun's loans. Unless (shudder) I've got my maths really wrong.

Repaying loans does not affect the amount of profit you make, it just reduces the cash that you have in the bank.

Paying interest on loans does reduce your profit but as far as I can tell the Fosun Companies that have lent money to Wolves seem to have done so on an interest-free basis.

 

[Johnny75]

Exactly. We have been short in certain areas and overstaffed in others. A quality AM , CH and back up CF were the main issues. Hwang covers the third of those bases. We still need the other two if we are to play in a style Lage wanted us too , or appeared to want us to by his early game set ups and instructions.

If we get the players Lage wants you're going to be disappointed with your AM. He tried 4-4-2 at the start of the season in the friendlies which flat out didn't work as we don't have a box-to-box/ ball winning midfielder of any substance (Donk is fucking shit in the league this season). And that's before we get to the CB's not being good enough and having no left winger (bizarrely playing RAN out there).

If he wants to go with his Benfica style system I'm not sure why he isn't doing that now as we have the players to do that but he clearly thinks our defenders/ midfielders aren't good enough for it (he played a central midfielder wide in this system but the player we had who could fit has gone on loan to Sheffield)

Sa
Semedo---Coady---Kilman---RAN
Moutinho---Neves
Trincao-----------Podence
Hwang---Raul​

The system relied on the full backs getting up and down which both could do easily but Semedo doesn't really have the end product. It also relies on the centre backs sliding across if under pressure and the centre midfielders dropping into the centre back spaces. In attack it would look like:

Sa
Coady---Kilman
Moutinho---Neves
Semedo---Trincao---Podence---RAN
Hwang---Raul
​

Which is pretty potent but there isn't a lot of pace if the opposition win the ball and hit it quickly over the full backs.

So if Lage wanted to play his Benfica style he'd need at least a CB with pace. Mosquera can't be relied on yet and Lonwijk and Hubner are too young to have any impact yet but both do have pace.

If Lage really wanted to go with 4 at the back he could play:

Sa
Semedo---Coady---Kilman---RAN
Donk
Moutinho---Neves
Trincao-----------------------Hwang
Raul​

That's the only position Donk could play and he would be doing the Ndidi job he does for Leicester and the job we've struggled with over the last few weeks (Delph, Kounate, Janelt and Baptiste for Brentford on a double pivot).

But Lage has gone with 3-4-3 and an AM in that system wouldn't work either. I would think Sanches fits a B2B type player best but wouldn't be surprised if we went for Donny VdB as he did that job for Ajax plenty of times too.

 

[The Bear]

I think a 4-2-3-1 would be more effective. Play Hwang behind Jimenez with the freedom to join and link up with Raul as often as possible. Those two would likely interchange any way as Raul often likes to drop deep as seen with his two assists to Hwang recently. It would mean Hwang defending centrally out of possession but that shouldn't be a problem.

It means only 2 wide positions available, and 4 players to fit into them,which is ideal competition - Neto, Trincao, Traore, Podence.

If we can get Sanches he would make 4 options for CM with Neves, Joao and Donk.

We'd just need to buy a quality CB to make the back four realistic. In that situation one of the current CBs would have to be moved on. Marcal would be the prime candidate due to his injury record, with Jonny hopefully back at some point next year.

 

[prawnking]

I think a 4-2-3-1 would be more effective. Play Hwang behind Jimenez with the freedom to join and link up with Raul as often as possible. Those two would likely interchange any way as Raul often likes to drop deep as seen with his two assists to Hwang recently. It would mean Hwang defending centrally out of possession but that shouldn't be a problem.

It means only 2 wide positions available, and 4 players to fit into them,which is ideal competition - Neto, Trincao, Traore, Podence.

If we can get Sanches he would make 4 options for CM with Neves, Joao and Donk.

We'd just need to buy a quality CB to make the back four realistic. In that situation one of the current CBs would have to be moved on. Marcal would be the prime candidate due to his injury record, with Jonny hopefully back at some point next year.

Like the sound of lot of that. Competition for the wide places seems well balanced.

What are your thoughts on back up/competition for the central Hwang spot? I guess Fabio?