Pre-season friendly thread

[SSB]

A word on Bruno Lage. The man doesn’t shut up . He is like a cat on hot bricks and he misses nothing. Constantly encouraging and asking things of his players . Very encouraging.

I’d be interested in watching “Dia de Treino” if it was available with English subtitles.

 

[YoungWolf]

is it this? Youtube lets you translate the subtitles

 

[SSB]

is it this? Youtube lets you translate the subtitles

Yeah that’s it. There’s six episodes I think. For some reason YouTube doesn’t give me the option to translate the subtitles into English.

 

[YoungWolf]

Oh that's weird, I managed to do it by turning subtitles on, then clicking auto-translate in settings?

 

[SSB]

Oh that's weird, I managed to do it by turning subtitles on, then clicking auto-translate in settings?

Yeah sorted it now. "Auto-Translate" didn't show up until I put the subtitles on.

There's three episodes on YouTube if anyone is interested.

Ep1 (the sound is a bit dodgy on this one)

Ep2

Ep3

 

[Lycan]

Not really sure how to feel about seeing us play 3 different formations in the first 180 mins of pre season.

On one hand, my biggest gripe with Lage at Benfica was that I perceived him to be tactically inflexible. He didn't change up much at all even when it was clearly not working, so to see him change shape to suit the players available, rather than shoehorn players into unfamiliar positions, is a huge relief to me. All the best teams in this league can switch between multiple formations as well, it was the difference between us and the top 6 in Nuno's first 2 Premier League seasons and exactly why Nuno chose to introduce a back 4 last season.

That being said, we saw last season how exposed a lot of our current squad looked when forced out of their 3atb comfort zone and of the the 3 formations on show, the 3-5-2 looked by far the most natural to me.

Not going to comment too much on personnel as these friendlies are primarily for fitness/tactical work but I've enjoyed watching Aït-Nouri at LW so far, Max Kilman has been imperious at the back and it's just an absolute joy to see Raúl back. He makes such a difference to how we play, in any formation.

 

[Throbber3]

Regardless of how we got from May to here ,there was a hope by most ,of positive changes and today we got to see the first buds of blossom on the trees of change. On the second friendly, against a very good side I am very happy to have seen it and hope it continues in that vein .

 

[Dire Wolf]

Didn’t watch all, just dipped in and out of the 1st half and caught the last 10 minutes of the 2nd half. Thought we were ok for a training game. Good to get some minutes in for Sa and Mosquera. Perry wasn't great, but hopefully plenty to come from him. Spent most of the 1st half trying to work out our formation: pretty sure it wasn’t 4-4-2! Looked most like a 4-2-3-1 but Marcal seemed to be coming inside quite frequently so what do I know…

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We played some ok stuff at times, that offside flag against Raul was a joke, that's 1-0 right there (in fact both linesmen were shit all game).

RAN looked decent in that role, him and Marçal down that side against the stronger teams until Neto is back maybe? Impressive from Mosquera, certainly a big unit. A nice moment for Cutrone, I don't expect it to make any difference in the long run but still. Otasowie did well when he came on. If Sa could stop messing around then that would be just grand.

We obviously need players still, a big few weeks ahead.

 

[Wolf Hunting]

Good to read all the comments on the game. But hopefully going forward, someone would spare the time and effort to actually describe the goal and the build up to it. i used to do it when I only had a stream but now most of our games are on sky or one of the others, I don't even turn my laptop on any more.

 

[Kenny]

If Sa could stop messing around then that would be just grand.

What messing around did he do? He was only involved 7 or 8 times. Mostly standard stuff but one quick movement off his line and a one handed take over a defender after his kick was charged down the main bits.
Only 1 time of concern when Kilman left a ball for him and assumed he would come for it but that went out without any issue. I know his first involvement was dealing with a ball played across to him under pressure but he was pretty cool under pressure there and played a nice ball out wide.
Seemed to chat a lot to the defence.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Just looks way too skittish on the ball to me, Adrian levels of believing he's a bit of a baller. No issue with our keeper trying to play but rein it in a bit. Mind you I'd rather he be having the scares now than in three weeks.

 

[Kenny]

Nothing was standing out for me on that front. His 45 was piss easy though. Ruddy's was the same but he tried to inject some jeopardy with 1 of his passes out.

 

[Paul]

There's still life in Saiss yet

 

[Wolvensam]

There's still life in Saiss yet

He shouldn’t be starting games unless in a back three (and even then it is questionable) but as a back-up when others are injured/maybe need a rest he will be grand. He’s fine to start 10 games or so a season.

 

[AndyWolves]

Is RAN a LW now whilst Neto is injured? Kinda makes a little more sense why we were after Robinson

 

[GLASGOWOLF]

Interesting reading the comments. It wqs good fun day out, the Betis Ultras were good fun, ended up giving one of them my shirt.
Typical Spanish, fucking could not organise a piss up in a brewery.
All Wolves fans bought tickets on tge Bemch side, when we got there they were letting everyone just walk in, which meant instead of being together we were split all over the place. 2nd half we went and sat right by there Ultras, the police were heavy handed put a line between us we were chatting and having a laugh with each other.

We made a fair bit of noise but it was difficult in that stadium.

I am not sure if you all realise just how bad the Surface was, it was worse than a parks pitch.

Sa looked really comfortable with his feet, and quick of his line.
Mosquera my god he his Huge, and there is one hell of a player there looked a fecking bargain at 4.5m.
Otasowie WTF did they feed him, he is massive and again looks a decent player, not sure he is ready to play in the league.

Trincao, I really like, tricky, quick feet, puts a good ball in really good buy.

Silva is half a yard quicker than last season, and has certainly Bulked up, I saw tge commebt about getting k ocked of the ball easy, it's not that he gets knocked of the ball easy, he goes down looking for fouls far to easy.

All in all a decent but it was just a kick about and means nothing

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Tomorrow's game moved to 6pm UK time.

 

[GLASGOWOLF]

Tomorrow's game moved to 6pm UK time.

Interesting

 

[Bulderdash]

Interesting

1 of 2 reasons, teams don't like playing at wildly different times within a short period as it messes with sleep and nutrition patterns which increases injury risks and it should mean more people can pay to watch it too.