The Bruno Lage Appreciation Thread

[Johnny75]

Most things around Wolves are a Mendes choice, including the Nuno appointment. Was there the same unequivocal negativity around that? We clearly had people on here who saw his Benfica side telling us he was very good and he *could* be a good appointment. But still there a fair few who wrote him off before his team had even kicked a ball. You think that's a fair and reasonable criticism of him?

Don't get me wrong I was (and am) willing to give the guy a chance but based on his previous results, relationships with players, reliance on one man (Felix), tactical inflexibility and being out of the game a year I wasn't hopeful and was expecting a mess. I can see why others would think that way.

Likewise I can see why others didn't like Nuno and anything was always going to be better.

I'm glad Lage hasn't been a mess although that's based on a very small sample. He's made some terrible decisions but I can certainly see positive changes to style of play which really encourages me.

 

[Dire Wolf]

Don't get me wrong I was (and am) willing to give the guy a chance but based on his previous results, relationships with players, reliance on one man (Felix), tactical inflexibility and being out of the game a year I wasn't hopeful and was expecting a mess. I can see why others would think that way.

Likewise I can see why others didn't like Nuno and anything was always going to be better.

I'm glad Lage hasn't been a mess although that's based on a very small sample. He's made some terrible decisions but I can certainly see positive changes to style of play which really encourages me.

I think that is perfectly reasonable. I don't necessarily agree that the initial response to him should have been so negative, however. It seems to me some people unfairly wrote him off immediately, whereas for myself it was a case of "Let's wait and see before making a judgement".

I always believe you can't judge a team on the league table until a minimum of 10 games have been played. Once you get past 10 games I think there is enough of a sample size to form an opinion on where that team could finish. And I think that baseline is equally appropriate to making a judgement on the manager.

 

[Tony Towner]

Cba going over it again, but there are some serious misrepresentations of a lot of views re Lage's appointment. One or 2 comments by 1 or 2 posters seemed to have been lumped together and aimed at anyone who was in any way critical or cautious. Yet again, Nuno being sacked and Bruno being appointed are merged into one action

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I didn't think we should have sacked Nuno, I didn't think this was the right appointment at all and we looked fucking awful in pre-season. Then however well we may have played (not as well as people made out), we opened up with a start of played three, lost three, scored none.

So aye, there were reservations.

He's done well since, happy to hand him that credit. I do think we've ridden our luck a fair bit along the way (that Villa game is a potential season turner as that would have been five losses out of eight, think Chelsea home or Palace away under Nuno) and tactically I think we get it wrong at times, particularly when defending a lead. But there's more good than bad.

Let's see what he can do with a squad he actually wants.

 

[Throbber3]

Most things around Wolves are a Mendes choice, including the Nuno appointment.

Nutshell , nailed it! Drop the mic.

 

[Throbber3]

I didn't think we should have sacked Nuno, I didn't think this was the right appointment at all and we looked fucking awful in pre-season. Then however well we may have played (not as well as people made out), we opened up with a start of played three, lost three, scored none.

So aye, there were reservations.

He's done well since, happy to hand him that credit. I do think we've ridden our luck a fair bit along the way (that Villa game is a potential season turner as that would have been five losses out of eight, think Chelsea home or Palace away under Nuno) and tactically I think we get it wrong at times, particularly when defending a lead. But there's more good than bad.

Let's see what he can do with a squad he actually wants.

Fair play. I can get behind that considering how you felt when he came here.

 

[WolfMan]

I stand corrected. He resigned after equalling the worst run in the clubs history.

That's better

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

I was emotionally involved with Nuno, the last season was tough to watch, were we hampered by selling Jota and then loosing Jimenez to injury, of course we were but we were dog shit to watch. We never did play free flowing attacking football under Nuno, whilst we had some great results we were always very careful and tended to break on teams or have 10-15 minute spells of going forward.

I was underwhelmed by Bruno, and he didn't capture my imagination as Nuno did (its pretty hard to when we signed no one and I didn't hear him speak) I also thought they looked odd with the training videos they released of them running around with bits of paper.

I am more than happy with where we are, even if the football is a bit up and down and we have lost our strong identity a little. I doubt I ever will ever feel for Bruno as I did Nuno, and I doubt I ever will even if we surpass Nunos record and we win something (although he will rightly have his own place of accolade)

Nuno had some charisma that I fell for, when I heard him talk in that documentary that sky did before his first season I felt connected and saw someone who could inspire a team, call it a man crush or searching for a surrogate farther figure, I believed in Nuno, shaking that belief is pretty damn difficult.

 

[redvictor]

Let's see what he can do with a squad he actually wants.

In fairness he hasn't done that bad with the squad he inherited. He's certainly got more of a tune out of them than Nuno did last year. Of course there were extenuating circumstances, but I'm interested to see what he does with some new faces. That's if we actually get some in January!

 

[Paul]

See, I don't understand this 'squad he inherited' stance, it's only a couple of players off the side that finished 7th twice? To his credit he's motivated a squad that looked lacklustre and directionless last season, but people talk as if he'd inherited a squad of perennial relegation fodder that he's got to perform miracles.

 

[Dire Wolf]

See, I don't understand this 'squad he inherited' stance, it's only a couple of players off the side that finished 7th twice? To his credit he's motivated a squad that looked lacklustre and directionless last season, but people talk as if he'd inherited a squad of perennial relegation fodder that he's got to perform miracles.

I think the point is that it is not a squad built the way he would want it. Hence, he's working with the squad he inherited. It's not a comment on how the squad performed previously, it's a comment on the type of players he would ideally choose if he wanted to play the way he prefers.

 

[prawnking]

See, I don't understand this 'squad he inherited' stance, it's only a couple of players off the side that finished 7th twice?

It's a bit more than that tbf? The last team that finished 7th featured Jota, Jonny, Neto and a fit/in form Rui/Boly/Doc/Raul. Moutinho's legs have an extra 18 months on them too.

Getting as good a tune out of the team results-wise as we have is a very good job

 

[The Bear]

He's done very well considering he's had to adjust his style to suit the 3-4-3 which we are most suited to currently.

Stopped the rot of the first three games, and has given us a reasonable balance of defence and attack. Sometimes it goes wrong and sometimes the players just don't play well.

I think he's a better manager than a lot of people gave him credit for though, purely based on him only managing in the Portugese league.

It'll be interesting to see what changes he makes if and when we get players who can allow us to switch to a back four.

 

[The Bear]

I didn't think we should have sacked Nuno, I didn't think this was the right appointment at all and we looked fucking awful in pre-season. Then however well we may have played (not as well as people made out), we opened up with a start of played three, lost three, scored none.

So aye, there were reservations.

He's done well since, happy to hand him that credit. I do think we've ridden our luck a fair bit along the way (that Villa game is a potential season turner as that would have been five losses out of eight, think Chelsea home or Palace away under Nuno) and tactically I think we get it wrong at times, particularly when defending a lead. But there's more good than bad.

Let's see what he can do with a squad he actually wants.

All fair enough, even if I personally thought you were a bit too harsh on the bloke from the start and was sure he was going to fail.

I take it you don't think he's going to relegate us now?

 

[sycophantia]

It'll be interesting if he changes from 3-4-3 if he gets a few players in. I was very much in the 'we must go 4 at the back' camp as soon as possible
Now I'm not so sure, at times we've played some lovely stuff with the current set up and showed you can play entertaining attacking football if you do it right.

 

[Tony Towner]

All depends on who we sign defensively. Imagine effectively swapping Semedo as an attacking option for a forward or AM with Hwang, Podence and Raul fluid in their movement with him. The prospect could be pretty exciting

 

[PuntsWolf]

Lot of good points on both sides. However, there definitely is a lot of points scoring where some are trying to talk him up too much to prove how wrong the doubters were (I wasn’t one of them). Yes we’re 6th in the league currently but we still haven’t played the best 3 teams (we just ticked off the 4th and beat them, although I’m pretty confident everyone will accept ther is a further gulf to the top 3). So factor in those and we’d probably be around 10th as TT says.

He hasn’t been backed but the Squad still isn’t that bad as Paul says. A real down season last year and we came 13th, we should definitely be finishing ahead of that even with the same set of players (particular when a lot of them have improved - Kilman, Semedo, RAN, Neves, even Saiss).

DW also points out that we’ve rode our luck. We have. These things do balance out over the course of a season and they have already to an extent but the league table can still be very false at this stage when one freak incident can dictate a result and move you 5 or 6 places.

I’m happy with him and how things are going. The football is certainly better and the results are decent. I feel he’s showing signs that he could potentially take us up a level but there’s certainly not Enough evidence to say for definite at this stage. Each week we get more evidence and it will be nice actually being able to see what he is capable of when he gets some key players back from injury and new signings will help further.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Lot of good points on both sides. However, there definitely is a lot of points scoring where some are trying to talk him up too much to prove how wrong the doubters were (I wasn’t one of them). Yes we’re 6th in the league currently but we still haven’t played the best 3 teams (we just ticked off the 4th and beat them, although I’m pretty confident everyone will accept ther is a further gulf to the top 3). So factor in those and we’d probably be around 10th as TT says.

He hasn’t been backed but the Squad still isn’t that bad as Paul says. A real down season last year and we came 13th, we should definitely be finishing ahead of that even with the same set of players (particular when a lot of them have improved - Kilman, Semedo, RAN, Neves, even Saiss).

DW also points out that we’ve rode our luck. We have. These things do balance out over the course of a season and they have already to an extent but the league table can still be very false at this stage when one freak incident can dictate a result and move you 5 or 6 places.

I’m happy with him and how things are going. The football is certainly better and the results are decent. I feel he’s showing signs that he could potentially take us up a level but there’s certainly not Enough evidence to say for definite at this stage. Each week we get more evidence and it will be nice actually being able to see what he is capable of when he gets some key players back from injury and new signings will help further.

All of that is bang on for me. I’m going to look at where we are on January 3rd as we will have played everyone (plus Watford and United twice) so it should be reasonably even in terms of quality of opposition played pretty much for the entire table.

Im encouraged though. I think we are going down the right path. Hopefully with the support of decent recruitment and none of the enormous potholes of injury we saw last season we could have a very decent time of it this time round. No idea what that could mean, but I hope we might be in the mix for Europe again.

 

[prawnking]

Lot of good points on both sides. However, there definitely is a lot of points scoring where some are trying to talk him up too much to prove how wrong the doubters were (I wasn’t one of them). Yes we’re 6th in the league currently but we still haven’t played the best 3 teams (we just ticked off the 4th and beat them, although I’m pretty confident everyone will accept ther is a further gulf to the top 3). So factor in those and we’d probably be around 10th as TT says.

He hasn’t been backed but the Squad still isn’t that bad as Paul says. A real down season last year and we came 13th, we should definitely be finishing ahead of that even with the same set of players (particular when a lot of them have improved - Kilman, Semedo, RAN, Neves, even Saiss).

DW also points out that we’ve rode our luck. We have. These things do balance out over the course of a season and they have already to an extent but the league table can still be very false at this stage when one freak incident can dictate a result and move you 5 or 6 places.

I’m happy with him and how things are going. The football is certainly better and the results are decent. I feel he’s showing signs that he could potentially take us up a level but there’s certainly not Enough evidence to say for definite at this stage. Each week we get more evidence and it will be nice actually being able to see what he is capable of when he gets some key players back from injury and new signings will help further.

I think most of this is fair enough. I doubt anyone thinks we'll stay 6th for too long, but it's where we're at and it's good to see.

I'm not sure we can downplay the manager too much by saying the squad 'isn't that bad'. We all know how much extra a good manager can squeeze out of players, that's why teams sack so many, to get that advantage. It's why Ole has gone, even with the brilliant squad he has.

Any old manager can't just turn up and get a team like us performing at the top of our ceiling (which is what 6th is). He's obviously decent, let's hope he hasn't peaked haha

 

[Throbber3]

I think most of this is fair enough. I doubt anyone thinks we'll stay 6th for too long, but it's where we're at and it's good to see.

I'm not sure we can downplay the manager too much by saying the squad 'isn't that bad'. We all know how much extra a good manager can squeeze out of players, that's why teams sack so many, to get that advantage. It's why Ole has gone, even with the brilliant squad he has.

Any old manager can't just turn up and get a team like us performing at the top of our ceiling (which is what 6th is). He's obviously decent, let's hope he hasn't peaked haha

I just want to see him play with a team and a system he wants. Then I am happy to judge. Give him 3 new faces and then we can have some fun. Fosun have plenty to thank Mr algae for so far given their abysmal record in the last 3 windows. Time for them to pay him back.