There goes Julen!

[Loki]

maybe Jeff wants to rebuild the squad with a cheaper approach this summer with smaller signings (Lemina, Dawson), and Lop wants it with marquee signings again (Cunha, Nunes).

Hmmm. Which two players have had the biggest impact?

 

[Deano]

In some respects it's good that Lopetegui isn't going to roll over and have his belly ticked, and that he is using his standing in the game to make sure we have the resources required to rebuild the squad, his comments are starting to tip the scale now though and I'm not really bothered whether he's done 1 interview that the quotes have come from or 20 - some of it is disrespectful to the club.

 

[Donegal Wolf]

He's not doing himself any favours with the fan base, that is for sure. The longer it rumbles on the worse it will get. It needs someone to come out and either say he's staying, or the corner flag picture gets posted.....

Also means even if he does stay that as soon as he has a bad run, couple of dodgy results perceived to be due to team selections a section of the fans are going to turn on him straight away.

 

[The Bear]

Hmmm. Which two players have had the biggest impact?

Every team need a handful of reliable players that keep it simple to allow the more talented players to shine.

Doesn't mean you need to fill the starting XI with them though.

 

[b3h]

Yes but every manager wants signings. So why has he made it such a public issue unless there is a clash of strategies?

Because Jeff is barmy/moving goalposts/being iffy over how much we can spend/seems like we'll be losing loads of players and maybe not replacing properly. I still think that, just pointing out Lop did actually say we don't need massive signings - i took it as a hint to the above mess

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Also means even if he does stay that as soon as he has a bad run, couple of dodgy results perceived to be due to team selections a section of the fans are going to turn on him straight away.

Wouldn't have thought so.

Most of this is white noise that many fans won't even notice. They certainly won't remember three months down the line. And as I've said before, Lage got virtually no stick at games despite being an appalling manager and a charmless oik.

 

[prawnking]

I still think that, just pointing out Lop did actually say we don't need massive signings

Well, he said that and then offered the alternative of 'young/Championship players', neither of which are automatically cheap.

The most worrying thing for me is that, if it's true he wants to keep Costa and Adama, it doesn't show great judgement or use of resources

 

[SSB]

And as I've said before, Lage got virtually no stick at games despite being an appalling manager and a charmless oik.

“Bruno Lage’s Barmy Army” was being sang right up until he got the chop.

 

[Kenny]

“Bruno Lage’s Barmy Army” was being sang right up until he got the chop.

His brother getting a South Bank Season Ticket helped that I think

 

[Wolftone]

“Bruno Lage’s Barmy Army” was being sang right up until he got the chop.

Barmy Army.
The clue is in the name

 

[Kenny]

The most worrying thing for me is that, if it's true he wants to keep Costa and Adama, it doesn't show great judgement or use of resources

So maybe its a case of - you can't have those players you put forward as we can't afford them, so he has said well can I offer new terms to Adama and Costa to ensure I keep players in those positions and then been told nah, wages too high bro

As you may tell I am not in the flapping club or getting angry at Lop for the many articles created from his comments but I do want the club to put a stop to this via their own press releases instead of the radio silence we have been getting

 

[prawnking]

I don't know why you'd want to keep either in any circumstance!

Taking them off the wage bill and replacing with players who can actually contribute something tangible would have been appealing to Lop, you'd have thought?

 

[Kenny]

I don't know why you'd want to keep either in any circumstance!

Taking them off the wage bill and replacing with players who can actually contribute something tangible would have been appealing to Lop, you'd have thought?

Look, I am trying to give options for the answers rather than the definite answer. I am as clueless as the rest of us but rather than going for the nuclear button I do try and look for reasons why that has been said/done. Lop has talked a lot about Adama and him staying (despite large spells of not using him) so no shock he has said again he would like him to stay, regardless of what we think of the player

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Some managers go OTT with their "just in case" options. Like Dave Jones always wanted at least five senior forwards in the squad. Of course it meant that inevitably some poor chump would never play.

You could make a very thin argument that Adama provides value as an option off the bench and if we get rid of him, we have to spend money on replacing him. It's not a very good argument, of course.

It seems a bit alien to us after Nuno being happy to run with a very small group for many years (always seemed to be his own choice, I don't think he liked players sitting around doing nothing) and Lage having to make do with whatever he was given as he had no business being in the job to start with. It's a long time since we've done anything different, hence you get weird speculation when players miss out on the matchday squad lately - the fact is that we're finally in a position where we're not putting our entire list of available senior players on the team sheet because there's no-one else.

 

[PuntsWolf]

There is no warchest. There won’t be one without numerous big sales. I don’t get how JL wasn’t/isn’t aware of this.

As much as we like to criticise Shi about the FFP line, there is truth in it. We may have the wiggle room this year, but then what happens next year? We have to sell a player or two for decent money to put our head above the water again. And we don’t really have much ability to do that because our player trading has been so bad for so long. Majority of our players are worth less than we paid or just not very good.

Our wage bill is also much bigger now as 1) more players as DW mentions, 2) we’ve signed a load of expensive tat 3) some of our cheaper “gems” have now renegotiated terms (Kilman, Neto,).

So we’ve spent loads of money, have a bigger wage bill (less profit for player trading), but other than having a large squad of mediocrity we are worse off than we were in 2019.

Surely a quick conversation which involves looking at a spreadsheet shows JL what the situation is in black and white. If he didn’t know that before taking the job then how? If you aren’t happy to work in this way and rebuild the shit transfer strategy over the previous 3 years then just leave. But it shouldn’t really be a surprise to him.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

There is no warchest. There won’t be one without numerous big sales. I don’t get how JL wasn’t/isn’t aware of this.

As much as we like to criticise Shi about the FFP line, there is truth in it. We may have the wiggle room this year, but then what happens next year? We have to sell a player or two for decent money to put our head above the water again. And we don’t really have much ability to do that because our player trading has been so bad for so long. Majority of our players are worth less than we paid or just not very good.

Our wage bill is also much bigger now as 1) more players as DW mentions, 2) we’ve signed a load of expensive tat 3) some of our cheaper “gems” have now renegotiated terms (Kilman, Neto,).

So we’ve spent loads of money, have a bigger wage bill (less profit for player trading), but other than having a large squad of mediocrity we are worse off than we were in 2019.

Surely a quick conversation which involves looking at a spreadsheet shows JL what the situation is in black and white. If he didn’t know that before taking the job then how? If you aren’t happy to work in this way and rebuild the shit transfer strategy over the previous 3 years then just leave. But it shouldn’t really be a surprise to him.

It wouldn't have been difficult to do a bit of research on Wolves 'the company' and see where they stood in that regard.

In the same way someone could offer me a substantial bonus based on the company hitting a profit target, I'd check their accounts and see how often they get anywhere near that target rather than take the big percentage at face value as a given.

 

[Kenny]

There is no warchest. There won’t be one without numerous big sales. I don’t get how JL wasn’t/isn’t aware of this.

Maybe a presumption from Jeff that Fosun would be injecting money this summer and they have withdrawn it. So back in November the plan was slightly different.

Who the fuck knows. It's a shit show we could all do without though.

 

[nimrod]

It seems more than possible that on joining JL may have overestimated the ability of the squad he inherited to be competitive in the league. I don’t have too much of a problem him pushing Fosun even indirectly in media as a tactic if he’s not getting clear or helpful answers. Better he does it now than a week before the season starts. If he’s just touting for a route out then that’s a different story which time will tell.

 

[prawnking]

As much as we like to criticise Shi about the FFP line, there is truth in it.

Boggles the mind that our strategy to date seemingly hasn't taken this into account though.

Pity Jeff doesn't just fuck off and let someone more competent sort the shitshow out

 

[pr0sl0]

You could make a very thin argument that Adama provides value as an option off the bench and if we get rid of him, we have to spend money on replacing him. It's not a very good argument, of course.

The mad thing here is that we already signed a cheap replacement for Adama - Chiquinho!