Wolves 0-1 Tottenham: Verdict Thread

[Banjo]

Most of what I was going to say has been covered. It was great to be back and there was limited- if any- Nuno distraction.

We played superbly throughout. Neves' misplaced pass put us in trouble for the penalty, but I thought he was excellent otherwise. The consensus from the Spurs fans I can hear on my train back to London is that they were battered and the best team lost.

Problem we've got is accuracy in key areas: full backs and inside forwards not quite sure what each is going to do, Raul not quite on the same wavelength with the wide forwards. This will get better with time.

Lost count of the amount of great positions Marçal found himself in, only for the cross to be sub-par. As good as he was at times, I think we needed Ait-Nouri on sooner.

Adama seemed to fall off the pace in the second half, which was a shame as he had one of his best games for us in the first half and I thought he'd get lots of joy out of Tanganga once he was on a yellow. Can't tell if he had a knock or if his confidence was shot after missing the one-on-one. Just heard a Spurs fan say to his mate who couldn't believe Adama missed, "that's why he'll always be no more than a £20m player. You shit yourself when he plays, but what does he actually do to you?". So frustrating.

Oh well, nice easy game next.

 

[big mean bunny]

But ultimately Adama has had clear cut goal scoring chances in both matches. Raul gets those chances instead and we’re sitting on 6 points with two wins.

Difficult to be anything other than optimistic, really. Although Bruno desperately needs some support from Jeff Shi.

What Sam said under your comment is fair, but the manager/coach in me doesn't subscribe to this line of thinking Jinks, we didn't make those chances for Jiminez, we made them for a player and missed them and have zero points, that's what will be taken into training Monday.

Liverpool fans kept mentioning "If all the times we hit the post went in, we'd be top of the league" under Rodgers, and he got sacked the next year rather than them becoming goals.

I am cautiously optimistic yes, but I am not won over just by excitement, I want my side to win.

 

[redvictor]

Most of what I was going to say has been covered. It was great to be back and there was limited- if any- Nuno distraction.

We played superbly throughout. Neves' misplaced pass put us in trouble for the penalty, but I thought he was excellent otherwise. The consensus from the Spurs fans I can hear on my train back to London is that they were battered and the best team lost.

Problem we've got is accuracy in key areas: full backs and inside forwards not quite sure what each is going to do, Raul not quite on the same wavelength with the wide forwards. This will get better with time.

Lost count of the amount of great positions Marçal found himself in, only for the cross to be sub-par. As good as he was at times, I think we needed Ait-Nouri on sooner.

Adama seemed to fall off the pace in the second half, which was a shame as he had one of his best games for us in the first half and I thought he'd get lots of joy out of Tanganga once he was on a yellow. Can't tell if he had a knock or if his confidence was shot after missing the one-on-one. Just heard a Spurs fan say to his mate who couldn't believe Adama missed, "that's why he'll always be no more than a £20m player. You shit yourself when he plays, but what does he actually do to you?". So frustrating.

Oh well, nice easy game next.

If Adama could finish he wouldn't be here. Even the manager knows that. I think his brief this season is to make him into that player, and get 100m+ for him at the end.

 

[Tredman]

I really enjoyed that, much more than Nuno’s games from the last season at least. But we lost, not a good thing to be pretty losers.

 

[Jinky]

 

[Tredman]

As an aside our ex-fitness coach (can’t remember his name and cba to Google it) is a cunt and needs to get to fuck.

 

[Wolvensam]

What Sam said under your comment is fair, but the manager/coach in me doesn't subscribe to this line of thinking Jinks, we didn't make those chances for Jiminez, we made them for a player and missed them and have zero points, that's what will be taken into training Monday.

Liverpool fans kept mentioning "If all the times we hit the post went in, we'd be top of the league" under Rodgers, and he got sacked the next year rather than them becoming goals.

I am cautiously optimistic yes, but I am not won over just by excitement, I want my side to win.

I don’t think Jimenez would have gotten into the positions Adama did in either game; and that’s the difference. Traore gets in the positions but the finishing needs to improve, it’s absolute correct coaching. His decision making and finishing will improve the more he gets in those positions and it’s encouraging he has found those in two games as most of last year he was marooned out on the wing.

We all want to win and it’s good to be cautiously optimistic. I think we are all optimistic at the leaps of progress in a short space of time: I thought it would get a lot worse before it got better.

 

[Jinky]

I don’t think Jimenez would have gotten into the positions Adama did in either game; and that’s the difference. Traore gets in the positions but the finishing needs to improve, it’s absolute correct coaching. His decision making and finishing will improve the more he gets in those positions and it’s encouraging he has found those in two games as most of last year he was marooned out on the wing.

We all want to win and it’s good to be cautiously optimistic. I think we are all optimistic at the leaps of progress in a short space of time: I thought it would get a lot worse before it got better.

My main point is, we are creating chances and it’s a fine line between a win and a loss (I.e. if Raul was on the end of them, we probably win rather than lose). The important thing is, we’re playing attacking football and creating chances. That’s a big step forward.

 

[sycophantia]

Well the performance was excellent but I'm a bit concerned that we can't score from so much good attacking play, in fact we didn't really create many good chances obviously Traore should score, he was great apart from that but faded second half.
Sa was a bit clumsy for the pen but I guess he did have to make a challenge, a lot of that pen is on Neves though.
Clanger for the pen apart, Neves was absolutely a class above everyone else on the pitch, I'm still worried we're gunna lose him.
Special mention for Kilman, thought he had a really good game.
Thought we restricted them to very few chances considering the style we are playing.
Goes without saying, we need to start putting some chances away..

 

[redvictor]

View attachment 4242

The problem here is a natural striker would have finished. You can see the keeper is going to his right, and a striker would go to the left. Adama isn't a natural striker. He needs to learn, and i don't know if he can learn to be a natural finisher.
Right now he's getting all our chances, and none converted.
In fairness we all thought our problem lay elsewhere, and they don't..

 

[Wolvensam]

My main point is, we are creating chances and it’s a fine line between a win and a loss (I.e. if Raul was on the end of them, we probably win rather than lose). The important thing is, we’re playing attacking football and creating chances. That’s a big step forward.

Oh I know that, and totally agree. I just mean I’m encouraged by the fact we finally have a manager who has identified Adama is an asset down the middle. He takes up some fantastic positions, and the finishing will improve in time.

 

[Paul]

As an aside our ex-fitness coach (can’t remember his name and cba to Google it) is a cunt and needs to get to fuck.

Go on...............................

 

[Tom Hark]

I'm not sure how to feel. Some of the most exciting build-up play I've seen from any team, let alone Wolves, but inside the final third we were as woeful as ever. I'm concerned we're going to concede a lot on the counter; if we'd defended any higher first half we'd have been in ASDA. Just have to keep on trusting the process, I suppose. Interesting that Spurs looked as pedestrian today as we did last season, and were one poor Neves pass from a lucky 0-0.

 

[redvictor]

Go on...............................

Seconded...

 

[Wolvensam]

I'm not sure how to feel. Some of the most exciting build-up play I've seen from any team, let alone Wolves, but inside the final third we were as woeful as ever. I'm concerned we're going to concede a lot on the counter; if we'd defended any higher first half we'd have been in ASDA. Just have to keep on trusting the process, I suppose. Interesting that Spurs looked as pedestrian today as we did last season, and were one poor Neves pass from a lucky 0-0.

They were pedestrian against City to be honest. Just fortunate that City were worse.

 

[The Bion]

Oh I know that, and totally agree. I just mean I’m encouraged by the fact we finally have a manager who has identified Adama is an asset down the middle. He takes up some fantastic positions, and the finishing will improve in time.

In fairness Nuno tried Adama through the middle more than once. Unfortunately it was part of sitting deep and all the rest so it never really amounted to anything.

 

[leon0286]

Yea, and i'm concerned that statement will become the norm if we don't get the ball in the net sharpish.
Interesting watching the training video this week that John Ruddy needed to explain to Adama about putting the ball the wide side of the keeper. Tells you what you need to know about Adama's thinking. Hopefully soon he makes better decisions on where to place the ball. Preferably in the net would be nice..

Well the worry would be, that besides Jimenez, there's not really many other players in that squad with a history of getting 5-15 goals in this league.
I didn't realise you had only scored 36 goals in the league last year....So that is a bigger worry than I realised.

It's often an easy and lazy narrative to say sides are reliant on one player.
But I do look at that forward line, and besides Jimenez, even in the squad, there's not a lot of goals.

That will be the next step for Lage, whether it be this summer, or next, adding more goals to ease the pressure on Jimenez.
I think that needs to come from the wide players, but also central midfield too.

Depth is the big problem for Wolves, at least in my eyes.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Hugely encouraged by that performance. Far from perfect and but for a rash decision by a keeper perhaps over-eager to impress on his home debut we could easily have got a point. Probably our best 90 minutes since long before Covid.

Traore was outstanding in the first half and Neves in the second controlled the game. Hopefully we can scrape enough together to get reinforcements in without letting one of these two go. In the longer term if we get a quick ch I can see us benefiting more from a number 10 style player than a sweeper. It certainly will be more entertaining to see how things pan out than the snooze fest of last season.

 

[Tony Towner]

In some ways totally different, in some ways nothing changed.

Higher up the pitch, way more intensity, on the other hand conceded a soft goal and missed great chances, which was the same old.

Defensively Marcal played well, but restricts us as a LWB, Trincao is going to frustrate all season, if that's the standard, Adama, you get what you want to see from that performance. Raul isn't fit/sharp. Should have won, but we lost. Positive about the future IF we make signings, but nervous about some of the same old

 

[redvictor]

Well the worry would be, that besides Jimenez, there's not really many other players in that squad with a history of getting 5-15 goals in this league.
I didn't realise you had only scored 36 goals in the league last year....So that is a bigger worry than I realised.

It's often an easy and lazy narrative to say sides are reliant on one player.
But I do look at that forward line, and besides Jimenez, even in the squad, there's not a lot of goals.

That will be the next step for Lage, whether it be this summer, or next, adding more goals to ease the pressure on Jimenez.
I think that needs to come from the wide players, but also central midfield too.

Depth is the big problem for Wolves, at least in my eyes.

It's in our eyes, don't worry about that. The scoring problem with Nuno was we didn't try to get forward enough.

Maybe they didn't have practice for 2 years under Nuno..lol.

We need a Lukaku or Vardy..