Wolves 0-1 Villa: Verdict Thread

[PuntsWolf]

I have no idea what you were watching to have that view, was it the radio?

Elaborate. I’m assuming you’re on about Marcal. You’re the only person on here (or anywhere) who thought he was bad?

Marçal's price was low due to his age, contract status and the relative parlous state of French football (their broadcast deal has just gone up in smoke btw, so if we are after some bargains next month...)

I think given he was a regular in a team that made the CL semi-finals then he was expected to be decent, which he is. He isn't a stop gap LB at all, he's a career LB, Lyon only played him at LCH for one season.

A career LB which everyone is saying is a stop gap for Jonny. I like him.

If Jonny is back in Feb then I’m playing both of them tbh.

 

[PuntsWolf]

I don't think it plays into his thinking so I'm not defending the challenge, but if Traore isn't offside then Marcal isn't that half a yard behind him and therefore doesn't make it like that.

I do think it's fair to judge both relative to expectation/investment though.

Stop talking too much sense. Doesn’t suit the lnarrative.

To use an NFL reference. You can’t blame an OT failing to stop a sack when the DE jumped offside. You got an unfair advantage, the officials deal with it and the consequences are irrelevant.

 

[Johnny75]

Elaborate. I’m assuming you’re on about Marcal. You’re the only person on here (or anywhere) who thought he was bad?

I don’t think Marcal had a bad game at all I just don’t see why people think £30m Semedo is getting all the shit when he had a relatively good game and did very little different defensively to Marcal and going forward I thought he was always moving off the ball and offering an option.

Defensively I thought we were pretty good on the whole and I thought Semedo had a harder job with Grealish than Marcal did with Traore.

I thought Donk had a very poor game and is badly out of form. He’s a real weak link for us at the moment.

 

[Norman Deeley]

We may as well throw Hoever into the mix and say that in the summer we spent around £83m on him, Silva and Semedo. Semedo is maybe a separate argument but to me he simply doesn't look a PL player. I had high hopes, but every game chips away a little more.

We've therefore spent £48m on potential. I was surprised that L/pool let KJH go, but they seemed to make the point that £13m was a good deal for just potential, as so many promising 18 year olds don't develop. Klopp made the point that at only 5 years older Jota was a proven PL player (with numbers very similar to those Mane had when he was signed). So we've spent a huge amount on potential. I thought Silva did OK yesterday, and if we'd paid £10m I'd have been impressed. But we didn't, we had a huge bet on him.

Someone made the point above that he looks like a vanity purchase. Yep, to me, £70m on him and Semedo looks like buying the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu when a reasonably priced bottle of Shiraz would have been fine.

I don't know, the recruitment in the summer looks increasingly odd to me.

 

[Jabbawolf]

Bin Adama, he can’t play as a wide player in that formation. Semedo should be running down the line and putting crosses in.

Play 3-4-1-2 or 3-4-2-1 with the thre forward players narrower and fluid and the wing backs providing the width.

We started the season with the silly notion that playing three up front but as wide as possible would stretch the defence. It didn’t work and Nuno moved to the system we have now.

I think 4-2-3-1 can work but not with our current personnel. For all those deriding Semedo can they tell me what Marcal did that was so different? He too would’ve given away a pen had Traore not been offside.

So, with an eye on the long game -

Rui
KJH Coady Saiss/Marcal
Semedo Neves Donk RAN
Vitinha
Silva Podence/Neto

 

[AndyWolves]

I'm still optimistic about this season and our longer term future

One thing to remember is how awful West ham and Everton were last season and look how much better they are, conversely sheff United have fallen off a cliff. One season won't define us.

 

[PuntsWolf]

I don’t think Marcal had a bad game at all I just don’t see why people think £30m Semedo is getting all the shit when he had a relatively good game and did very little different defensively to Marcal and going forward I thought he was always moving off the ball and offering an option.

Defensively I thought we were pretty good on the whole and I thought Semedo had a harder job with Grealish than Marcal did with Traore.

I thought Donk had a very poor game and is badly out of form. He’s a real weak link for us at the moment.

I can’t disagree with that. Traore was abysmal, didn’t really look like a footballer.

But at the end of the day his mistake (and it’s a poor one) has led to the penalty in the last minute. He’s been rinsed by a midfield plodder without doing anything special and then compounds that by clumsily making contact.

We were largely solid defensively, but Villa arent anything special (Traore was awful, Watkins offers nothing in general play, Barkley was injured which meant we just had to stop grealish).

Semedo is going to attract attention because of the fee paid, relative reputation and the facf his mistakes are leading to goals.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

The most stupid element of it was that McGinn had already overrun it. Neves was going to clear that about 0.3 seconds after Semedo piles into the back of Sloth.

Shouldn't be overlooked though that Joao produced an uncharacteristic bit of shit play on the edge of our own box beforehand when he could have just got rid. I'm as big a fan of him as anyone and he was generally good again yesterday, but he's also to blame.

 

[sycophantia]

Can understand why people have question marks about Semedo but yesterday he showed he can be good, can't be excused his pen of course but personally not going to write him off yet, I'm assuming Nuno and the coaching team are doing loads of work with him in the training pitch and think he can still be a great aquisition for us.
Btw, anybody saying he's worse than Doc defensively needs to give their head a wobble

 

[Deleted Cyber]

So assuming everyone is fit
Rui

Jonny Coady Boly Marcal
Neves Moutinho
Neto vitanha Podence
Silva

Or

Rui
Boly Coady Kilman

Semedo Moutinho Dendonker Jonny

Neto Vitanha Podence
Silva
That really means binning Traore and signing a striker and a midfielder in January?

 

[Premier Quality]

I thought the plan originally was to keep 3-4-3/3-5-2 but upgrade the wing backs so we could have better possession, and better penetration against the poorer teams that we’d struggled against previously, and the signings of semedo and Ait Nouri, plus Kilman stepping into the back three seemed to give us that. The plan made sense.

but we’ve abandoned that and gone to a back four which looks shaky, with a midfield thats struggled and a front four that aren’t fluid or linking up well. The defence, the midfield and the forwards are all playing as separate units, so there’s no fluency despite Nuno at last having time to work with the players - It’s just weird, I don’t see the plan.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Can understand why people have question marks about Semedo but yesterday he showed he can be good, can't be excused his pen of course but personally not going to write him off yet, I'm assuming Nuno and the coaching team are doing loads of work with him in the training pitch and think he can still be a great aquisition for us.
Btw, anybody saying he's worse than Doc defensively needs to give their head a wobble

I don't think anyone has written him off but at the moment £35m looks a lot of money. Hopefully he will improve and justify that but I don't think it unreasonable for people to consider that based on what they've seen so far we could've got a player that delivers similar for a lot less. At this stage last season I suspect there were people questioning the fee for Neto - they aren't now so let's hope lightning strikes again.

 

[Premier Quality]

Just to be semantic - Semedo was £27.5m, the rest was clauses yet to be achieved. You can’t state we paid money that chances are we’ll never pay.

still a lot of money, mind.

 

[malta mick]

I know everyone is pissed off after yesterday, me too, but consider had one or two of the decent chances we had gone in, then everything would have looked so much better. Yes we have problems but hopefully we start to click again soon.

 

[sycophantia]

I thought the plan originally was to keep 3-4-3/3-5-2 but upgrade the wing backs so we could have better possession, and better penetration against the poorer teams that we’d struggled against previously, and the signings of semedo and Ait Nouri, plus Kilman stepping into the back three seemed to give us that. The plan made sense.

but we’ve abandoned that and gone to a back four which looks shaky, with a midfield thats struggled and a front four that aren’t fluid or linking up well. The defence, the midfield and the forwards are all playing as separate units, so there’s no fluency despite Nuno at last having time to work with the players - It’s just weird, I don’t see the plan.

Not sure we've looked shaky with 4 at the back apart from v Liverpool, we've conceded 3 in 3 games, which given its a completely new style for us isn't too bad imo, the main issue is we still aren't scoring enough, however we have more possession and look more cohesive going forward to me...still a lot of work to do, but I hope we stick with it for a while.
P. S. I agree its odd to have made signings that appear to suit 3 at the back and then gone 4 at the back...maybe Nuno can coach that into them

 

[Johnny75]

Ait-Nouri, Marcal, Semedo, Vitinha and Silva have all played with 4 at the back before.

Ait-Nouri nothing else but 4 I think.

 

[prawnking]

So assuming everyone is fit
Rui

Jonny Coady Boly Marcal
Neves Moutinho
Neto vitanha Podence
Silva

Or

Rui
Boly Coady Kilman

Semedo Moutinho Dendonker Jonny

Neto Vitanha Podence
Silva
That really means binning Traore and signing a striker and a midfielder in January?

A lot of tinkering here for me, a disease which Nuno seems to have too. There's using our squad, and then there's just chucking people in and hoping it works (like how we're using Donk).

I know we're all trying to make sense of our options but there's a lot of presumption (in a few peoples posts) that, say, Hoever and Vitinha are ready to perform in (what should be) a top 7/8 PL team, or that we should play Jonny at RB.

What are people basing this tinkering on?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

The opposition won't be able to work out what we're going to do as we have so many different plans.

 

[Haggstone]

I’d rather drop him than go to a 5.

Nah, I think we need to persevere with him for now.

 

[Johnny75]

A lot of tinkering here for me, a disease which Nuno seems to have too. There's using our squad, and then there's just chucking people in and hoping it works (like how we're using Donk).

I know we're all trying to make sense of our options but there's a lot of presumption (in a few peoples posts) that, say, Hoever and Vitinha are ready to perform in (what should be) a top 7/8 PL team, or that we should play Jonny at RB.

What are people basing this tinkering on?

Cyber has put up two formations we play, I don’t see how that’s tinkering.

What makes you think Vitinha isn’t up to it?