Wolves 0-2 Crystal Palace: Verdict Thread

[prawnking]

I think there's a bit of over-reaction (and slight opportunism?) that's mainly come about due to three shit defeats in a row.

In fairness, two of those defeats were in pretty tough away games to teams above us in the league.

It's shite, and worthy of concern, but just like Bruno wasn't the Second Coming when we looked like we were in the top four-to-six mix last month, he's now not suddenly the love child of Jones and Hoddle... imo

 

[redvictor]

I think there's a bit of over-reaction (and slight opportunism?) that's mainly come about due to three shit defeats in a row.

In fairness, two of those defeats were in pretty tough away games to teams above us in the league.

It's shite, and worthy of concern, but just like Bruno wasn't the Second Coming when we looked like we were in the top four-to-six mix last month, he's now not suddenly the love child of Jones and Hoddle... imo

I get the concern from particularly the last game, but Bruno has gone from the master tactician to the spawn of Dean Saunders of the devil in 10 days. Strange....

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I think you're over egging it now, no we're not Brazil 1970, but we're not anywhere near Fat Sam's Bolton or anything at all like a Pulis or Hodgson side either, or Dyche's Burnley now.

McCarthy's Wolves side played less attractive football too, back then (when we were doing ok) it was seen as ok, yet this era of Wolves fans who are sitting in 8th place are desperate to see better football?

Just seems a bit entitled to me, and I say that as someone who didn't enjoy the Palace or West Ham performances at all, but i have a memory that remembers entertaining performances against Spurs, United, Leicester and Brentford. Even in the home defeat to Arsenal we didn't play bad or "dross" football, we just (as ever) struggled to put the ball in the net.

1) Mick had a very limited budget, we continued to play a lot of players from our Championship season (they didn't even cost much at that level) right to the end, most of the money he did have had to go towards bulking out the squad rather than buying 1-2 real quality players. Don't think our wage bill was ever higher than 18th in the division either. None of that applies now, this is a very expensive squad, whether Nuno or Lage was in charge when the players came in

2) Our aim under Mick very much was 17th first and no real expectation of anything else beyond that, that is not the case now, not even close

3) We've finished 7th twice since we got promoted and had good cup progress in those seasons, if we go significantly backwards from there and someone points that out I fail to see how it's "entitled", we shouldn't be shrugging our shoulders and saying "oh well, we stayed up comfortably didn't we", at least I don't think so

4) Leicester and Brentford entertaining performances, really? Think we had 5 shots on target across the two games and 4 of them went in. We were bad against Arsenal at home, we created exactly no chances of note

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Yeah, and that's subjective, it doesn't make it right (necessarily).

Maybe my definitions of "dross" are entirely different to yours, but only the performances against West Ham and Palace have been "dross".

We have been "in" all other games really haven't we? Chelsea, City and Liverpool all struggled to beat us, we haven't been resoundly beaten in more than 3 games all season have we?

And in terms of the football what is dross? What is not entertaining? Because for me we have/had a hell of a lot of flair, Neto, Podence, Trincao (!), Adama (!!), RAN, Neves, Semedo, they are all capable of exciting moments, and they have generally been given the freedom to express that.

Managers like Pulis, Hodgson, Dyche, etc usually try and stymie that, Lage hasn't has he?

And we certainly aren't a team that plays for yards, plays for set pieces, or humps it up to a big man either?

So, well in summary, i'm just not sure what it is that you have found so deeply boring? Because on the whole i have been entertained this season, yes i would have liked us to score more goals, but i don't think that's down to the tactics, i think that's down to the personnel, i think a 2018/19 version of Raul would have 10 goals in this team, but this version is way off that and that's the key problem, and that certainly isn't Lage's fault.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

How about a run of 2 goals in 8 games, which I don't think even Jackett or Lambert managed at the fag end of their reigns when they were universally (and rightly) condemned for the lack of entertainment? That is AWFUL by any metric, again he somehow got a free pass for it. Against Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool we barely mustered a single chance, these are all teams we've beaten or been extremely competitive against since we came up, in all of them this season we genuinely did play like a Pulis team, no possession, no threat whatsoever.

 

[Johnny75]

I think you're over egging it now, no we're not Brazil 1970, but we're not anywhere near Fat Sam's Bolton or anything at all like a Pulis or Hodgson side either, or Dyche's Burnley now.

McCarthy's Wolves side played less attractive football too, back then (when we were doing ok) it was seen as ok, yet this era of Wolves fans who are sitting in 8th place are desperate to see better football?

Just seems a bit entitled to me, and I say that as someone who didn't enjoy the Palace or West Ham performances at all, but i have a memory that remembers entertaining performances against Spurs, United, Leicester and Brentford. Even in the home defeat to Arsenal we didn't play bad or "dross" football, we just (as ever) struggled to put the ball in the net.

The last 3 games have been Hoddle levels of boredom with Pulis level tactics.

Abysmal stuff.

 

[Boozad]

The last 3 games have been Hoddle levels of boredom with Pulis level tactics.

Abysmal stuff.

I'd argue Arsenal was for a different reason, we started off OK and were gifted an early goal and stupidly tried to defend a lead for 80 minutes. It was wrong but understandable to a point. West Ham and Palace we tried to defend a defeat to a really poor side and a half decent side who we made look really good. I wouldn't lump all three together, we did start with some intent against Arsenal.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

1) Mick had a very limited budget, we continued to play a lot of players from our Championship season (they didn't even cost much at that level) right to the end, most of the money he did have had to go towards bulking out the squad rather than buying 1-2 real quality players. Don't think our wage bill was ever higher than 18th in the division either. None of that applies now, this is a very expensive squad, whether Nuno or Lage was in charge when the players came in

2) Our aim under Mick very much was 17th first and no real expectation of anything else beyond that, that is not the case now, not even close

3) We've finished 7th twice since we got promoted and had good cup progress in those seasons, if we go significantly backwards from there and someone points that out I fail to see how it's "entitled", we shouldn't be shrugging our shoulders and saying "oh well, we stayed up comfortably didn't we", at least I don't think so

4) Leicester and Brentford entertaining performances, really? Think we had 5 shots on target across the two games and 4 of them went in. We were bad against Arsenal at home, we created exactly no chances of note

1) And where is our wage bill now? Is it much higher than our placing?

2) What is our aim now? I don't know? Given the transfer budget that has been afforded to Lage, it can't be that great can it? Since we signed Fabio and Semedo, what is our spend compared to other clubs? Again i'd be surprised if it's higher than our placing?

3) Yeah and we also came 13th last season, THAT was significantly backward. Why did you miss that one out, that's the most recent!? Anything above that would be an improvement, and at the start of the season, given the disarray we felt like we were in, many of us would have been very happy with an improvement on that!
What we did 3-4 years ago is getting less and less relevant with every day that passes, in much the same way as "we were in league 1, 8 years ago" isn't relevant now either.

4) Since when has shots on target been a metric for a good performance? You could hit the post 10 times but that would count for nothing by this metric. We defended well against Leicester, and were unusually clinical, no one played particularly poorly, at least not to the same extent of Palace and West Ham, i thought it was an entertaining game too!
As for Brentford, we fought back when they equalised, and we were rattled for a little while and scored 2 really good goals, and Adama was a gnats bollock from scoring another good goal.
Arsenal at home we had tonnes of possession and bombarded them for an age, Chiquinho should have scored and Fabio should have scored, their keeper played well, but they were hanging on the end, underlined by the way they celebrated. The goal they scored was shit, Sa was at fault in my opinion. He punches that instead of trying to catch it, i think we win that game, Arsenal didn't look great shakes until we gave them something to hold on to.

It's revisionism to say any of those performances were "dross" or, your standards are far, far higher than mine. Possibly a combination of the two, but it definitely comes across as entitled to me, yeah.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

The last 3 games have been Hoddle levels of boredom with Pulis level tactics.

Abysmal stuff.

I think the last 2 have been poor, and i've said that.

I don't agree that any of the games prior to that have been though.

And i don't think you remember Pulis all too well if you think we are playing similar tactics to what he did/does.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Not likely to be revisionism when I said they weren't good performances in the first place

Lage hasn't *actually* improved on last season's points tally or position yet anyway. We don't look like we could beat an egg at the moment, how about if we go and lose the next three (which we will if we play like we did in the last couple of games)? Still hand him £50m+ in the summer?

He isn't doing anything to justify additional support.

 

[prawnking]

The problem Bruno has, is that when you play cautiously, even attritionally, and you still rack up the points, criticism is suppressed. When you suddenly go LLL there's nothing to grasp onto.

I think it's still Watford-levels of impatience to place too much on it though. Not unheard of for teams our size to have shit runs in the PL. Needs a reaction on Thursday though, that's for sure.

 

[Boozad]

Not likely to be revisionism when I said they weren't good performances in the first place

Lage hasn't *actually* improved on last season's points tally or position yet anyway. We don't look like we could beat an egg at the moment, how about if we go and lose the next three (which we will if we play like we did in the last couple of games)? Still hand him £50m+ in the summer?

He isn't doing anything to justify additional support.

Wouldn't it be Jorge just bunging £50m? Not sure how it works...

 

[jlo]

We need a refresh undoubtedly. Do I trust Lage to do it, not really. Do I think he deserves the chance, marginally given league position. Is there any better choice on the market, not one I'm convinced would come to us.

Could be another frustrating season to come I suspect

 

[sycophantia]

It's not that we lost the last 3 so much as the Manor of the defeats, especially the last 2, were very winnable games but sent out teams that looked like we'd just rolled over. The West Ham game, we put out only 5 or 6 of what I consider first team starters. I know we'd have had a tough game a couple of says earlier but even so we could surely have put a few more of our better players.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Not likely to be revisionism when I said they weren't good performances in the first place

Lage hasn't *actually* improved on last season's points tally or position yet anyway. We don't look like we could beat an egg at the moment, how about if we go and lose the next three (which we will if we play like we did in the last couple of games)? Still hand him £50m+ in the summer?

He isn't doing anything to justify additional support.

I think a lot of that is because you have been expecting him to fail from the start, you like me, were absolutely baffled at the appointment and struggled to warm to him. I did too, i argued with many on here and elsewhere about him.

But i think i am being far more fair and rational about him than you are now.

And yeah, if we lose the next 3, opinions change again don't they? But i'm forming my opinion over the whole of the season, where we are placed and the hand he has been dealt with transfers, injuries and having players taken from him, not just the last 3 games or imagining that we lose the next 3.

We don't play Pulis style football, and he hasn't served up large amounts of "dross" those are 2 comments in the last hour or so that i will absolutely argue, because it's clearly not true.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Wolves vs Liverpool:

Shots: 3 (1) vs 17 (5)
Possession: 33% vs 67%

Man City vs Wolves:

Shots: 24 (10) vs 2 (1)
Possession: 71% vs 29%

Wolves vs Chelsea:

Shots: 4 (1) vs 8 (1)
Possession: 37% vs 63%

They're the only three games where I've compared us to a Pulis team, they're very Pulis numbers with a very Pulis goal tally of 0. Certainly all of them a world away from how we've played against the same opposition in the relatively recent past.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

We need a refresh undoubtedly. Do I trust Lage to do it, not really. Do I think he deserves the chance, marginally given league position. Is there any better choice on the market, not one I'm convinced would come to us.

Agreed, and I don't think the board have the hunger (or possibly the ability) to improve us to the extent we need to make that next step. A flirtation with the European places every year is about as good as it will get i think, and to be honest, i'm pretty happy with that.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Wolves vs Liverpool:

Shots: 3 (1) vs 17 (5)
Possession: 33% vs 67%

Man City vs Wolves:

Shots: 24 (10) vs 2 (1)
Possession: 71% vs 29%

Wolves vs Chelsea:

Shots: 4 (1) vs 8 (1)
Possession: 37% vs 63%

They're the only three games where I've compared us to a Pulis team, they're very Pulis numbers with a very Pulis goal tally of 0. Certainly all of them a world away from how we've played against the same opposition in the relatively recent past.

Strange, i remember us losing 4-0 to Liverpool last season, as well as 1-0 at home!?

And didn't we lose both 3-1 and 4-1 last season to City? Plus a very dull performance against Chelsea in Tuchel's first game that was 0-0?

We did beat Chelsea at home last season though, with Neto's last minute winner, I don't remember us being particularly good that day though, but i did enjoy the game.

Other than the Chelsea home win, Nuno's numbers last season against those 3 were more Terry Connor than Pulis, if that's the road you want to go down.

I think your parameters would be a lot fairer if you compared our results and performances from Nuno last season, with Bruno this season. The players and the club have changed a hell of a lot since Nuno's first two seasons. (in the Prem)

 

[Tony Towner]

It's a miracle we're a comfortable 8th in the league considering how very, very bad we've been ;-)

He's definitely hit a bad spell, in all honesty we're all feeling twitchy but I feel some people are suddenly (after a January where we seriously looked like popping the glass ceiling a bit) feeling vindication for earlier misgivings and turning the screw a bit unfairly now the opportunity has arisen...

Everyone's prerogative not to warm to the guy, I don't think his nonsense is a particularly frequent feature of his total tenure (he generally seems smart and eloquent to me?) and Nuno came out with plenty of 'solutions' guff in his time. It's not that important to me (if it is to others, up to them)

And Nuno really couldn't get these players to play good football.
He got a team with Boly and Raul in their prime, a fully-firing Adama, Doc, Neto and Jonny and Jota to do so, of course, but plenty of water under the bridge since then.

It's a mixed first season for Bruno so far, but I don't honestly think we could expect a better points haul or league position from him than we have so far, could we? Could certainly expect more experimentation (although he has blooded Gomes and Cundle, shown a lot of faith in Kilman, and most of the squad has got a fair look in), flair and goals, and a different style of football from Nuno's last season. I don't think we're going to get that without investment though, and I don't think your position of not giving it to him makes much sense, unless it's a fancy way of saying 'get rid'?

I agree there's a lot recency bias. We are doing a lot better positionally and points wise than I expected. The money needs spending on the squad so whether that's Bruno in charge or another Mendes stooge doesn't really alter that. I do believe people would be happier if we were say 13th, playing a more attractive style and showing progress as the season develops, installing a pattern of play to build on next year when hopefully we have some new players. However the fact that we appear to have regressed is a worry, rather than that gradual improvement it's going the other way and offensively we don't have any discernible strategy on how to break teams down and when we do score, try to protect that lead irrespective of how long there is left.

I don't think what we are currently producing is worse than last season, but lately it's not been better. Saturday is a big worry, a chump like me shouldn't be able to look at a line up and say we are going to lose and how, because if I can you can be damn sure those that know way more than me in the opposition dugout will. I also don't like the post game Hoever shenanigans.

Around this time last season we were saying Nuno needed to let the handbrake off, try new things and look at alternative formations. The same is true for Bruno now, because if not and Vinny and Jeff think they may struggle to flog their expensive season tickets he'll go the same way.

 

[lemonjelly]

anecdotally the conversation appears to be a lot more around fosun/jeff/vinny struggling to justify the proposed price increases.
edit - not just based on the thread on here by the way