Wolves 0-2 Southampton (FAC): The Verdict

[Lycan]

I've only skimmed this thread so don't know if this point has been made already but just to add to the general negativity I'm getting really pissed off with all the rolling around and screaming our players are doing at the moment. It's always been a small part of our game since the likes of Costa came over from Portugal but it's crept into our game more and more since lockdown and I'm getting sick of it.

It's not as if it's gaining us an advantage either. If anything it's actually disrupting our flow and stopping us getting into good positions, especially seeing as we seem to have no idea what to do with attacking set pieces.

I miss Jota. He went down easy every so often but he'd get back up swinging.

 

[prawnking]

It is strange isn't it?

Anyway, not having a plan B is not Silva's fault and I don't feel it's fair to criticise him as such. He's clearly got lots of development to do physically (so he's no longer a child!) and therefore it's reasonable to expect him to improve as he goes through said development. I feel that neither the price tag nor the situation are fair criteria to be evaluating Silva right now.

As an analogy, you wouldn't hire a student with 5A* and put him straight into a senior management position and then wonder why he doesn't so as well as the guy whose been doing it for 9-10 years would you?

I wish people would stop acting like Fabio's mum, or that we expect him to be reading the forum with tears streaming down his baby-soft cheeks.

I've nothing personal against Fabio, we signed him, it is what it is. Perhaps he'll be amazing in three or four years.

But whether your aspirations in this league are that of Man City or Burnley, you don't have the luxury of resting on your laurels, or you get overtaken and before you know it your manager and best players can be gone. We already expected the rest of the league to stand still while we faff around with an 'evolution' we're still waiting to see. Meanwhile half a dozen other teams are in the process of overtaking us. Are we now saying we expect them to stand still while the ugly duckling becomes a swan?

Fabio's imagined feelings are much less important to me than how Wolves do in the next three or four years. If he's ready to contribute then we can appraise him fairly for what he brings. If he's not ready then in the summer let's send him on loan or reduce his minutes massively and get someone else in until he is ready

 

[prawnking]

I've only skimmed this thread so don't know if this point has been made already but just to add to the general negativity I'm getting really pissed off with all the rolling around and screaming our players are doing at the moment. It's always been a small part of our game since the likes of Costa came over from Portugal but it's crept into our game more and more since lockdown and I'm getting sick of it.

It's not as if it's gaining us an advantage either. If anything it's actually disrupting our flow and stopping us getting into good positions, especially seeing as we seem to have no idea what to do with attacking set pieces.

I miss Jota. He went down easy every so often but he'd get back up swinging.

Fully agree. I expect in the interests of fairness that Darlo will be along soon to accuse you of slagging off our players, calling them big Jessies and generally being xenophobic

 

[Trips]

Fabio's imagined feelings are much less important to me than how Wolves do in the next three or four years. If he's ready to contribute then we can appraise him fairly for what he brings. If he's not ready then in the summer let's send him on loan or reduce his minutes massively and get someone else in until he is ready

Just out of interest, why would you send Fabio out on loan? And where would you like him to go?

We have a track record of our younger players not developing as we would like out on loan, I'm struggling to think of a recent one that has done well out on loan and come back to us (I'm sure there will be one someone will bring up lol)

Phil Foden is probably the most exciting talent England has had since Rooney. I remember there being lots of calls for him to go on loan as he wasnt getting time at City. But Pep kept him there, training with the City side and very gradually increasing his game time and look where he is now. I think this was the plan for Fabio, but Rauls injury changed that.

Just wondering why people think a loan is the best option

 

[prawnking]

Just out of interest, why would you send Fabio out on loan? And where would you like him to go?

We have a track record of our younger players not developing as we would like out on loan, I'm struggling to think of a recent one that has done well out on loan and come back to us (I'm sure there will be one someone will bring up lol)

Phil Foden is probably the most exciting talent England has had since Rooney. I remember there being lots of calls for him to go on loan as he wasnt getting time at City. But Pep kept him there, training with the City side and very gradually increasing his game time and look where he is now. I think this was the plan for Fabio, but Rauls injury changed that.

Just wondering why people think a loan is the best option

I'm not convinced a loan is always a sure thing, and I didn't say it was the best option, just one of the options (and a preferable one to what we have now, which is a player and team floundering).

 

[AndyWolves]

I wish people would stop acting like Fabio's mum, or that we expect him to be reading the forum with tears streaming down his baby-soft cheeks.

I've nothing personal against Fabio, we signed him, it is what it is. Perhaps he'll be amazing in three or four years.

But whether your aspirations in this league are that of Man City or Burnley, you don't have the luxury of resting on your laurels, or you get overtaken and before you know it your manager and best players can be gone. We already expected the rest of the league to stand still while we faff around with an 'evolution' we're still waiting to see. Meanwhile half a dozen other teams are in the process of overtaking us. Are we now saying we expect them to stand still while the ugly duckling becomes a swan?

Fabio's imagined feelings are much less important to me than how Wolves do in the next three or four years. If he's ready to contribute then we can appraise him fairly for what he brings. If he's not ready then in the summer let's send him on loan or reduce his minutes massively and get someone else in until he is ready

I'm not sure you grasp what I'm saying or why you think I was talking about his feelings. Its about separating the player from the situation and evaluating where he is versus where he's expected to be. My conclusion is that it's unrealistic to expect him to be our number 9 whilst he clearly has development to do. The price tag was hefty, but that doesn't suddenly change the reality of how much growing / development he's got left to do.

If we'd paid £35m for a 24/25 year old then I'd be expecting a lot more from him. As it is we've paid £35m for potential. You can argue that could have been better spent elsewhere, but that's not on Silva, that's on the club.

 

[prawnking]

I'm not sure you grasp what I'm saying or why you think I was talking about his feelings. Its about separating the player from the situation and evaluating where he is versus where he's expected to be. My conclusion is that it's unrealistic to expect him to be our number 9 whilst he clearly has development to do. The price tag was hefty, but that doesn't suddenly change the reality of how much growing / development he's got left to do.

If we'd paid £35m for a 24/25 year old then I'd be expecting a lot more from him. As it is we've paid £35m for potential. You can argue that could have been better spent elsewhere, but that's not on Silva, that's on the club.

I'm putting it firmly on the club. So we're in agreement that in the short term he should not be much closer to the pitch in first team games than Luke Matheson then? So in that case we need another senior option, surely?

 

[Jeb01]

Just out of interest, why would you send Fabio out on loan? And where would you like him to go?

We have a track record of our younger players not developing as we would like out on loan, I'm struggling to think of a recent one that has done well out on loan and come back to us (I'm sure there will be one someone will bring up lol)

Phil Foden is probably the most exciting talent England has had since Rooney. I remember there being lots of calls for him to go on loan as he wasnt getting time at City. But Pep kept him there, training with the City side and very gradually increasing his game time and look where he is now. I think this was the plan for Fabio, but Rauls injury changed that.

Just wondering why people think a loan is the best option

Good point, although I’d add in passing that the base line from which Fabio needs to develop is worryingly low bearing in mind the fee we paid for him (which isn’t his fault).
This is not someone who is going to be a leading player in the EPL any time soon, in my opinion.
As for the team selection yesterday I do wonder to what extent the players themselves thought it a good idea?
We are told that there was a “clear the air” session recently (the fact that such a thing occurred is a clear sign of how far we have regressed this season), but the team selection for the cup tie showed all the muddled thinking that has plagued our season thus far, and I find it difficult to believe that the players themselves were happy with it.

 

[Deano]

I don't expect Silva to be the finished article, far from it, I do think we should be seeing a bit more than what he is providing though. Him not being ready is fine but he doesn't seem to have any outstanding attributes - his movement looks good in flashes but at the end of that his finishing has been very poor. I think both things can be and are true - he is not ready but we should also be seeing more than what he is showing at the moment.

Having said all of the above I am VERY underwhelmed at what Willian Jose has shown so far, can be excused to some degree by him still settling but he needs to turn a corner very soon - a few lay offs here and there aren't going to cut the mustard really.

 

[PuntsWolf]

If we’d signed him at his true value of £10-15m then we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.

The fee clearly (/must!) have some Mendes or FFP favour attatched to it. That isn’t Silva’s fault.

 

[Tony Towner]

Irrespective of how you feel about the purchase we have too much invested in Fabio both financially and in ego/reputation to loan him out. He's swung from not getting enough time in the first part of the season to too much now, so next season we need to find that balance which imo involves having a 3rd ideally flexible forward on board. Sports scientists will know whether this will damage him, but if not get him in the bloody weights room, centre halves must love bullying him, needs to be able to give some back

 

[Trips]

If we’d signed him at his true value of £10-15m then we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.

The fee clearly (/must!) have some Mendes or FFP favour attatched to it. That isn’t Silva’s fault.

I doubt Fosun are in the business of Mendes/FFP favours. Similar accusations thrown at Neto signing.

 

[AndyWolves]

I'm putting it firmly on the club. So we're in agreement that in the short term he should not be much closer to the pitch in first team games than Luke Matheson then? So in that case we need another senior option, surely?

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you too much there chief, even the club think that too! Hence we signed WJ.

I'd still want him on the bench though, but less minutes than he's currently getting but that's just my view as I think he needs a bit of game time to help him develop. I don't think the u23s would be the right place although a full season on loan some decent might help him make the step up. Somewhere like Swansea (although we might have burnt our bridges) would be good. Maybe we bring Rafa Mir back in and send Silva out.

 

[White Wolf]

Running theme of late, why is it practically every game we are seeing someone out of position or forced into the wrong role? Last season we had brief things like Neves going too far deep for a while and Traore being played central now and then (has only ever worked once, in the final 20 minutes of the game). It's far too frequent right now.

Vitinha and MGW have both started as wide players and then left up top isolated despite being more comfortable in the centre. Kilman hung out to dry at left-back (back four has also exposed him as not up to it). Otasowie forced to battle with the Burnley backline and then then pretty much not been seen again. Dendoncker as the most advanced midfielder and expected to regularly put chances away. Other CMs also seem too deep.

We have gone from using the system to cover player deficiencies and make them look better than they are to... I'm not sure what. There seems to be no logic behind the tactical changes for the second-half.

 

[YoungWolf]

That is all fair.

The one thing I would say is I don’t think the fact our points tally improved against the shit teams tells us much.

Watford (H) - good win. They were hopeless though. Lost 8-0 the week before, weren’t playing for the manager, hadn’t won yet, didn’t win for a while after.

Villa (H) - we were way better than them. No way should it have been 1-0 for so long, still only actually scored from a set piece. They didn’t have Grealish and they were a one man team.

Bournemouth (A) - scored from two set pieces. They were down to 10 men after 37 mins. Probably less comfortable after this than before strangely.

WHU (H) - they were abject. We scored again from a set piece. Fabianski did make a few good saves in this if I remember it right. Late goal sealed it.

Norwich (A) - awful. Equalised from a set piece Raul got the winner. Norwich weren't exactly a let us have the ball team. Played like a top 6 team with championship players.

Watford (A) - lost

Norwich (H) - comfortable win. The above applies though.

Brighton and Newcastle - won 0 out of 4.

The three win against WHU, Villa and Bournemouth were the definition of our fine margins. Didn’t really work the keepers, scored from our individual quality with our one good chance.

So from those games pre lockdown I can see that our main success was from set pieces. No problem with that, massive part of the game. But you can’t exactly use it to say we improved our attacking in open play.

This time last year we’d have said Rui, Jonny, Boly, Coady (in a three), Neves, Moutinho, Neto, Traore, Jota, Raul were all well worthy of positions in squads in the top 6. So I can think it’s fair to assume we should be pretty successful generally against some absolutely dire teams.

The set piece comments are fair but we had also missed several chances in many of those games - West Ham and Bournemouth two primary examples. We battered them in both (your comment about when Bournemouth had ten is true, but we still had a goal wrongly disallowed in second half). The Newcastle home game Raul missed a real sitter. And we never beat Brighton anyway

Agree on the bit on bold too. It's the expectation but they achieved it largely.

 

[The Bear]

I doubt Fosun are in the business of Mendes/FFP favours.

It does if you believe Jeff Shi wrote this:

"You always know the reason for the investment of Wolves is mainly because of our bet and trust on Jorge. Jorge can take Wolves as the most reliable partner and agency revenue source for long, long time."

 

[AndyWolves]

Running theme of late, why is it practically every game we are seeing someone out of position or forced into the wrong role? Last season we had brief things like Neves going too far deep for a while and Traore being played central now and then (has only ever worked once, in the final 20 minutes of the game). It's far too frequent right now.

Vitinha and MGW have both started as wide players and then left up top isolated despite being more comfortable in the centre. Kilman hung out to dry at left-back (back four has also exposed him as not up to it). Otasowie forced to battle with the Burnley backline and then then pretty much not been seen again. Dendoncker as the most advanced midfielder and expected to regularly put chances away. Other CMs also seem too deep.

We have gone from using the system to cover player deficiencies and make them look better than they are to... I'm not sure what. There seems to be no logic behind the tactical changes for the second-half.

That's a good about, saints knew exactly how to play and what their roles were. We looked very disjointed.

 

[prawnking]

It does if you believe Jeff Shi wrote this:

"You always know the reason for the investment of Wolves is mainly because of our bet and trust on Jorge. Jorge can take Wolves as the most reliable partner and agency revenue source for long, long time."

Well Jeff called Semedo 'world class' so I wouldn't take everything he says completely at face value

 

[sycophantia]

I've only skimmed this thread so don't know if this point has been made already but just to add to the general negativity I'm getting really pissed off with all the rolling around and screaming our players are doing at the moment. It's always been a small part of our game since the likes of Costa came over from Portugal but it's crept into our game more and more since lockdown and I'm getting sick of it.

It's not as if it's gaining us an advantage either. If anything it's actually disrupting our flow and stopping us getting into good positions, especially seeing as we seem to have no idea what to do with attacking set pieces.

I miss Jota. He went down easy every so often but he'd get back up swinging.

In general I'd agree, however last night I thought most times our players went down it was due to some fairly poor challenges....Ward-Prowse in particular raking his studs diwn the side of knees twice in 5 minutes, which he completely got away with. Also Traore when he's worrying defences (not last night) usually tries to stay on his feet and gets assaulted but no protection from refs.

 

[YoungWolf]

I've only skimmed this thread so don't know if this point has been made already but just to add to the general negativity I'm getting really pissed off with all the rolling around and screaming our players are doing at the moment. It's always been a small part of our game since the likes of Costa came over from Portugal but it's crept into our game more and more since lockdown and I'm getting sick of it.

It's not as if it's gaining us an advantage either. If anything it's actually disrupting our flow and stopping us getting into good positions, especially seeing as we seem to have no idea what to do with attacking set pieces.

I miss Jota. He went down easy every so often but he'd get back up swinging.

Can honestly say I couldn't give a shit about that. All it means to me is that we have had the opposition kicking us more is all really.

Plus, Diogo rolled around on the floor all the time after he got kicked, and that didn't bother me either