My thoughts on the game:
Good old Lonergan pulled up in the warm up (apparently) so had to be replaced, which was a bonus as I wouldn't mind seeing Burgoyne playing. Sadly for poor Harry he really isn't ready. On the plus side he's very good with his feet, distributes quickly and can actually communicate with his defenders, on the negative side his chocolate wrists and flapping at crosses mean he just doesn't have the physical strength yet to play at this level. His positioning is fine but when you looked at Danny Ward in the Huddersfield goal there is simply no comparison and they are only 3 years in difference. Ward came and claimed everything and dominated his defence, and our attack. We should be looking at making him our number 1 keeper target.
Defensively we were reasonably OK, Wells and others had little change out of Iorfa, Silvio, Stears and Batth. But there was a clear miscommunication between them and the midfield. Batth was at the heart of this and there were squables with Price, Weimann and Marshall, it made for an unhappy looking relationship. Having said that Batth was pretty good on the ball in the main, we know he's too slow in thought and sometimes makes the wrong decisions but technically he was fine. Stears on the other hand was terrible, abdicating responsibility, playing at a half-arsed pace, getting in the wrong positions, leaving Batth exposed for pace with Wells 1v1 and generally playing utter shite. Silvio was the pick of the defenders, an actual full back who linked with Marshall very well and then latterly Graham when he came on. A technically wonderful player, comfortable with both feet and a fine range of passing, even fancied a go from distance too. But mainly Silvio can defend and he's bloody good at it, something I haven't seen at Molineux for 3 years. 3 YEARS!!!
The midfield has been castigated enough on here and much of that has to do with the set up:
---------------------Burgoyne---------------------
-Iorfa------Batth------------Stears---------Silvio-
---------------------Price---------------------------
Weimann----------MGW---------------Marshall
--------------------BOD--------------------------
Those of you with eagle eyes will notice there are only 10 players there and a gulf between Jack Price and the rest of his team. Wiemann and Marshall ended up getting deeper and deeper in the first half and in the second half when Bod was hooked (the poor bloke had less energy than Dave has ability) we went some weird sort of 4-4-2 diamond with the wide men very wide, Price deep and Dave wherever he wanted but mainly running away from central midfield into a beast of a centre half.
As a pair Price was on his own and just ended up passing the ball with a high tempo sideways to Silvio or Iorfa but wasn't great getting the ball forwards but when you are aiming for players doing their mannequin challenge every time he was on the ball it was hard for him. He's not mobile enough to be a quality defensive midfielder as he can't really tackle and isn't strong enough but he's not too dissimilar to Jonny Hogg for Huddersfield.
Two big differences; (1) Huddersfield pressed in packs like Klopp's Liverpool and they were brilliantly organised at it and when you have 3 players chasing 1 midfielder or wide players our midfielder (Price) was the only outlet and we're fucked if he was on the ball.
(2) Dave Edwards was mainly anonymous. Missed a sitter when striking the post, lost the ball for their equaliser before not tracking the 6ft2" afro'd Izzy Brown (tough man to spot as you can tell) who then stroked the ball past the chocolate wristed 'keeper.
Marshall was neat and tidy but got shunted here there and everywhere to little effect, but he's two footed and can do that. His most effective work was in the inside forward position trying to feed balls through to Mason/ Weimann.
I like Morgan Gibbs-White and he had a tough lesson in the physicality of the Championship compared to the U23's where he was buffeted off the the ball a lot but showed flair, precision and a willing to run at players only Costa shows. He's a super talent and was better wide where he could rinse the Huddersfield left back on a couple of occasions. Shame he didn't find an end product but that will come, he's very exciting to watch.
Which leads me to the mess up front; Bod shouldn't have started, he had nothing at all to give, the equivalent of hunting down a petrol station when you are below the red line on your fuel gauge. Weimann was all shouty and pointy when up front but essentially offered the square root of FA running into said man mountain and the other centre back who probably asked him to hold his cigar whilst clearing the ball to an unmarked Huddersfield midfielder. Mason dropped in behind Weimann in the second half, had one shot after a smart first touch and then preceeded to hide from everything else on the pitch.
The tactics in the second half were laughable, 4 up front, 1 up front, a diamond midfield and inverted full backs were all present at some point and to be honest they all looked like nobody knew what on earth was going on.
But for a dominant Rae type midfielder and an actual striker who could give a centre half a headache we aren't that far away, I felt sorry for Marshall, Gibbs-White, Silvio and Iorfa having to play with the rest. I can see what Lambert is trying to do (in the first half at least) but his persistence with certain players will be his undoing.
We badly lack a captain, organiser and motivator and somebody should tell Batth and Edwards that pointing arms is neither.
Ratings: Burgoyne 5; Iorfa 5, Batth 5, Stears 4, Silvio 6; Price 5, Edwards 1; Marshall 5, MGW 5, Weimann 4; Bod 3. Subs: Mason 3, Graham 6, Dicko N/A.
