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Wolves 0 Watford 2; The back down to earth with a bump, Verdict Thread

Jota to get a yellow Saturday is the easiest money I've made. Could see it coming a mile off.

I don't think he's at his best, seems to lose the ball a bit too easily by running into trouble, which can lead to Neves and Moutinho hacking at players and more fouls.

I think Cav for Costa or Jota next game but not sure which as don't think Costa is playing great either!
 
Jota to get a yellow Saturday is the easiest money I've made. Could see it coming a mile off.

!

To be fair he had every right to lose his shit when he got the card. Watford player went in with his shoulder and shoved him and nothing was given...he went back with the exact same action and got penalised. This was about the 3rd "what the fuck are you doing ref" moment against Jota
 
Agree, Jota has been taken out so many times this season without a yellow card has been given
 
Actually the ref's have been pretty fair when Jota has been whacked (for starters Everton went down to 10 men for 1 of them). Saturday he was booked for dissent as he bollocked the ball away in anger at the decision against him. Not one player knew on Saturday what would be a foul and what wouldn't be, the Jota incident highlighted that as 2 identical incidents, split by about 5 seconds had diiferent outcomes. Vinagre is probably still laughing at getting away with his 2 hands in the chest push near the end of the game....and then fuming that he got pulled up for shaking off a player who wanted his shirt before FT
 
Wolves on the ball look to transfer quickly from the centre of the field to out wide but we have to create a threat to our opponents by overloading the flanks. When we don't do that our opponents can allow more one on ones when defending while also playing narrow through midfield. Backing us up through numbers.

That isn't what happened though. We had players on the flanks but it was every time the ball came into midfield that we were pressed and harried into giving it away. We needed to have more bodies centrally so that we could get control of the ball and ultimately the flow of the game.
 
That isn't what happened though. We had players on the flanks but it was every time the ball came into midfield that we were pressed and harried into giving it away. We needed to have more bodies centrally so that we could get control of the ball and ultimately the flow of the game.

It's one where Dendoncker stepping into midfield from the back three might have helped. All massively in hindsight though, and we don't often go two goals down and have to deal with a team who can just keep us at arm's length.
 
That isn't what happened though. We had players on the flanks but it was every time the ball came into midfield that we were pressed and harried into giving it away. We needed to have more bodies centrally so that we could get control of the ball and ultimately the flow of the game.

In most games I would back Neves and Moutinho to be good enough playing one and two touch football to find pockets of space from which to pass to targets high and wide. If team mates show and control properly our system then works fine. Its all about us imposing our system on our opponents rather than vice versa.
 
I still think it comes down to us being very reliant on Nuno working with the team in the week to understand how they need to play to counter the opposition. Last week we didn't have time to do this.
 
In most games I would back Neves and Moutinho to be good enough playing one and two touch football to find pockets of space from which to pass to targets high and wide. If team mates show and control properly our system then works fine. Its all about us imposing our system on our opponents rather than vice versa.

Didn't work on Saturday and if I were Chris Hughton I would be doing exactly the same next week. I'm not saying we should change the system but we should be implementing some flexibility if an opposition do this again. It may be in personnel or it may be that we push one of our front three deeper, either way we need to negate it. Saying it will be OK our players are better than theirs is a bit hopeful.
 
Didn't work on Saturday and if I were Chris Hughton I would be doing exactly the same next week.

and I would suggest Nuno will be better prepared to play against it if he does. One thing we have learnt from Nuno is he learns from games and the next time we face something similar we are ready for it.
 
It's one where Dendoncker stepping into midfield from the back three might have helped. All massively in hindsight though, and we don't often go two goals down and have to deal with a team who can just keep us at arm's length.

Looking back on it, Gracia pushed Success up against the back three but then had Perayra, Hughes and Deulofeu floating in the gaps between centre back and wing back so Boly nor Bennett could step forward as Doherty and Jonny would be caught to far up the pitch.

I guess the answer would be to go to a flat back 5 and drop Jota into midfield to make the extra man and spring Costa/ Jiminez. As you say Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
 
Didn't work on Saturday and if I were Chris Hughton I would be doing exactly the same. I'm not saying we should change the system but we should be implementing some flexibility if team do this again. It may b in personnel or it may be that we push one of our front three deeper, either way we need to negate it. Saying it will be OK our players are better than theirs is a bit hopeful.

Nuno spoke last week about natural evolution within a system, ours is still young with everyone on a learning curve. We can be sure our staff will be looking at being that little bit more flexible without losing the core factors that Nuno holds within the system.
Though Nuno did seem to insinuate that certain players had strayed to far from his key beliefs in his post match interviews.
 
I didn't get that from his interview LK, more that Nuno thought some players were a bit complacent. Not that they didn't believe in what they were doing.
 
Nuno will not start Traore yet - that is obvious. And it's not because he isn't a dangerous player going forward, because he is. His pace and trickery will more often than not create 1-2 good chances towards the end of the game (you just have to turn a blind eye to the occasions where he makes the wrong decision or runs straight in to players) - the reason Nuno won't start Traore is because he just doesn't give you the shape and discipline that Costa/Jota/Cav give us defensively. Our game is just important defensively as it is going forward - we're not good enough to have the luxury of playing someone who completely fucks the shape of the team up. Until Traore improves this side of his game (and Nuno will have known what he was buying), he will not start games of football for us in the Premier League.

The obvious change for me is Jota to come out of the firing line for a little bit, allowing Cav to start. I just can't see Nuno dropping Jota, though - and I can't see Dendonker coming straight in from not even being on the bench to starting either. Plus who does he come in for? Moutinho? Neves? Bennett? Tricky one for Nuno because it's good to show loyalty to the same players (8-9 games unchanged is unheard of) but he needs to be careful that things don't become a bit predictable - Watford showed other teams a way of playing against us, and now there's a blueprint in place. Obviously at some point I don't think you can carry on leaving a Belgium international out of the matchday squad, but it would be extremely harsh to drop Bennett after one average performance IMO, but that's the kind of decision Nuno gets paid very good money to make.

In respect to the Watford game itself, there were a number of players below par; mainly the lads who'd gone away on international duty looked shattered. DW raised a very good point about a Manager being proactive, not reactive. Difficult to be too critical of Nuno considering their two goals were less than a minute apart - but we were miles off the pace for the remainder of the first half and it took the young Vinagre to come on and change things with his tempo and endeavor to get forward. For me, we don't look like scoring more than 1 x goal in a game. Whether that's specifically down to our style of play, or the players themselves, I don't know. Hopefully Nuno does. But with games against Spurs and Arsenal coming up, Brighton is now looking like a match we could do with winning.
 
I didn't get that from his interview LK, more that Nuno thought some players were a bit complacent. Not that they didn't believe in what they were doing.

Its maybe that when away on international duty certain players bring back certain aspects of another coaches thoughts which Nuno wouldn't agree with. Still a full week now getting them all playing the Nuno way.
 
In the first half I thought Watford played a lot of high balls into their front men, which they laid off for their midfielders to run onto and we didn't seem to be able to cope with it.
 
a lot of good discussion after that embarrassment of a match

I think the front 3 aren't good enough right now. not saying they can't perform well or aren't good enough generally, but their form is has been not great for a bit now. Raul has missed numerous sitters, Jota keeps running into crowds, costa going missing... their numbers at this stage are quite below where we would've all expected by now, I'd guess. we can barely even seem to get decent shots on target, it seems.

agree that some of the subs and adjustments at halftime seemed odd, but trust nuno to have a better plan next time we run into this issue.

For me, Cav has to start the next game. Seems a bit harsh to rush changes elsewhere in the squad, but the front 3 need a shakeup.
 
agree that some of the subs and adjustments at halftime seemed odd,

Vinagre made perfect sense. We had Jonny so high up the pitch to keep their wing back deep but as good as Jonny is, he can't really run at a defence and keep them fully occupied. We really should have started with Rubes Jnr with that tactic in mind but I get why Nuno kept the same 11 from the previous 8 games
 
Wouldn't call yesterday an embarrassment, really. We were outplayed but it wasn't quite 5 - 1.
 
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