Lots of talk about how great this squad is, how they're better than x,y or z on paper, how they're being wasted or how some other manager would do with them but how many of them are legitimately showing that? As bad as any coach might be there should always be some elements of promise that manage to shine through, players should be able to do the odd bit here and there in spite of the worst coaching, if they put their minds to it.
There just doesn't seem to be any understanding at Wolves, players that have been together for years still look like strangers more often than not. You've got people who've spent their entire careers at big clubs and playing for top international sides but they can't pick or time a decent run, they struggle to make good decisions consistently and they're often rattled by fairly timid resistance. Can their collective psyche be so fragile that they all need that level of support and micromanagement to get through a game? They'd surely never be at this level if so.
I was never a big fan of Nuno's brand of football, too slow and conservative for my liking but you can't knock it's effectiveness for the most part. There would've been times I felt he was holding the players back from doing something more expansive but now I don't believe that to be the case. His backs to the wall mentality appeared to give them a comfort blanket under which majority thrived, drawing teams onto them and striking on the counter with the front two or three. Games where that counter attacking plan couldn't come to fruition were a real chore, the team looked more laboured the more of the ball they had an teams invariably found them easy to hold at bay.
This is where I was talking about the issue being bigger than the head coach, we've seen similar issues previously when needing or attempting to be a more dominant side. Nuno tried to change things a bit and that failed, similar when Lage first arrived and again now. So, who is actually steering the ship at club level? Who decides what Fosun want Wolves to be? Whether by hook or crook the squad and Nuno had a symbiotic relationship, the football wasn't by any means the prettiest but it worked. Personally I think it had to change if they really wanted to push up the table, you can't keep playing as the underdog if you want to be one of the top dogs, somewhere along the line you have to put on your big boy pants and assert yourselves.
Do Fosun still want Wolves to be the best football team they can be? They don't appear to have a cohesive plan for achieving such. Newcastle went and got themselves Ashworth to dictate that policy, who do Fosun have? Mendes is perhaps the closest person to having that sort of influence but I can't imagine anyone is thinking he has Wolves best interests at heart. This squad has been predominantly assembled by him or his representatives, is he bringing players primarily to create the best team for Wolves, targeting players who will form a cohesive group with a common style of play or is he just shuffling his deck to boost his bank balance?
If you're not recruiting to a consistent theme how do you pick a manager to best utilise that group? How do you ever expect to recruit a decent coach if they're only ever going to be allowed to oversee Jorge's latest pick and mix?
We've seen other clubs get bought as toys by some very rich boys and at times they've had a tendency to meddle too much, grabbing whichever manager is flavour of the month or bringing in big name players with no clear plan. Fosun started off looking very shrewd with the Gestifute tie in but these days they're not looking that much different to a meddling oligarch, Jorge gives them a fancy name and they throw money at them.
You compare that to the likes of Brighton, they found the man they wanted in Potter and they've stuck with him through some rough patches. They sell some of their big players when required or when it suits but they recruit in line with what he wants the team to be. It may not be glitz, glamour and household names but their team keeps functioning and their brand of football is largely easy on the eye. Similar story at Leeds, despite most people taking a dislike to Marsch he's been backed with what he wanted and so far it's looked like the plan is working out. They've still got a similar mentality to under Bielsa which must help for the players who were there before but they've backed him with players he wanted too and early signs are looking good.
Does anyone think Fosun have such a clear vision for Wolves?
