Wolves 1-3 Liverpool: Verdict Thread

[Johnny75]

I can't imagine GON told them to play like that - they hadn't been in the first half.

The subs/changes Klopp made - basically throwing the kitchen sink at us and hoping for the best, pinned us back. I think Klopp actually got lucky, it wasn't genius from him, he just utilised his impressive squad, and it's a lot easier to do that with 5 subs.

That's ridiculous.

 

[Johnny75]

I'm not a fan of O'Neil, but you surely cannot seriously believe that?

Hard to not believe it. It's exactly what we did at Palace and exactly what happened for 20 minutes after HT today.

I think he set up to play on the counter with a very deep low block but we don't have the players to do that.

 

[slink]

Seemed to me the first 15/20 minutes of the second half was a pure tactical decision to cope with Liverpool going 4-2-4 with Robertson also overloading our right hand side.

GoN seemed utterly shell shocked and credit to Klopp it was good management at a time his team needed it. It showed the gulf in class between the two men, and rightly so given their relative experience and ability.

I thought it was after we conceded the 2nd we then threw more caution to the wind and tried to play as we did in the first half without the quality on the pitch.

GoN doesn't seem to have the ideas to change a game or manage one effectively. Whatever he says at HT really isn't working, that's 3 second half shellackings he's overseen.

Without knowing what was said at half time we really don’t know. You’ve been involved in football so you know that a team with Liverpool’s quality can push sides back especially one like ours right now. You know there’s no way O’Neil wanted us to be that deep and not have some sort of threat.

We all know Klopp is better than O’Neil, he’s better than 99.9% of managers. Won’t be the last manager he gets the better of. Still Sa moment aside we were drawing 1-1 with 5 minutes left and keeping them at bay really with their only chance being the Nunez one. Ideally we needed to bring Sasa on and have someone to bring on for Neto but we haven’t really got that player.

 

[Dire Wolf]

Hard to not believe it. It's exactly what we did at Palace and exactly what happened for 20 minutes after HT today.

I think he set up to play on the counter with a very deep low block but we don't have the players to do that.

So his instructions were to sit deep, not attack, switch off defensively and give the ball away all the time? Okay then.

 

[slink]

But that does look like that's exactly what happened. He did it at Palace too when we scored.

Definitely went too defensive against Palace and paid for it but today was more being against a better side capable of going 424 and player options imo. Even with all that as i’ve said without Sa doing what he did we were in the game, Semedo had just had his shot blocked and if Sa slows the game down and we keep hold of the ball who knows what would have happened.

 

[SSB]

He's captain!

Neves used to argue too much with the ref for my liking, but I don't recall Max doing it as much as once?

If he wasn’t in the refs face today after Liverpool’s third whilst Dawson was down, he never will be.

 

[Johnny75]

Without knowing what was said at half time we really don’t know. You’ve been involved in football so you know that a team with Liverpool’s quality can push sides back especially one like ours right now. You know there’s no way O’Neil wanted us to be that deep and not have some sort of threat.

We all know Klopp is better than O’Neil, he’s better than 99.9% of managers. Won’t be the last manager he gets the better of. Still Sa moment aside we were drawing 1-1 with 5 minutes left and keeping them at bay really with their only chance being the Nunez one. Ideally we needed to bring Sasa on and have someone to bring on for Neto but we haven’t really got that player.

I agree with everything you've said here but I do think GoN did set up with the low block to play on the counter but then Doc and Silva are the wrong players to do that with.

It definitely needed Sasa and if we are going to play on the counter at least one other speed merchant and we just don't have that player as you say.


Klopp certainly deserves a lot of credit today for his second half management. If we still have Lop or Nuno we win that game 1-0 as they would have managed that 2nd half properly. That's the difference in us staying up imo.

 

[SSB]

Overtraining shouldn't be happening. Everything is tracked by those vests now.

It would be if the info was being fed back to the backroom team of analysts that we haven’t got anymore.

 

[Johnny75]

So his instructions were to sit deep, not attack, switch off defensively and give the ball away all the time? Okay then.

That's not what I said.

Sit deep in a very low block and play on the counter. Neto spent a disproportionate amount of time early in the second half wide and high left.

 

[prawnking]

So based on the last page or so alone, GON isn't responsible for:

-Our fitness

-The way we play (the players decide that, obviously... when it doesn't work, of course)

-Our half-time team talk

There's giving a guy the benefit of the doubt, and then there's goalpost-changing nonsense like this... I mean, come on

 

[WsWolf]

It would be if the info was being fed back to the backroom team of analysts that we haven’t got anymore.

We'll have analysts, you don't think any club in the PL doesn't in house analysts?

 

[Dire Wolf]

That's not what I said.

Sit deep in a very low block and play on the counter. Neto didn't a disproportionate amount of time early in the second half wide and high left.

That's pretty much what Slink said and you replied "That's exactly what he did." So...

 

[slink]

I agree with everything you've said here but I do think GoN did set up with the low block to play on the counter but then Doc and Silva are the wrong players to do that with.

It definitely needed Sasa and if we are going to play on the counter at least one other speed merchant and we just don't have that player as you say.


Klopp certainly deserves a lot of credit today for his second half management. If we still have Lop or Nuno we win that game 1-0 as they would have managed that 2nd half properly. That's the difference in us staying up imo.

Purely facts here as i’ve given the instances but we got out more with Doc and Fabio than we did in the 15 minutes before them. Not the subs i would have made but it did work more than it was after the break.

Yeah we haven’t got that other speed merchant, if Jean can get fit enough having him to still carry the ball might work.

With Lop or Nuno we possibly win but we had games under both of them where we gave stupid goals away and this team is definitely worse/on par with last season. With this GK and centre backs pairing i see us conceding in quite a few games.

 

[prawnking]

Turning to some of the first half positives, Bellegarde had a pretty impressive PL debut, linked up well with Cunha and Neto on occasion and seemed generally forward thinking and positive in his play.

What did he look like in the ground from those who were there?

 

[Deano]

You can't attack when you put Doherty right midfield and play Silva up top on his own. Fabio cant hold it up, he has demonstrated that enough times now and Doherty on at right midfield will hopefully never be done again. Once you do that you surrender any threat going the other way which will only invite them on more.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Re: Bellegarde
He wasn’t that involved but everytime he was he was purposeful and successful. He got on the ball, he carried it, passed it ahead of player and then tried to get in the box afterwards.

Don’t think he gave the ball away once.

 

[Johnny75]

Purely facts here as i’ve given the instances but we got out more with Doc and Fabio than we did in the 15 minutes before them. Not the subs i would have made but it did work more than it was after the break.

Yeah we haven’t got that other speed merchant, if Jean can get fit enough having him to still carry the ball might work.

With Lop or Nuno we possibly win but we had games under both of them where we gave stupid goals away and this team is definitely worse/on par with last season. With this GK and centre backs pairing i see us conceding in quite a few games.

I can't remember us getting out with Fabio, all he did was lose the ball. Silva, bizarrely, kept challenging Doc for headers too when he should've been on the end of them.

Neto was our only outlet when we did have the ball and he went looking for it a lot, his frustration was almost palpable. I thought he was going to belt Fabio when he ran across him such was his anger.

I thought Lemina's race was run 10 minutes before he actually came off but the drop off in quality is quite stark.

 

[slink]

So based on the last page or so alone, GON isn't responsible for:

-Our fitness

-The way we play (the players decide that, obviously... when it doesn't work, of course)

-Our half-time team talk

There's giving a guy the benefit of the doubt, and then there's goalpost-changing nonsense like this... I mean, come on

This post just makes the quality of the discussion go down. Just pointless re-writing of what no one has said and you’re definitely capable of getting involved properly.

Of course he’s responsible for our fitness, the comments were questioning whether training is too intense. It’s very rarely the case and players have said the intensity has gone up so maybe that is the case but baffling if it is.

Of course he’s responsible for how we play but sometimes against better teams they’re able to make you do things you don’t want to do. No way anyone wants to sit that deep and defend against that front 4. Klopp made us and as i’ll keep pointing out we were still well in the game at 1-1, Sa had made 1 save since the goal.

 

[Johnny75]

Turning to some of the first half positives, Bellegarde had a pretty impressive PL debut, linked up well with Cunha and Neto on occasion and seemed generally forward thinking and positive in his play.

What did he look like in the ground from those who were there?

Exactly as you described. Seemed a little lost in the press but carried the ball really well and seemed to have a lovely sense of timing with his passing and vision.

 

[WsWolf]

You can't attack when you put Doherty right midfield and play Silva up top on his own. Fabio cant hold it up, he has demonstrated that enough times now and Doherty on at right midfield will hopefully never be done again. Once you do that you surrender any threat going the other way which will only invite them on more.

The Fabio thing I 100% agree with but who else did we have to replace Hwang who was fucked?

Sarabia doing his invisible man impression probably not gonna cut it. I'm no fan of Doherty but that change at least stopped them from getting Robertson in behind with one pass.

Maybe he could have moved Cunha or Bellegarde wide instead but there's no like for like changes we can make with either wide player.