Wolves 1-4 Brighton: Verdict Thread

[GLASGOWOLF]

Well we've gone from appointing managers who've managed big European clubs and won trophies (even Lage haha) to a novice whose managerial achievement in a mayfly of a career is keeping a seemingly-doomed team up, it's not hard to see the thought process behind it.

Not much wrong with what you said, however he has not done a vast amount wrong.

We would all have played Silva today.

We are not happy with our 2 defenders, we all said it start of the season they are not good enough. Midfield and going forward we are good enough.

I was disappointed kalajdzic did not get
30mins.
We were really wide open, there was no
running back towards our own goal.

We were far to open especially first 10 second half, needed to be more disciplined, more organised.

 

[Alan]

What’s negative though people just accepting today as a given or people calling it out for the poor performance it was and wanting better?

I’m not going to name names as I really don’t want to pick fights and I have a lot of respect for the some of the folks feeling the most cynical about things (and I do not at all mean cynical as a judgment).

You don’t have to look far in the first page of this thread for comments that go beyond “that was shit, do better.”

 

[BeaverWolf]

What’s negative though people just accepting today as a given or people calling it out for the poor performance it was and wanting better?

A number of Forum members just think Gary is useless. The 2 results so far do not give us an overall indication of his ability. We all want success & maybe he can give us that. Maybe not.

 

[Johnny75]

I admire what we did today and, to some extent, it worked. But Brighton will slice open any team who attempt what we attempted and he has to take a bit of blame for that too.

Which bits for you admire and what do you think we were attempting?

I was in the stadium and I didn't find a lot to admire and I didn't really know what GoN's plan was so I'll be interested to see what you think.

 

[ROVERT47]

I’ll be interested to see how next Saturday goes, Monday night was encouraging but I’m afraid what I saw for long periods today was very much same old, same old.

 

[Hereford Wolf]

We looked like a Championship side against a Champions League side.

I am normally optimist but I am already worried.

 

[Mel Evo]

I’m not going to name names as I really don’t want to pick fights and I have a lot of respect for the some of the folks feeling the most cynical about things (and I do not at all mean cynical as a judgment).

You don’t have to look far in the first page of this thread for comments that go beyond “that was shit, do better.”

Don’t be so harsh on yourself, you were likely being overly harsh on RAN as you were caught up in the emotion of it all

Look, obviously I don’t know you but you seem a really likeable and thoughtful guy. Your narrative on this one does seem a bit preachy to folks who have just sat through that performance, I’d suggest.

 

[Wolvensam]

Which bits for you admire and what do you think we were attempting?

I was in the stadium and I didn't find a lot to admire and I didn't really know what GoN's plan was so I'll be interested to see what you think.

I think we put together some good attacks and were attempting to play similar to how we did on Monday eve where the press worked well. However, as I said, GoN has to take blame as it wasn’t the right call and Brighton were always going to rip us apart - they did.

 

[Wolftone]

A number of Forum members just think Gary is useless. The 2 results so far do not give us an overall indication of his ability. We all want success & maybe he can give us that. Maybe not.

Yes.
It's like it's got nothing to do with our players individual ability, it's all down to the coaching and 'tactics'.
Take no notice of what is in front of you, before your eyes.
Ignore the positive attributes of the team or players you are opposing.
Look for scapegoats instead, the owners, the chief exec, the manager, the assistant coach, never the players, their ability or even more importantly their attitude.
As far as I'm concerned O'Neil is absolutely the last man we should be blaming. He's been in the job barely a week and has a totally inherited squad, with no option to change the personnel.

 

[Alan]

Don’t be so harsh on yourself, you were likely being overly harsh on RAN as you were caught up in the emotion of it all

Look, obviously I don’t know you but you seem a really likeable and thoughtful guy. Your narrative on this one does seem a bit preachy to folks who have just sat through that performance, I’d suggest.

I bet it does

I absolutely can’t deny that a lot of this would likely be much harder for me to swallow were I spending not insignificant amounts of money getting to Molineux every other weekend. As it is, geography has thus far kept me ignorant of that additional pain.

 

[slink]

What’s negative though people just accepting today as a given or people calling it out for the poor performance it was and wanting better?

I would imagine everyone of us want better than today, fucked if we don’t. What some are doing though is seeing the positives that were there and understanding the mistakes for the goals weren’t things we hadn’t seen before and that Brighton are a very good side, coached by a world class coach imo who have a clear effective style of play built up over years.

There shouldn’t be an issue with highlighting that, it’s fact. We haven’t got that because of the mismanagement from Fosun etc… but we know that so unfortunately we go with what we’ve got. We could all sing about Jeff and Fosun but I genuinely feel it will have no impact and despite all the failings we wouldn’t be in a position to make these errors without them. I’m not hopeful they’ll get it back to where I would want us but who knows.

I understand frustrations but I’ll continue to look for positives whilst recognising there’s more wrong than right at the moment. Also while i can see positives i’ll support the lads out there because i think they do care so i’ll be singing my heart out at Everton and Palace over the next 2 weeks trying to give them a boost.

 

[Johnny75]

Yes.
It's like it's got nothing to do with our players individual ability, it's all down to the coaching and 'tactics'.
Take no notice of what is in front of you, before your eyes.
Ignore the positive attributes of the team or players you are opposing.
Look for scapegoats instead, the owners, the chief exec, the manager, the assistant coach, never the players, their ability or even more importantly their attitude.
As far as I'm concerned O'Neil is absolutely the last man we should be blaming. He's been in the job barely a week and has a totally inherited squad, with no option to change the personnel.

This made me laugh a lot, thanks.

 

[prawnking]

I'm in the 'haven't really made a call about this coach' camp. I don't know if he'll be a success or not. I suspect that he won't, but I'm not writing that chapter of the book yet. Unlike some people who seem to already know he'll be a failure for some reason and are actively looking for points to score to prove they are right. As far as I'm aware there isn't anyone who has said he's going to be a success?

Few managerial appointments or player signings are sure-fire successes or failures, but surely it's about probability and ambition.

Would you be happy with Warnock or Dean Smith or Steve Bruce? Of course not, you'd say they were unsuitable and/or had multiple failures to their name, and were just unimaginative relegation firefighting signings.

Would you be happy giving them a chance, a run of games to prove what they could do? Would you ignore their previous and allow them a fresh slate? They could well do a decent job, and the Wolves position could be a good fit. It's not an exact science, but the probability would certainly go against them.

O'Neil may turn out to be a success here, but as he doesn't really have much of a managerial record, we have nothing to base our expectations on, so we're really just putting all our faith in Hobbs' judgement. That he's spotted a future star in Gary, and hopefully it's a better call than when Jeff spotted a future star in Fabio.

But, of course, it's not really an ambitious, positive appointment is it? Cos that would go against the grain of how the club is clearly being run right now. It's not like we've lost Potter and have lined up De Zerbi (since we all love Brighton comparisons so much), because we've kept our eye on him, seen what he can do and want him to take the team onto another level, based on previous achievements and standing in the game.

We've had to get someone unattached at the last minute, fancied someone British and who wasn't too mutated, and GON probably came across as a nice fella at interview.

Do these kind of cheap punts really pay off very often? No, not really, otherwise every PL team would do it and not bother employing top manager's on millions a year. Yet some on here seem surprised when cynical voices call it out as a ropey appointment from the start?

 

[prawnking]

Not much wrong with what you said, however he has not done a vast amount wrong.

We're bottom of the league with no points. He needs to start doing more things right, and get us something on the board

 

[YoungWolf]

These next two games will tell us a lot more then the two we’ve already played. But I’m not particularly confident of getting a win from either.

 

[jd1981]

Unless a CB is bought in the old problems will continue to occur the back 4 on paper and in reality looks so flimsy.

 

[Wolvensam]

Unless a CB is bought in the old problems will continue to occur the back 4 on paper and in reality looks so flimsy.

Yeah, you can’t have your full-backs adding to the attacking numbers against teams like Brighton when your two CBs are Kilman and Dawson.

 

[MobNet Wolf]

I think the problem is O’Neil is trying to make us a team that floods the box and attacks in large numbers - any coach who came in would do the same I think because, from the outside, everyone knows we didn’t create enough last season.

The problem is the players probably weren’t coached that way in pre-season (I don’t know for certain, but we didn’t play that way last year) and I think we’re seeing why Lopetegui played conservatively: for one, it tends to be his style anyway, and for two, teams can slice through us if we get it wrong and drop the press/don’t make our chances count.

I don’t think GON is being a dick or disrespectful for his comments, I think he’s trying to learn what the players are capable of having only spent just over a week with them. He’s trying to address an ongoing problem that dates well back to Nuno’s heyday, but the circumstances of not having a full pre-season with this coach means we are going to pick up some beatings along the way unless we miraculously sign a CB or two.

I admire what we did today and, to some extent, it worked. But Brighton will slice open any team who attempt what we attempted and he has to take a bit of blame for that too.

I think this is wrong.

I think the way are playing is reflective of bits we saw under Lop in pre-season.

GON hasn’t changed that, he’s continued it. Now, I think it’s entirely reasonable to expect some of the nuances have been lost. And probably likely that as each week goes by, the tactical nouse will disappear.

I just don’t think the fundamental “shift” was enacted by GON on arrival at the club.

 

[Wolvensam]

I think this is wrong.

I think the way are playing is reflective of bits we saw under Lop in pre-season.

GON hasn’t changed that, he’s continued it. Now, I think it’s entirely reasonable to expect some of the nuances have been lost. And probably likely that as each week goes by, the tactical nouse will disappear.

I just don’t think the fundamental “shift” was enacted by GON on arrival at the club.

That’s fair enough, I can see where the thought comes from there. As YoungWolf said - the next two games will be very telling.

 

[Alan]

Also worth calling out, I think, just how hard De Zerbi has them playing. How many times were we dispossessed by Mitoma or March (or Enciso, for that matter) charging back to help defensively? Even when they slowed their press, when we turned the ball over in their half they were like lightning from three sides to get it back.

I mean, I get it, that’s their whole system. But the effort required is high and not every manager can get their players putting it in for nearly the entire 90’.