Wolves 1 Cardiff 2 - verdict thread

[Premier Quality]

From my perspective, we didn't know what to do when the ref declined to notice cardiffs constant fowling - it was mostly typical Colin, niggly fouls, but constant body checks, little kicks, pulling type stuff, but the ref didn't give anything all game, and we didn't know what to do differently.

Personally, I felt we missed having Jordan graham on the bench, Doherty had a decent game but didn't look like going past anyone to create anything - actually no one on our side did until cav came on. Bright had some lovely skills but no end product, and apart from the goal, Leo did very little.

Boly had a poor game - he looked like a kitten against zohore, he needs to add a bit of aggression to his game.

 

[Dolph06]

You could be right, Premier Quality, but that could be a constant theme theme this season against opposing teams. They are going to have to learn what to do in such circumstances. It's learning curve for some of them, today's result, in the long term, may not necessarily be a negative, time will tell.....

 

[slink]

I watched it on Wolves TV which is quite different to being in the stadium, however, I didn't see Cardiff as being overly physical. Were they physical? Yes. Don't let that detract you from the fact that they were pretty much better than us in every department. They kept our dangerous players quiet, we hardly troubled them in the first half. We had a little spell in the final 15 minutes of the opening half but I doubt they were too worried. The second half was pretty flat until they opened up and they could have had 1 or 2 goals.

We were also quite niggly, just not as good at it as them (I'm still not quite sure of this is a good or a bad thing) and this gave them the edge. We looked uncomfortable defensively and we lacked real penetration going forward. We also didn't offer much in midfield. Cardiff closed us down well and you have to give them credit for that. Do I admire their style of play? Not one bit! Did I admire ours today? Not one bit! That being said, I like Nuno and the philosophy that he is trying to implement. I believe it will come to fruition in the end. Take nothing form Warnock (spit) and CArdiff, though, they look good and will probably be at the top end of the table come the end of the season.

Overly physical is probably the wrong term as they didn't really put in any crunching tackles or try to hurt us apart from the elbow on Saiss but they were the master of the dark arts and the referee let them and he and his assistant either failed to spot it or just ignored it. I'm not sure which was was worse.

I will be interested if you can see all the things Cardiff were doing from the camera angle on Wolves TV. From the very first minute they constantly put little blocks or pulls in off the ball, stopping our interplay and like i said the ref and his assistants failed to spot them or just let them get away with it. The time wasting even at 0-0 went unpunished and as soon as we got near them they dived down on the floor which he either gave a free kick for or stopped play when we were on the attack only for the Cardiff players to miraculously recover.

The front 3 were a threat for them but i'm not having that Cardiff we so much better than us. Our good spell in the first half when they stopped kicking us we looked so much better than them and once Costa comes back and Cav is playing probably with a top striker we will be flying. I'm not sure Cardiff can keep this style up as surely not every ref will let them get away with everything and if Zohore gets injured or leaves he will take some replacing.

 

[slink]

Just a clarification; Zohore scored against Burton. Good curling left foot shot from outside the box into the bottom right corner.

Yeah you're right he did, 87th munute. Remember it now.

 

[Quirkafleeg]

I thought taking Bright off was a huge mistake Nuno. #justsayingloike

 

[Dolph06]

Slink, you could be right, buddy. In my humble opinion I think that they actually became fatigued in the final 15 minutes of the first half after all of the pressing (not that it was Klopp/Dortmund-esq), however, it was fairly high-tempo. I may have missed a lot of went on off the ball, that I concede, nonetheless, in the dangerous areas of the pitch I felt that they were on top. Bonatini offered little and as such we were quite pedestrian going forward without an outlet. Jota was quiet and pretty much man marked out of the game. It was a tough game, let's make no bones about it. Warnock is the epitome of everything I despise in football but I have to say I was surprised by Cardiff today. They defended well and attacked well. We, on the other hand, didn't. That doesn't mean I rate him more than Nuno, obviously, but credit where it's due.

 

[slink]

I thought taking Bright off was a huge mistake Nuno. #justsayingloike

I thought so at the time but Cav looked a threat when he came on and Jota improved and set up the equaliser with a good cross

 

[Siggy]

Surprised at the criticism of Bonatini he had zero service 1st half but was involved in pretty much everything going forward in the 2nd. Nice little poachers goal too.

Can anyone clarify if the 2nd goal took a deflection looked to be right at Ruddy?

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[Torrevieja wolf]

Surprised at the criticism of Bonatini he had zero service 1st half but was involved in pretty much everything going forward in the 2nd. Nice little poachers goal too.

Can anyone clarify if the 2nd goal took a deflection looked to be right at Ruddy?

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Looked like between his legs from where I was sitting

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[slink]

Surprised at the criticism of Bonatini he had zero service 1st half but was involved in pretty much everything going forward in the 2nd. Nice little poachers goal too.

Can anyone clarify if the 2nd goal took a deflection looked to be right at Ruddy?

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Yeah i quite like Bonatini who looks like he's doing what he's been told to do. He holds the ball up well and links play but what he can't really do is run with the ball and run behind defences. I think the major problems at the moment is the movement/end product of the inside forwards isn't as Nuno would like it yet and Doherty is so poor in forward areas in 75% of games like he was today. It then doesn't help when Douglas has a poor game too.

 

[The Bear]

Ugh. A really flat performance from us today with none of the spark we've had in the first three games. Poor first touches, sloppy possession and not much cutting edge. All of this wasn't helped by, surprise surprise, a bunch of dirty niggly wankers very much in their manager's image, who'd clearly been told to try and bully us out of the game. Loads of off the ball physicality, body checks, and niggly fouls which amazingly the absolute **** of a ref let them get away with all game. Utterly inept refereeing performance. The elbow on Saiss should have been a straight red.

In fairness to Cardiff they played some alright stuff and Zohore was a handful. Even though we were poor we weren't outplayed and both their goals came from really poor defensive mistakes which were unusual from us.

I'm not worried yet just because of one below par performance and a dogshit referee. 9 pts from 12 after playing Boro, Derby, Hull and Cardiff is still a great return.

I'm just annoyed that we didn't perform well enough today and lost to that **** Warnock and his dirty tactics.

 

[Premier Quality]

My scores on the doors...

Ruddy 7
Doherty 6
Douglas 6
Boly 6
Coady 7
Miranda 6
Neves 7
Saiss 6
Jota 6
Enobokhare 6
Bonantini 6

Subs
Cav 7
Dicko 5
Ronan 6

Writing that makes it pretty clear to me that we were pretty average really - when the opposition are man marking the whole team, you need someone to beat a man to make space - we only really had that when cav came on. Costa would have made a massive difference in a game like this.

 

[Jack Regan]

I don't think we can complain about the result, Cardiff were the better side when the ref wasn't allowing them to niggle, foul and bully us. We never really got going as a result of the way Cardiff got at us and pressed the ball. We defended poorly, I thought their set plays caused us all sorts of problems and it was surprising that they didn't end up scoring from one of them. Both goals came from clangers, the first from Miranda and the second from Willy. I'd like to see Miranda moved to the centre of the back three as he lacks the mobility imo to play out on the right.

When the game opened up in the second half Cardiff still had the better of it and certainly created the better opportunities, no matter how reprehensible some of their tactics were.

All in all a learning curve for the players as you can guarantee other teams will have watched this and seen how we can be ruffled.

I will say that has to be one of the most abysmal refereeing performance's I've seen in quite some time.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Second goal went right through him, no deflection. It was struck well and he was just making himself big but then went straight at him. Won't give him too much stick for it and he made some good saves and has helped us to this good start. We didn't lose today because Ruddy didn't make a save.

 

[Premier Quality]

We didn't lose today because Ruddy didn't make a save.

From a technical standpoint I disagree completely! :icon_mrgreen:

I know what you mean though, and you're right - ruddy had a decent game, we had far bigger issues than just him.

 

[PuntsWolf]

From a technical standpoint I disagree completely! :icon_mrgreen:

I know what you mean though, and you're right - ruddy had a decent game, we had far bigger issues than just him.

Well technically we did [emoji6]

But it should never have got to that point. How a long ball from a goal kick allowed NML to be bearing in on goal is unacceptable

 

[The Bear]

It was Boly coming forward and missing the ball which left the space where he'd usually be for NML to run into on the end of a simple squared pass.

 

[Boozad]

We were all over the place at the back in the second half (and large chunks of the first) and it just fucked our game up, we couldn't pass out and were facing our own goal when defending for the most part, Miranda hit the deck twice trying to wrestle for the ball running back towards goal and the second time it ended up in the net. I think a lot of it was down to Douglas being subdued (and marked out of the game) and Doherty reverting to type, the latter offering Miranda zero cover in the second half. We were just way too exposed.

Midfield couldn't get a hand in the game with Neves looking rushed and forcing passes and Saiss looked very uncomfortable being harried so much, it didn't help the pressure on defence. Nothing really came off for Jota or Enobkhare and Leo worked and worked but didn't really get in dangerous areas as much as he should.

As I said earlier, Cardiff's cuntish tactics worked, but they should never have been allowed if we hadn't have had such a complete and utter fuckpig of a ref. In fact that's complimenting him, he was beyond dire and should be completely fucking ashamed of himself. Some of the stuff Cardiff got away with was disgraceful.

Ruddy - 6

Douglas - 7 (for the assist)
Boly - 6
Niranda - 6
Coady - 6.5
Doherty - 5.5 (way too lazy today)

Neves - 6.5
Saiss - 6

Jota - 6
Bright - 6

Bonatini - 6

Cav - 7
Dicko - 5
Ronan - 6

 

[SSB]

Tell you what though. Lose one game and some absolute idiots appear on Twitter & Facebook.

 

[Carrotdude]

Very annoying to get in after a long day and see this result. Sounds like we weren't very good and got done by a very good championship side. Warnock is a dick but he's good at what he does, I wonder if fatigue played a part after another unchanged side.

But still, if we keep winning 3 out of every 4 games then I'm happy so dust ourselves off, rest everyone for the cup game and come back strong next week.

It's especially annoying to lose to warnock and a bloody NML goal who I never thought would play at this level let alone score 5 already!