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Wolves 1 Cardiff 2 - verdict thread

Anyone seen Douglas's post? Leg wrapped up but don't know how serious it is.
 
Douglas's post
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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!

Interestingly i thought Neves looked tired today and never really got in his stride.
Watching on Wolves TV i very much doubt people would have seen blatant body checks on the opposite side of the pitch to the action, just to disrupt any pattern of play.
If Zahore goes i doubt Cardiff would be half as effective, he's strong,agile and has a fantastic shot on him.
Also hope Cardiff get stronger ref's in upcoming matches to put an end to that sort of dinosaur football.
 
Just got back - Haven't seen highlights but I felt they probably edged it and took advantage of a ref who was reluctant to call out Cardiff for their off the ball fouls in particular.

Ruddy 6- did some good stops but the issues with both goals were further up the pitch. Might be disappointed with the second goal as it appeared to go through him as he attempted to make himself larger

Coady 6- probably the pick of the bunch for the centre backs with some decent passes and held zohore off quite well considering the recent criticism hes had regarding aerial balls
Miranda 5- at fault for the first goal as he dived in on hoilett and got rightly skinned. Never did well against zohore and struggled constantly
Boly 4.5 - 2 errors from my perspective from the big lad today. Wasn't close enough to Ralls for the first goal and tried some silly flick as he let the ball bounce which created the space for their second goal.

Doherty 5- didn't get forward well at all and his touches were sloppy. Was anonymous in the first half as nobody would pass to him for large periods for some reason.
Douglas 4- really poor for me as Mendez Laing skillzed him from start to finish (NML was so good, seriously impressed he's turned out this good considering he was never really rated alongside hemmings/winnall/batth) slightly redeemed himself with some good positioning for the goal but he will be under serious threat if vinagre has a good Southampton game I feel

Neves 5 - didn't seem to have the range of passing he had held before but still tried. I feel his ability to express play was rather held back by saiss not being very good today
Saiss 4.5- never seemed to have his radar of passing tuned today with several sloppy passes especially from throw ins. Pleased he kept getting stuck in mind but I felt the decision to take him off for ronan wasn't one we needed as we further lost a physical presence in the middle which helped Cardiff slightly

Bright 5- had the beating of all his men but part of our ineffectiveness in the first half was down to his frustrating decision to slow down the play in the final third, was rightly subbed for cav
Jota 5 - didn't seem in the game that much from an attacking sense minus his cross to the back post as part of the move for the opening goal, stood well to the physical challenge but I felt he was similarly ineffective
Bonatini 7 - great link up play and handled himself well, particularly in the second half as I felt he became a crucial link going forward. Was supremely well placed for his goal and I feel those criticising him need to remember he isn't a spearhead for attacks and his role is to come deep with the inside forwards being more proactive ahead of him (which didn't really happen today)

Cavaliero - added a more direct threat to the general play for wolves but hit all his shots off target. Think we need to look at introducing him from the start now as we lacked a directness to our play today
Dicko - didn't do much but annoyed me when he shot into the side netting from an impossible angle instead of looking for the cross
Ronan - some nice touches but wasn't really in the game
 
Agree with 99% of that, but Cavaleiro's shot on target was where the goal came from.
 
Was out today till well after this ended so can only go on comments seen here (C5 show provides no help on how anyone played)

Will reserve judgement till I have seen the full match once Wolves TV gets it up, but not a disaster - just a learning curve for Nuno & the team. We were never going through the season unbeaten just annoying to lose to a Warnock team.

Expect a fair few changes for the Soton game , will be interesting to see if any of them push themselves forward for inclusion in the next league game.
 
Thought Cardiff could've won the game without the cynical timewasting. I dont blame them for doing it more and more though, it was evident the referee let too many things slide. If he'd have stamped on it early in the first half then Cardiff stop doing it. I think Warnock the wily old cunt sussed this and encouraged it from his players. Fair play. Its on the referee.

Think they nullified us well by sitting somebody on Neves and also Doherty and Douglas so on the occasions Neves did get the ball his range of passing was limited and some of their counter attacking came from breakdown of play from the wingback positions and NML and Hoilett profited this setting up the first and scoring the second. That said Neves still managed to play a couple of good balls but was overall quiet.

Why a red wasnt given for the assault on Saiss is beyond me, it was an obvious elbow but he awarded a yellow card so he must've seen it? If he didnt he cant card the player? Moreover it was bang in front of the 4th official (can the 4th advise the ref? Frank?) and it was on the line so the linesman ought to see it also?

Bemoaning the ref aside we were sloppy and second best. Bright was his namesake in the first half and our 15 minute spell was largely him influencing play. Jota had one good run but snatched at the shot and Bonatini was industrious and I think gave as good as he got from Cardiffs defence.

The story of our game was isolation though, at Derby we had Doherty and Bright linking and likewise Jota and Douglas but all of them looked isolated from each other which in turn left Bonatini isolated up top. For the first goal, Miranda was done by Hoilett far too easily but where was Doherty? Watching the video he isn't in the frame on halfway line when Hoilett receives the ball and only appears at the edge of the box as Ralls puts it in? Am I misunderstanding the wingback role?

A real shame Cardiff thought they needed to resort to such tactics today because I think they had us rumbled and were on for a result anyway.
 
I thought Cardiff were the better side too. Apart from about 15 minutes or so during which we equalised and looked like Nuno's Wolves, they were better than us.

Yes they were dirty and cynical and the referee let far too much go whilst blowing his whistle against us quite a bit but it's that kind of physical game that they're going to have to learn to deal with.

Aside from that, Cardiff looked a good side and closed us down throughout the game, giving us much less time on the ball.

A disappointing result but not the end of the world.

Hopefully a positive response against Brentford next week.
 
Methinks some of the team were drinking the Kool-aid this week. Nuno won't be happy and rightfully so.
 
The problem with the elbow was that it was nowhere near the ball, so no-one was looking at it. There was so much off the ball stuff today.

Someone made a good point about the time wasting (and how that keeper didn't get booked, I'll never know), apart from not letting us build up a head of steam, it meant they didn't have to worry about being knackered for the last 15 minutes from the constant closing down, which would then let us create more chances - they didn't play a full game, so had none of those issues
 
Well everyone has been asking if our new recruits could cope with the cloggers of the championship. Today was their first real test against aforementioned cloggers. They failed it.

We need to learn from this quickly as every other team will have seen the game and will try to reproduce it. I trust Nuno and the players to make it so however, I'm not too concerned. Just disappointed it had to be against Neil fucking Warnock.

It's also a good reminder for us that promotion is not a certainty, no matter who we've beaten so far.
 
I really don't think you're being fair when you call Cardiff 'cloggers'. That's a little extreme. They were combative and played the ref, they definitely weren't going through our players. I think there was one occasion where one of the Cardiff players, I think it was Joe Ralls,went in late on Neves but it wasn't malicious, he just got to the player too late and at speed but not on the ground. He got a yellow card for it I believe.

I wouldn't focus on the physicality of the game, I'd be asking questions as to why we didn't threaten them and how their front 3 pretty much terrified our boys. Mendez-Laing looked good. Cardiff didn't win yesterday because of the ref or their physical nature, they won because they were better on the day.

Nuno, for me, is still a breath of fresh air and this is only one game, which he will need to learn from, as will some of the players. If we lose some games like this then so be it if it means we get games like the previous three. We as fans have to be aware that we aren't going to keep that type of quality up week in - week out, however, it does ask questions and let's see how we respond.
 
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At this time I think this defeat did more good to Wolves than harm.

And by this I mean fans, players and mostly Nuno.

Here is something to keep in mind:

That infamous press conference last year with the drawings was after a series of good results. In fact Porto had just beat Arouca 3-0. Porto was second. After that press conference (which as I told you before, became a national joke) Porto went on a 3 game run without winning and drop to 4th. Things were really never as smooth as before. Getting too full of himself can be one of Nuno's flaws. Hopefully he learnt the lesson last year.
 
didnt watch the game, we are gonna lose some games in this league, not worried with Nuno in charge..just get back at it again
 
At this time I think this defeat did more good to Wolves than harm.

And by this I mean fans, players and mostly Nuno.

Here is something to keep in mind:

That infamous press conference last year with the drawings was after a series of good results. In fact Porto had just beat Arouca 3-0. Porto was second. After that press conference (which as I told you before, became a national joke) Porto went on a 3 game run without winning and drop to 4th. Things were really never as smooth as before. Getting too full of himself can be one of Nuno's flaws. Hopefully he learnt the lesson last year.

I think that's fair SLB. Nuno should have learnt a lot from yesterday's game. He will now know that he will have to come up with a plan to defeat a team that will play a very high tempo and press us all over the park. It will also be good for the team to have come up against one of the more bruising teams in the league, an learn that ref's won't always protect those players that want space to play nice football!

There was a little bit of overconfidence yesterday, and sometimes it's good to take a ego bruising - especially early on in the season.

Overall I'm happy with 3 wins out of 4.
 
Like several of you have already said Cardiff were the better team. They blocked our outlet on the sides and especially Douglas was completely sidelined. Our defenders struggled the whole game, Miranda was usually on the back foot, Boly's tackling and timing was way off. And there was a lot of sloppy passing, Saiss was back to his old self giving the ball away on numerous occasions.

That said the ref really didn't help (us at least). Cardiff were allowed all the body checking and time wasting they liked and of course took full advantage of it. A lot of other decisions, usually in Cardiff's favour, were highly dubious as well. Cardiff set out to break our rythm of play by any means possible and the ref simply let them.

Games like these are to be expected over a long season, we learn from it and move on. Several of our players were well off the pace against an opposition team inn full flow. It is still early days and we've already seen some of the best football and footballers to grace Molineux in my lifetime.
 
We just had an off day and made two mistakes which led to goals. If we'd have been on our game like the first three fixtures we wouldn't have lost, and probably would have won the game. Cardiff played alright, but not to the point where we were outplayed.

We never looked at the races from the very start, we were sloppy in possession and everything was bouncing off players from their first touches. Apart from a 15 min spell in the second half, Cardiff's tactics stopped us getting a foothold back into the game. They just took advantage of that well and punished our mistakes. We'd probably get away with it on another day against most teams in the league.
 
I think there was one occasion where one of the Cardiff players, I think it was Joe Ralls,went in late on Neves but it wasn't malicious, he just got to the player too late and at speed but not on the ground. He got a yellow card for it I believe.

Without having seen a replay I felt it was very, very late, and probably too late for it not to be intentional. He followed it through and to me he was roughing up our main playmaker, though anything more than a yellow might have been excessive.
 
We will be better away than at home with this system. Dissappointing result but probably a wake up call to those already celebrating promotion. Until this game all of our new boys had performed really well most of the time was this a complacent performance or did a number of players have an off day. Warnock simply cut off our outballs. I do believe that we'll beat most teams but this match video will be a good tool for opposing managers home and away.
 
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