Wolves 2-1 Arsenal: Verdict Thread

[lemonjelly]

arsenal now have luiz and leno suspended for 3 games too. makes the mid table battle even more open.

 

[Jinky]

That's fair.

I just genuinely wonder what the more negative posters think when we win, that's all

The Mrs is a nurse and works Monday + Tuesday nights, so I was busy bathing and putting two kids to bed while the match was on! Avoided my phone and internet until now and watched it 'live'. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought I hadn't commented because we won

And having read through this thread, for a "negative poster", I'm actually quite surprised by the... well... the negativity!

Opening 20 minutes they were cutting through us, and genuinely we were a shambles at the back. I suspect that was a combination of them riding the crest of a wave of good form, and us being the opposite. That said, it was an entertaining game to watch and I was pleasantly surprised to see Adama hadn't started at RWB. We actually played some reasonable stuff in the first half, but just seemed to be lacking confidence throughout the team, but particularly in defence. About time we had a bit of luck and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Lacazette was offside for their disallowed goal.

The penalty changes everything, I absolutely love the look of Jose already. His hold up play and link play in the lead up to the penalty was everything we've been missing for the last 10 games. It was the kind of movement you'd expect Raul to make - and I have to say, I was hugely impressed with Jose throughout. The goals will come for him too, because he's getting in some good positions. Adama seemed to grow in confidence as the game went on. As soon as he realised he had the beating of Cedric, he just seemed to skin him every time. Just wish we could have that kind of performance from him every week (well, 2nd half performance).

Felt sorry for Kilman. He's a centre half - not a left back. Hopefully we'll go back to Hoever/Semedo at the weekend. On Semedo, I thought he was excellent this evening - but also absolute wank for their opener. Got to be stronger there, and even though it was a nice finish from Pepe, he should never be getting through two players that easily.

Neto/Podence both very good this evening. Absolutely delighted for Joao (hell of a finish) and you could see him grow after the goal. Neves very good alongside him - although clearly the extra space after the sending off helped us hugely. Vitinha looked good after he came on and helped us manage the game out.

I'm just delighted that we've got a win. Hopefully we can get a little bit of confidence from this and give Leicester a decent game at the weekend. Who knows, if we can knick something against them, this could be the turnaround we've all been wishing for.

 

[Kenny]

1 win in 9 including today. 4 straight defeat.

Hadn't being paying much attention to them. Saw them knock Arsenal out of the Cup and they were impressive that day

 

[sycophantia]

Yes we could have been 3 down but we weren't, the VAR decision was correct , the crossbar is always there and Rui is doing his job and both sendings off were caused by us, yes the performance was poor for the first half hour but we can't berate things that go against us and then berate things that go right.

I like and liked this post........stop being sensible

 

[darlowolf64]

Adama got better the more players they lost...

 

[The Bear]

The hand ball by Leno was as cast iron a red as you will ever see!
it was the reddest red of all the red reds

Just on this, it was said it was given for denying Traore a goalscoring opportunity. Not for deliberate handball.

Unsure if that's correct but that's what Peter Walton and others said didn't they?

 

[Tredman]

The Mrs is a nurse and works Monday + Tuesday nights, so I was busy bathing and putting two kids to bed while the match was on! Avoided my phone and internet until now and watched it 'live'. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought I hadn't commented because we won

And having read through this thread, for a "negative poster", I'm actually quite surprised by the... well... the negativity!

Opening 20 minutes they were cutting through us, and genuinely we were a shambles at the back. I suspect that was a combination of them riding the crest of a wave of good form, and us being the opposite. That said, it was an entertaining game to watch and I was pleasantly surprised to see Adama hadn't started at RWB. We actually played some reasonable stuff in the first half, but just seemed to be lacking confidence throughout the team, but particularly in defence. About time we had a bit of luck and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Lacazette was offside for their disallowed goal.

The penalty changes everything, I absolutely love the look of Jose already. His hold up play and link play in the lead up to the penalty was everything we've been missing for the last 10 games. It was the kind of movement you'd expect Raul to make - and I have to say, I was hugely impressed with Jose throughout. The goals will come for him too, because he's getting in some good positions. Adama seemed to grow in confidence as the game went on. As soon as he realised he had the beating of Cedric, he just seemed to skin him every time. Just wish we could have that kind of performance from him every week (well, 2nd half performance).

Felt sorry for Kilman. He's a centre half - not a left back. Hopefully we'll go back to Hoever/Semedo at the weekend. On Semedo, I thought he was excellent this evening - but also absolute wank for their opener. Got to be stronger there, and even though it was a nice finish from Pepe, he should never be getting through two players that easily.

Neto/Podence both very good this evening. Absolutely delighted for Joao (hell of a finish) and you could see him grow after the goal. Neves very good alongside him - although clearly the extra space after the sending off helped us hugely. Vitinha looked good after he came on and helped us manage the game out.

I'm just delighted that we've got a win. Hopefully we can get a little bit of confidence from this and give Leicester a decent game at the weekend. Who knows, if we can knick something against them, this could be the turnaround we've all been wishing for.

Good post, have to disagree about Podence - penalty aside I thought he did very little. Would much rather see Vitinha or MGW there.

 

[darlowolf64]

Just on this, it was said it was given for denying Traore a goalscoring opportunity. Not for deliberate handball.

Unsure if that's correct but that's what Peter Walton and others said didn't they?

It was... Look at the speed of Adam. Leno misjudged the bounce of the ball and if he‘d left it, Adama was in for a tap in... he had to go

 

[Paul]

To quote Tim Rice "I don't know how to love him"

 

[PuntsWolf]

Hadn't being paying much attention to them. Saw them knock Arsenal out of the Cup and they were impressive that day

Arsenal B though really. Loads of injuries. Look at the state of their bench tonight.

 

[Jack Regan]

Just on this, it was said it was given for denying Traore a goalscoring opportunity. Not for deliberate handball.

Unsure if that's correct but that's what Peter Walton and others said didn't they?

Deliberate handball is only a yellow card as far as I'm aware. It's only a red on the goal line because it's stopping a goal. Hence the red here being for the goalscoring opportunity being denied.

 

[Del Woppio]

That's fair.

I just genuinely wonder what the more negative posters think when we win, that's all

I'll play

It wasn't so much that we got out of jail free; it's more like we mugged somebody, the victim got sent down instead of us, and then we fucked his mom!

I'm really, really glad we won, and we take confidence with it. My only concern is that it papers over the cracks that have been widening all season, and gives a false sense of "phew, corner turned, we're back to our best", which is certainly the theme on social media.

We could quite easily have been 3-0 down after 40 minutes, and tbh having seen it a good few times I'm far from convinced it was a penalty, and would have been absolutely raging if that had been given against us.

Positives:

Neto was - again - absolutely superb. He's comfortably the best player we've got, even when everybody's fit.
The penalty was absolutely superb, and showed no signs of a lack of confidence or increasing pressure.
The celebrations have helped allay fears that the players aren't playing for Nuno
I've tried not to make to many judgement's on the second half as it's a false environment to draw anything from, but Jose did well and Vitinha looked superb, and delightful comfortable and forward thinking, with the obvious caveat of everybody having lots of room and plenty of options.
Three bloody points!

Negatives:

An absolute shit-show, defensively. The line was too high, the wingers and our pressing wasn't anywhere near high or intense enough to make that work. The wingers weren't tracking back well enough, and both fullbacks were beaten far too easily, far too often, though in fairness were both often having to look at two players and so getting caught in two stalls.

The midfield two were getting absolutely nothing in the first half, Partey absolutely ran the show.

Traore was an absolute disgrace, again. Podence wasn't much better until the through ball either.

--------------

I want us to be bale to play a 4231 going forward, I think it's the formation that offers the most balance, and should stop Raul/Jose becoming too isolated, which happened all too often. To do that though, we need to spend big money on upgrades to Donk/Joao, and Coady - this Summer - and then potentially look to replacing Boly and Semedo the year after. With the jury out on RAN (though I do really like him), the only defender on our books that I'm particularly comfortable with playing in a 4 is Jonny.

 

[YoungWolf]

An absolute shit-show, defensively. The line was too high, the wingers and our pressing wasn't anywhere near high or intense enough to make that work.

Just on this, I absolutely agree as for a lot of that first half (second half is irrelevant to analyse as we had no defending to do), we were an absolute shambles BUT I'd rather we actually try to play a bit higher and actually just get better at it, if you know what I mean.

 

[Premier Quality]

The world is such a better place after the wolves win.

 

[Tredman]

Just on this, I absolutely agree as for a lot of that first half (second half is irrelevant to analyse as we had no defending to do), we were an absolute shambles BUT I'd rather we actually try to play a bit higher and actually just get better at it, if you know what I mean

We are hampered by, Semedo aside, being pretty damn slow at the back. High line with Kilman at LB is suicidal.

 

[BeaverWolf]

The Mrs is a nurse and works Monday + Tuesday nights, so I was busy bathing and putting two kids to bed while the match was on! Avoided my phone and internet until now and watched it 'live'. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought I hadn't commented because we won

And having read through this thread, for a "negative poster", I'm actually quite surprised by the... well... the negativity!

Opening 20 minutes they were cutting through us, and genuinely we were a shambles at the back. I suspect that was a combination of them riding the crest of a wave of good form, and us being the opposite. That said, it was an entertaining game to watch and I was pleasantly surprised to see Adama hadn't started at RWB. We actually played some reasonable stuff in the first half, but just seemed to be lacking confidence throughout the team, but particularly in defence. About time we had a bit of luck and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Lacazette was offside for their disallowed goal.

The penalty changes everything, I absolutely love the look of Jose already. His hold up play and link play in the lead up to the penalty was everything we've been missing for the last 10 games. It was the kind of movement you'd expect Raul to make - and I have to say, I was hugely impressed with Jose throughout. The goals will come for him too, because he's getting in some good positions. Adama seemed to grow in confidence as the game went on. As soon as he realised he had the beating of Cedric, he just seemed to skin him every time. Just wish we could have that kind of performance from him every week (well, 2nd half performance).

Felt sorry for Kilman. He's a centre half - not a left back. Hopefully we'll go back to Hoever/Semedo at the weekend. On Semedo, I thought he was excellent this evening - but also absolute wank for their opener. Got to be stronger there, and even though it was a nice finish from Pepe, he should never be getting through two players that easily.

Neto/Podence both very good this evening. Absolutely delighted for Joao (hell of a finish) and you could see him grow after the goal. Neves very good alongside him - although clearly the extra space after the sending off helped us hugely. Vitinha looked good after he came on and helped us manage the game out.

I'm just delighted that we've got a win. Hopefully we can get a little bit of confidence from this and give Leicester a decent game at the weekend. Who knows, if we can knick something against them, this could be the turnaround we've all been wishing for.

Leicester were poor against Leeds so lets start confidently against them & put them on the back foot.

 

[YoungWolf]

We are hampered by, Semedo aside, being pretty damn slow at the back. High line with Kilman at LB is suicidal.

Yeah and even Semedo's positioning was god damn awful at times.

I felt really sorry for Kilman. I've got no issues at all with him/Saiss as a back up, he's solid enough and he is OK on the ball but we left so much space around him. He pretty much played centre back as a result second half which is why Coady and Boly swapped

 

[AndyWolves]

Just on this, I absolutely agree as for a lot of that first half (second half is irrelevant to analyse as we had no defending to do), we were an absolute shambles BUT I'd rather we actually try to play a bit higher and actually just get better at it, if you know what I mean.

I'm not sure if this even makes sense but I think in the "old" system it was all about getting into good defensive positions and denying the opposition space, funnel them into areas and then win the ball back.

In the "new" system we need to be a bit more proactive and pressure the ball more to deny the opposition time to pick passes etc

 

[Jinky]

I noticed, more than previous games, that tonight Semedo moved inside more often off the ball - allowing Adama the space down the outside that he likes to run in to and attack. Semedo was dragging players with him and creating that space for Traore - so I'd like to see a bit more of that. It's felt like the two of them have occupied the same spaces too often this season and I was starting to think they couldn't play together (when on paper the opposition should be shitting themselves to come up against that kind of pace). Encouraging signs from them as a combination, I thought - although again, up against 10 men for the majority of the game perhaps they had a bit more space than normal. Definitely something to work with for Nuno there though, I think.

 

[GLASGOWOLF]

Was in some of the latter after. Ended up having to do boxing on match days for 6 weeks. Bastards...

More i see your posts the more i think I know you.
I used to go away with Fingles