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Newcastle 1-0 Wolves: Verdict Thread

Yeah, but there is far more criticism of Lage tonight than there is for the board, there's only me moaning about the board I think
I've made plenty of criticism of the board in the past and will continue to do so. The squad is light, Jeff, Vinny and Scott have their heads so far up their own arses it's painful to listen to. If the squad available tonight wasn't up to the level required I'd be the first to say, he didn't have a chance. It wasn't though, he picked the wrong team, with the wrong tactics and didn't make the right tactical adjustments. It's been a consistent theme over the last 6 weeks.

As a point of order I didn't say I want him sacked, I said I wouldn't care if he was. He won't be so it's irrelevant
 
Not sure Lage had much choice re the starting XI but to not change things sooner, when it was obviously not working, was criminal. Trincao should have been pulled off at HT, as he was complete and utter dog shite. Hwang wasn't much better but at least fashioned a half chance in the second half. We sorely missed Neves and even Dendoncker! At least some young wolfs got PL experience under their belts. Cundle wasn't bad and showed glimpses of what he might become, e.g. that inch perfect pass to Moutinho on the wing, whose cross was inviting someone to put the ball in the back of the net but no gold shirt was in the right place at the right time. Neto, when he eventually came on, got in amongst the toon and maybe should have gone for the header when put through. All these were really scraps. We really got what we deserved out of that game, which was nowt. Fucking Chris Woods was always gonna score, stupid Sa foul or not. Oh well. We're still in the hunt for Europe, just about, which is something isn't it?
 
I've made plenty of criticism of the board in the past and will continue to do so. The squad is light, Jeff, Vinny and Scott have their heads so far up their own arses it's painful to listen to. If the squad available tonight wasn't up to the level required I'd be the first to say, he didn't have a chance. It wasn't though, he picked the wrong team, with the wrong tactics and didn't make the right tactical adjustments. It's been a consistent theme over the last 6 weeks.

As a point of order I didn't say I want him sacked, I said I wouldn't care if he was. He won't be so it's irrelevant
The squad was severely damaged tonight though wasn't it?

Semedo, Podence, Raul, Neves and Donk all unavailable, plus we don't have a fully fit Neto yet? They're huge players to have missing? No? That's 5 or 6 first teamers?
 
The squad was severely damaged tonight though wasn't it?

Semedo, Podence, Raul, Neves and Donk all unavailable, plus we don't have a fully fit Neto yet? They're huge players to have missing? No? That's 5 or 6 first teamers?
Semedo was fit, but that's not really the point.

It wasn't the board who played a young lad in a midfield 2, who in the first half looked overawed

It wasn't the board who had a completely passive game plan. Ceding any momentum from kick off to a team that conceded 5 5 days ago. Even when conceding a goal which without VAR nobody would have moaned about.

It wasn't the board who played 3 up front miles apart from each other

It wasn't the board who failed to address any of the above

It wasn't the board who didn't make a substitution until the 78th minute when we were inevitably behind
 
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Tonight is 100% on Lage. We played far to deep and sat off a Newcastle team that was busy but ineffectual for the most part. Setting up to scrape a draw against a Newcastle team that's had a poor season is odd to say the least.

I reckon Lage has cost us 4 games out of the last 10 though I could be argued up to 5 out of 10.

Highlight of the game was realising I'd brought my glasses case but not my glasses.
 
Utter wank. 77 minutes before Hwang was hooked, says it all. Game needed changing at half time but no, let's carry on doing fuck all. Absolutely baffled.
 
Just walked through the door after a rare away game in the away end. Might as well have had a home ticket as I normally have to, there was no chance of me being outed by cheering.

Dreadful, negative performance. And Newcastle weren’t much better.

When we signed Hwang in January [why?] some said he was good value at £12/14m. If a player isn’t worth a shirt it doesn’t matter if he’s £300k or £30m - he’s not good value.
Rare off night for Jonny and Cundle isn’t the answer in a midfield two with Moutinho. We lacked pace throughout and would have been better with the subs earlier or a shape change to get someone closer to Silva (who was probably the pick of the bunch [very low bar])
 
A mate of mine excused tonight by saying we had half of our first team out. He was kind of right in that we maybe missed Raul a bit, missed Podence, and Dendonker was unavailable - but none of those would really be near a top six team. If you're missing them, then you're a midtable team.

I can forgive Sa for his foul - he's a front foot keeper, and we mostly are thankful for that. Every now and again it's going to bite him on the arse. We haven't signed a first team ready centre half for four years, and that's where the goal came from. Two defenders outdone by a through ball to Chris fucking Wood ffs. Sa's whole game is based on coming out quickly and anticipating/guessing what's happening next, and he's going to get stuff wrong. There's a reason he cost £6.5m and is uncapped, and that's because he goes shit or bust probably too often, but he's still worth keeping for me.

That's our best central three, without a doubt. They were all mugged off tonight. Yet Lage looks like his best opportunity for success is buying one quick centre half and then hoping one of the other 5 can step up.

There was a lot of shit in that eleven. Fabio is improving but still wouldn't make a mark in the championship. I got slaughtered for slating Hwang around Christmas, but the fucker is no better than Marlon Harewood. He's now even stopped making runs in behind because we never look for a through ball. He's fucking useless.

Trincao isn't worth a tenth of his purchase clause. He'll be OK in a dominant team in a poor league, but that's about it.

And then we have to play cundle in what must be the shortest midfield in premier league history.

All of this is on the board.

We have Hwang because Sellars has been desperate to get a signing in that doesn't involve Jorge. We have Silva and Trincao, who will at the absolute best be servicable in the PL in 2024/25. We've got Dendonker, who's shit at football, as our third midfielder - and potentially our 'senior' player in the position next season...Dendonker was actually missed, and that's a failing. We're so fucking puny.

If Fosun are happy with us bobbing along between 13th and 8th, I'm actually quite happy with that. Buy young, sell at a profit, play nice football and occasionally finish 7th, that's fucking brilliant.

But for fucks sake stop talking about becoming elite and all that bollocks. 6th was a real possibility, but they fucked it in January. But still after that he's come out with the bullshit of planning for us to be one of the big boys. Just stop lying. Admit that our ambition is occasional European football. That was beyond our wildest dreams 6 years ago, and we'd be happy with that. But constantly talking the big game but then passing up opportunities in the transfer window is just a massive bollocks. We haven't signed a fit-for-purpose centre half or midfielder for four years. FOUR YEARS. It's not even like we've had a swing and a miss. We haven't even tried. We've had players punching above their weight, that would barely get a kick for even West Ham, getting dozens of starts for us. We've chained ourselves to a formation purely because we haven't got a single central defender that any of are confident of in a back four. We've got three midfielders, one who's too good for us, one who's too good for us but we're not seemingly too bothered if he stays, and one who's terrible with a ball at his feet.

We rely on Podence, who is the dictionary definition of unreliable, and is as likely to be anonymous as he is to assist. But if he *doesnt* play then its pretty much guaranteed that nothing is going to happen, as Trincao, and Hwang, and Adama are all, for one reason or another, fucking useless. And then Neto, like jota before him, feels like he needs to everything on his own, because it's almost pointless passing to one the schmucks up top with him.

Bruno...you can tell his only experience is with a dominant team. He has plan A, and if that doesn't work he'll to plan A with slightly different players, and too fucking late anyway. It's like he feels he's done his work by kick off, and of they don't perform it's not his fault. After 15 minutes today, you could see it was crying out for us to put three in midfield. Wingbacks were offering nothing, so even just try pushing Saiss or coady into midfield to try and get a grip on the game. Just do something, even though your squad is nowhere near where you want it.

I think he's clearly a good coach, but I've seen little evidence that he's a good tactician. And with such a small squad, with so few options, he's on a bit of a hiding to nothing. But ffs at least send a bastard message. Show that you're trying be something other than Nuno without the credit. We've seen he can set a team up to go for it, and I know he needs players but today was set up for a 0-0 at best; and it was especially clear after twenty minutes.

I don't think he's going to get proper money for centre back until he proves that the ones he's got can't play in a 4. He may as well start that now, because the season is done
 
The squad was severely damaged tonight though wasn't it?

Semedo, Podence, Raul, Neves and Donk all unavailable, plus we don't have a fully fit Neto yet? They're huge players to have missing? No? That's 5 or 6 first teamers?
Yep. Take 5 players out of any side and they're going to look shit - with the possible exception of Man City.

Lage has improved us hugely defensively from where we ended up with Nuno and every individual is better or as good. He's proven to be flexible and pragmatic through abandoning his preferred formation and style of play.

On the negative side his in game management is poor. Subs are always too late and I can't recall us changing our shape very often if at all. And the continued selection of Marcal, Trincao and Hwang is just bizarre. I wonder sometimes if he does it to make some kind of point to Jeff.
 
That goal is so shit. Coady was caught between two minds about engaging ASM, and Kilman didn't want to fully track Chris Wood because presumably he had half a cautious eye on the runner deep from the right. But ffs in that position just engage wood, properly track his run. It's so poor
 
That goal is so shit. Coady was caught between two minds about engaging ASM, and Kilman didn't want to fully track Chris Wood because presumably he had half a cautious eye on the runner deep from the right. But ffs in that position just engage wood, properly track his run. It's so poor

I think Kilman is hoping he can catch him offside but there's absolutely no pressure on the man with the ball so it's an easy pass through to Wood which is unlikely to go wrong.
 
Go on then I'll bite, why did he try to be a clever dick ??
Just trying to compress the game into the second half. We literally weren’t trying in the first.
 
Unbelievable poor. I get he maybe didn't get much prep with Dendocker being ill but Cundle didn't look at all ready, I will credit him that when he pushed further on for the last 10 he looks okay in and around the box at least but he was too ineffective, potentially not helped by so many average to poor performances around him. However I mention that ad the line for the clubs seems to be another low spend/players sold first etc, and use the developing players, but they showed yesterday they aren't ready enough if too many established players were missing.


Is the only attempt at signing a CM we have had since that first season Jordao? It seems an unbelievable strategy.
 
Cundle settled and was ok in the second half. I can’t help thinking he’d have benefited from a few more minutes in games like Watford at home as was discussed on here recently.

Given qualifying for Europe looks beyond us now I agree with Del that Bruno should take the opportunity to look how the CHs cope in a back four, though finding a third midfielder to make that work might be a problem. It’s so frustrating knowing that if we’d signed a half decent CM in January we’d probably still have a decent chance of 7th.
 
Unbelievable poor. I get he maybe didn't get much prep with Dendocker being ill but Cundle didn't look at all ready, I will credit him that when he pushed further on for the last 10 he looks okay in and around the box at least but he was too ineffective, potentially not helped by so many average to poor performances around him. However I mention that ad the line for the clubs seems to be another low spend/players sold first etc, and use the developing players, but they showed yesterday they aren't ready enough if too many established players were missing.


Is the only attempt at signing a CM we have had since that first season Jordao? It seems an unbelievable strategy.
Yep, just Jordao.

It’s clear Cundle is an 8 and Hwang can only play as a Korean Billy Sharp in a pair. Fabio isn’t a lone striker.

So playing 3-4-3 is never going to work for these players.

We need Podence, Neto, Raul and at least Dendoncker to make 3-4-3 work and it’s frustrating Bruno can’t see that.
 
Thought Cundle was OK actually, first 10-15 minutes apart. He's very much in the Moutinho style and so playing both together is only a last resort, that's not on Bruno. The negative mind set for 3/4 game, especially early on has to be on Bruno, that's happened too often this season.
 
When Cundle got himself higher up the pitch in the last ten minutes who actually looked good and our most likely source of creating something I thought. But it was too little too late by that point
 
Yeah let me be clear I don't think Cundle was poor, he is 20 and I always talk about the "23 average debut" age thing, I think continuing exposure for him to the league and you have a squad player there minimum. He over hit the pass to Silva at the end but I remember being impressed he had worked the space and picked the pass out, especially against a side sitting deep.
 
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