Burnley 2-1 Wolves: Verdict Thread

[prawnking]

We're in the Premier League... Where everything is over hyped and over analysed on all media sources 24 hours a day. I don't think that's the fault of anyone on here, and you (or Nuno) shouldn't be surprised by it!

It's also a culture where no managers get limitless patience afforded to them. Nuno's lucky to have Fosun and a fanbase no worse than any other in this respect

 

[Kenny]

Well moving away from my surprise at being surprised by shit....I am surprised to find myself agreeing with Timmy (now that should be yellow bar stuff on Sky)

Tim Spiers
19/20 - 20 points from 14 games 20/21 - 20 points from 14 games For what it's worth... considering they had no break after a 59-game marathon campaign, no pre-season, they've lost Jimenez, no Jonny, trying to evolve the team (selling Jota+Doc) and the system...they're doing ok
last night was shite. Wolves are always shite at Burnley. If they beat Spurs (wouldn't put it past them) they go 2 points behind a team that was recently leading the table, with Son, Kane and resources beyond Wolves' reach. Inconsistency is annoying, but understandable imo

 

[Stan Hullis]

Well moving away from my surprise at being surprised by shit....I am surprised to find myself agreeing with Timmy (now that should be yellow bar stuff on Sky)

Tim Spiers
19/20 - 20 points from 14 games 20/21 - 20 points from 14 games For what it's worth... considering they had no break after a 59-game marathon campaign, no pre-season, they've lost Jimenez, no Jonny, trying to evolve the team (selling Jota+Doc) and the system...they're doing ok
last night was shite. Wolves are always shite at Burnley. If they beat Spurs (wouldn't put it past them) they go 2 points behind a team that was recently leading the table, with Son, Kane and resources beyond Wolves' reach. Inconsistency is annoying, but understandable imo

This pretty much sums up where I am currently.

Frustrated at our inconsistency but ultimately don't think we're doing too bad. Lots of room for improvement though and I think it is important we strengthen again in January.

 

[Premier Quality]

I’ll third that - I’m comfortable with our points at this stage.

I would like to see a plan or identity in how Nuno is developing us though.

 

[Stan Hullis]

Agreed - I almost feel content with where we have got to in spite of how we have gotten here rather than because of it.

We certainly need to improve, non-performances like last night are not acceptable.

 

[Jabbawolf]

For me, after our summer recruitment, I thought we were in a great place - upgrade on Doherty, talented youngsters to pick up the mantle from the starters in due course, a shape that was working but just needed a tinker and a bit more quality to make us more progressive going forwards.

It hasn't quite turned out like that - youngsters having to be thrown in a bit earlier than planned, Semedo not offering the leap forward from Doc, fannying around with a plethora of shapes and personnel, and obviously Raul's absence.

However, the main concern for me, and it may well be linked to the pandemic, is the form of our previously solid starters - Rui, Boly, Saiss, Moutinho, Neves, Donk and Adama are a shadow of last season - the structure these lot used to give us has withered away, and given at least 3 performances that were very uncharacteristic of recent Wolves - maybe we should give them some leeway, as I'm sure we've all been affected by this bloody virus - and, yes, this could also have impacted Nuno too.

 

[malta mick]

Time for a re-think Nuno. If you want to change our style of play, possibly this is not the right time having had no pre-season to practice. You've also lost your top goalscorer and talisman with no replacement (yet?). Lets go back to basics and put the best defenders in their best positions.

 

[Tony Towner]

Apart from Liverpool, Albion and Sheff U inconsistency runs throughout the league. I don't think players are particularly into it. The comments they make about the lack of fans is more than just the media team with a 'say something like' line. Watch a game without the synthetic fan noise, it's soulless and any novelty has now worn off.

I said this a few weeks ago, but I'm of the opinion of get this season over, don't get relegated, find out what we have in some younger players and go again in August when hopefully we'll have something closer to normality. I'd be surprised if a lot of players aren't in the same place.

 

[Kenny]

Well if the rumblings about the start of the year are true, we could be having January and February off from Football.

 

[Walnut]

If we play anything like last night against Spurs and Man Utd we will get thumped. I watched Neves walking off last night and his body language suggests to me he's not happy. I think the position he's playing doesn't suit him at all. He was at his best when he had Saiss next to him in midfield, as he was the focal point in midfield. I said to a mate of mine a few weeks ago that I don't think he will be at Wolves next season. Hope I'm wrong.

 

[Deano]

If we play anything like last night against Spurs and Man Utd we will get thumped. I watched Neves walking off last night and his body language suggests to me he's not happy. I think the position he's playing doesn't suit him at all. He was at his best when he had Saiss next to him in midfield, as he was the focal point in midfield. I said to a mate of mine a few weeks ago that I don't think he will be at Wolves next season. Hope I'm wrong.

We don't use him properly, he'd go somewhere else and flourish like Jota has, it's a shame but we are wasting Neves' abilities

 

[sycophantia]

I've no big issues with where we are in the league and our points total...I am getting concerned that 14 games in, we don't seem to have any idea how we want to play and last night for much of the game, the players looked like strangers to one another.

 

[sycophantia]

Neves getting a lot of stick.....was he any worse than others?
Over the last couple of seasons I've seen lots of comments about him being wasted where we play him, 'needs to play further forward' is one mantra.
Now I'm no football tactical genius I admit, but for me his best position is sat in front of the CB's breaking up play and spaying intelligent passes around (long or short). Not sure we can employ him like that with a back 3 if we want to progress our style.

 

[Deano]

Neves getting a lot of stick.....was he any worse than others?
Over the last couple of seasons I've seen lots of comments about him being wasted where we play him, 'needs to play further forward' is one mantra.
Now I'm no football tactical genius I admit, but for me his best position is sat in front of the CB's breaking up play and spaying intelligent passes around (long or short). Not sure we can employ him like that with a back 3 if we want to progress our style.

He's not been worse than any others particularly but he's got massive potential and we aren't unlocking it. His best position is in front of the back 3 as a deep lying playmaker he hasn't got the mobility to be that effective further forward. I thought he was our best player Vs Chelsea but last night are the games you really expect him to be able to dominate, they had 2 players in the centre - Brownhill and Westwood, Neves is ten times better than those players and we had Moutinho and Otasowie dropping back and he had an absolute stinker. It's disappointing.

 

[PuntsWolf]

I don’t care about the league table at this stage, I don’t really care about it at the end of the season as I don’t think we’re good enough to get top 6 and we won’t go down.

Just get this season done and look like we are trying to build something or go in some sort of direction with some sort of plan.

But I’ll say it again, can we put the “transition” phrase in the bin. How we played against Burnley is no different to how we’ve played forever. Burnley have one way of scoring, letting them have possession near your box where they can then fling it in there or win second balls. So why are you paying a low block counter against them!? With two WBs who can’t defend the back post? With a CM as a false 9. The list goes on.

We’re not transitioning. We’re doing plan A worse. At least with the 4-2-3-1 you could see the plan, we were trying to go somewhere. But then we’ve recruited for 5 at the back so maybe didn’t have the players to get the maximum out of it.

Decide where we are trying to go. As TT says find out if the players are good enough. If not sell them/send them back and sign the right players who are.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Neves getting a lot of stick.....was he any worse than others?
Over the last couple of seasons I've seen lots of comments about him being wasted where we play him, 'needs to play further forward' is one mantra.
Now I'm no football tactical genius I admit, but for me his best position is sat in front of the CB's breaking up play and spaying intelligent passes around (long or short). Not sure we can employ him like that with a back 3 if we want to progress our style.

He’s not to dissimilar to Michael Carrick. Slow, immobile but takes up good positions and gets play started. He’s nowhere near as good at taking up those positions though.

But man United basically played with a back 2 so he had loads of options. We play with a back 7. So he’s getting caught on the ball, passing it backwards, resorting to hoofs.

Our issues are entirely tactical and have been all years. Saints, Villa don’t have better players than us yet are doing much better. Burnley definitely don’t and 2-1 flattered us.

 

[sycophantia]

I don’t care about the league table at this stage, I don’t really care about it at the end of the season as I don’t think we’re good enough to get top 6 and we won’t go down.

Just get this season done and look like we are trying to build something or go in some sort of direction with some sort of plan.

But I’ll say it again, can we put the “transition” phrase in the bin. How we played against Burnley is no different to how we’ve played forever. Burnley have one way of scoring, letting them have possession near your box where they can then fling it in there or win second balls. So why are you paying a low block counter against them!? With two WBs who can’t defend the back post? With a CM as a false 9. The list goes on.

We’re not transitioning. We’re doing plan A worse. At least with the 4-2-3-1 you could see the plan, we were trying to go somewhere. But then we’ve recruited for 5 at the back so maybe didn’t have the players to get the maximum out of it.

Decide where we are trying to go. As TT says find out if the players are good enough. If not sell them/send them back and sign the right players who are.

Don't think you can put the transition phrase in the bin, we have clearly been trying to change at times this season. My disappointment is last night after a decent 15 minutes when we didn't put much pressure on their goal, we got pushed back into a defensive mindset, I think that was mainly down to a lack of focal point to the attack, the big mistake last night was Otasowie at AM and no Silva imo. We paid Burnley far too much respect setting up like that. We had 3 at the back but still seemed concede as many chances as we did with just Boly and Coady...........against Burnley ffs

 

[Throbber3]

It is always poor when we lose , especially to teams who are lower end at best. Last night it was not only that it was Burnley but they beat us fair and square in all departments . We can have zero complaints. That was very similar to the game against Aston Villa in the championship when we lost 4-1 and made them look better than they were by playing to combat them , rather than playing to our strengths.

 

[prawnking]

This is Ruben's third PL season, and he's not turned into the player I thought he could be as yet. Like Moutinho we somehow set the bar of acceptability lower for him. Stats aren't everything but isn't it a bit of a luxury to have our central pairing never score and never assist either? Is that the case with any other teams with aspirations of success in this league?

 

[prawnking]

I said this a few weeks ago, but I'm of the opinion of get this season over, don't get relegated, find out what we have in some younger players and go again in August when hopefully we'll have something closer to normality. I'd be surprised if a lot of players aren't in the same place.

I know what you mean, but all 20 teams are in the same boat, and at the end of the season there'll still a champion, teams relegated and teams qualifying for Europe. These are elite sportsmen and Nuno is an elite manager, so while I accept how unprecedentedly tough things are, I'm not happy to just write the season off, and perhaps do serious damage to our momentum, while watching the likes of Villa, West Ham and Southampton flourish