Leeds 1-1 Wolves: Verdict Thread

[Carsy]

A verdict thread descending into chaos. Never!

 

[prawnking]

You can piss off too!

 

[Charlie Wolf]

The absolute daft thing is, if we’d have won today we would be sitting fourth tonite with Man City demolishing Brighton

 

[Johnny75]

Missing your laughing emoji?

You also missed the rest of my sentence in your quote, but then again the same applies to you, so it's unsurprising

I have no idea why you're always contrary, nor do I care as I'm popping you on ignore.

This'll be last time I respond to you as I think you're a Villa/ Albion fan on the wind up and somehow ended up in here just to wind people up.

 

[prawnking]

The absolute daft thing is, if we’d have won today we would be sitting fourth tonite with Man City demolishing Brighton

But remember guys, we should be grateful for where we are and remember League One, but also we should be winning every PL game in style

 

[Del Woppio]

Same as we were last season. A side in transition but without the players to effect it properly. Hopefully we can go some way to improving that in January

I dunno, first few games yes - you could see what we're trying to be. We've completely and utterly lost that. We've very definitely stopped even trying to play football

 

[WolfMan]

Personally I think it's less about game management and more about ability. It's incredibly hard to see a game out at this level by keeping the ball, especially against a team like Leeds who are pressing you to death. What happens instead is the defending team gets deeper and deeper and things get more desperate as the game wears on, sometimes you get lucky and the time runs out, others not. You do see it all the time from teams defending a narrow lead in the Premier League.

The top teams would have kept it and destroyed then on the break, but alas we are not a top team. I think it's all well and good having a plan, but as the boxing saying goes, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. I just don't think we're that good, and that's the root cause of everything, and will be until we buy some better players.

 

[prawnking]

I have no idea why you're always contrary, nor do I care as I'm popping you on ignore.

This'll be last time I respond to you as I think you're a Villa/ Albion fan on the wind up and somehow ended up in here just to wind people up.

Rich coming from the biggest WUM on here.

I love the arrogance of certain posters who think that if you don't agree with them you're on the WUM or some kind of player of mind games. Never occurs that it could just be a different POV...?

 

[prawnking]

I dunno, first few games yes - you could see what we're trying to be. We've completely and utterly lost that. We've very definitely stopped even trying to play football

I mean, isn't it still the first few games though??

 

[Tony Towner]

Personally I think it's less about game management and more about ability. It's incredibly hard to see a game out at this level by keeping the ball, especially against a team like Leeds who are pressing you to death. What happens instead is the defending team gets deeper and deeper and things get more desperate as the game wears on, sometimes you get lucky and the time runs out, others not. You do see it all the time from teams defending a narrow lead in the Premier League.

The top teams would have kept it and destroyed then on the break, but alas we are not a top team. I think it's all well and good having a plan, but as the boxing saying goes, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. I just don't think we're that good, and that's the root cause of everything, and will be until we buy some better players.

That's the very definition of game management.

 

[Alan]

Again, people seem to be taking for granted that we didn't even want to keep possession or attack Leeds. But isn't it more likely that we absolutely were tactically trying to do that, and the front three were just all so shit that the tactics didn't end up mattering?

Really, today to me seems much more on the nearly total lack of competent holdup play. When we were able to hold onto the ball we cut them open, I don't think we were giving it away on purpose.

 

[WolfMan]

That's the very definition of game management.

What do you mean?

 

[redvictor]

Just reminding people it's only a game of football and we got a point out of it.
No need to get pissy, because that won't change 1/ the result or 2/ the performance. Carry on....

 

[Tony Towner]

Rich coming from the biggest WUM on here.

I love the arrogance of certain posters who think that if you don't agree with them you're on the WUM or some kind of player of mind games. Never occurs that it could just be a different POV...?

You are a Wolves fan, you invest way too much time and are too knowledgeable to not be. I do believe you don't offer your true opinions to be (being generous) devil's advocate a hell of a lot though. You obviously enjoy it.

 

[Alan]

Just reminding people it's only a game of football and we got a point out of it.
No need to get pissy, because that won't change 1/ the result or 2/ the performance. Carry on....

What, were you born yesterday?

 

[Alan]

You are a Wolves fan, you invest way too much time and are too knowledgeable to not be. I do believe you don't offer your true opinions to be (being generous) devil's advocate a hell of a lot though. You obviously enjoy it.

As someone who is also guilty of this, I'll just say that some people on here present their views in ways that are... Easy to disagree with. If you get what I mean.

 

[Tony Towner]

As someone who is also guilty of this, I'll just say that some people on here present their views in ways that are... Easy to disagree with. If you get what I mean.

That's fine Alan, opinions are good. I'm not convinced PK is an honest broker with his though

 

[slink]

On the way back from the game and I can’t help but think most of the criticism is based on pre conceived ideas rather than looking at the game for what actually happened.

We started well and on the front foot but then once Leeds got in to a bit of a rhythm struggled to get out mainly down to poor decisions from the front 3 and the 2 in midfield unable to pick a pass.

It’s the squads inability to be calm and make better decisions under pressure that costs us rather than anything tactically. Bruno was fuming most of the game with the players management of it.

While Leeds dominated in the second half we still had chances to finish them off with good play but failed to take the chances, whether that was Raul, Ait-Nouri, Podence or Hwang. Fatigue killed us in the end as up until RAN went off we never really looked like conceding apart from when Coady played an awful clip in to midfield and Sa made a great save. The defending was resolute and it did look like we had done enough until Semedo had a brain fade.

The football isn’t as good as it was in the first 3 games but don’t think it’s as easy as saying it’s now shit and there isn’t a plan. We know there’s weaknesses in the squad and we know they struggle to control the ball and win games so a mix is needed. We get the mix at the moment and it is a case of digging in at times but we’re picking up points. Bruno still needs to work with this squad and it 100% needs adding to but doesn’t seem like a few fans are really prepared to give him that because of what comes across as pining for Nuno and the good times.

Again it wasn’t great today and yes Leeds were without couple of players but they are a hard team to play against if you struggle to play through a press and we do and without new players we’re not really going to be able to do that as the lads we have at the moment can’t do it often enough although Ait-Nouri did help a little until cramp got him.

Sa, Ait-Nouri, Saiss, Kilman were all good today(Semedo too until just before the penalty). Most of the others worked hard but weren’t good enough on the ball. Donk always in the right place but never picked the right pass and gave it away too often and the front 3 just didn’t hold it enough and constantly make the wrong decisions when in the final third.

We’re a work in progress still and i personally think the whole well why did we sack Nuno if this is the style needs to be dropped but people are obviously entitled to their view. Biggest thing for me is that Bruno definitely doesn’t want to play deep and sit in but at times this squad has to and battle which we still do. Give him time and patience to hopefully bed more players and returning players in and transition to a more forward thinking approach. If we can’t then still play a more forward thinking game then we can question it but i do think most fans who were patient with Nuno and rightly so are keen to
criticise Bruno too quick.

 

[sycophantia]

Well, it's very frustrating to throw 2 points away so late but it feels churlish to complain too much when we have 13 points from 5 games, even by the sounds of it we were poor for the most part.
However my concern with Lage ramps up with every game (I'm not writing him off yet). For me you should start with your best team, we don't have the squad to rotate much in midfield, so for me Raul, Sa and Neves have to be first on the team sheet. I realise we have to have some rotation but to keep flogging Moutinho to death every match while Neves spends time on the bench seems madness to me.
Hoping for a more cohesive display against Everton.

 

[YoungWolf]

On the way back from the game and I can’t help but think most of the criticism is based on pre conceived ideas rather than looking at the game for what actually happened.

We started well and on the front foot but then once Leeds got in to a bit of a rhythm struggled to get out mainly down to poor decisions from the front 3 and the 2 in midfield unable to pick a pass.

It’s the squads inability to be calm and make better decisions under pressure that costs us rather than anything tactically. Bruno was fuming most of the game with the players management of it.

While Leeds dominated in the second half we still had chances to finish them off with good play but failed to take the chances, whether that was Raul, Ait-Nouri, Podence or Hwang. Fatigue killed us in the end as up until RAN went off we never really looked like conceding apart from when Coady played an awful clip in to midfield and Sa made a great save. The defending was resolute and it did look like we had done enough until Semedo had a brain fade.

The football isn’t as good as it was in the first 3 games but don’t think it’s as easy as saying it’s now shit and there isn’t a plan. We know there’s weaknesses in the squad and we know they struggle to control the ball and win games so a mix is needed. We get the mix at the moment and it is a case of digging in at times but we’re picking up points. Bruno still needs to work with this squad and it 100% needs adding to but doesn’t seem like a few fans are really prepared to give him that because of what comes across as pining for Nuno and the good times.

Again it wasn’t great today and yes Leeds were without couple of players but they are a hard team to play against if you struggle to play through a press and we do and without new players we’re not really going to be able to do that as the lads we have at the moment can’t do it often enough although Ait-Nouri did help a little until cramp got him.

Sa, Ait-Nouri, Saiss, Kilman were all good today(Semedo too until just before the penalty). Most of the others worked hard but weren’t good enough on the ball. Donk always in the right place but never picked the right pass and gave it away too often and the front 3 just didn’t hold it enough and constantly make the wrong decisions when in the final third.

We’re a work in progress still and i personally think the whole well why did we sack Nuno if this is the style needs to be dropped but people are obviously entitled to their view. Biggest thing for me is that Bruno definitely doesn’t want to play deep and sit in but at times this squad has to and battle which we still do. Give him time and patience to hopefully bed more players and returning players in and transition to a more forward thinking approach. If we can’t then still play a more forward thinking game then we can question it but i do think most fans who were patient with Nuno and rightly so are keen to
criticise Bruno too quick.

I think most of this analysis of the game is fairly accurate but the way the last 30 minutes were managed was very very poor. We had spells in the game where you realised if we looked to retain the ball for more than one pass we would open them up quite easily. They were so vulnerable. Then we take Adama off which allows them to play a lot higher and make it even harder for us to get and stay out of our own half.

I think Bruno is clearly a good coach. I think we will struggle to perform consistently due to some glaring holes in our squad, but I am unsure of some of the things he's tried to do tactically mind you. We'll see if that is a pattern over a long period of the season though.