Man Utd 1-0 Wolves: Verdict thread

[Paul]

There's faith and then low expectations. Fosun won't have that, Nuno won't and neither should we.

I wouldn't expect us even to be mentioned in the same breath as WBA. They're no comforting benchmark. They've just come up with an unconvincing side and little investment. We've had consecutive 7th place finishes and a great season in Europe.

I'm not giving us targets, but we still need progress on the pitch to be allied to getting points, same as every other club in the league.

It's not negative to have standards and expectations, not if we have any chance of becoming the elite club Fosun want us to be

Sorry Mom !
ps. You're not a lecturer or preacher by any chance are you ?

 

[Charlie Wolf]

Your broader point re game management in some of those you mention is a fair one - normally the Donck/Neves/Moutinho sub to add a 3rd midfielder and sitting too deep. I don't think it's valid in the last 2 examples though.

In the Villa game, although not playing well against 10 men we were trying to win the game and conceded due to the stupidity of one player - no management or mindset issues there.

Last night I do think it's tiredness, both mental and physical. There's an argument around the subs being incorrect, but Vitinha and Neto off for Podence and Silva aren't in themselves negative moves.

Most criticism seems to be around not making a 3rd and taking Traore off for Otasowie, but that would be closer to the type of change which did cost points in the other games you mentioned. Even for the goal we weren't really opened up, despite Kilman and RAN's positioning, it's unlikely Rashford scores from there without luck or an error. The shot itself would have been straight at Rui

Appreciate your response Tony, good post

 

[Loki]

Last minute goals happen because the game is stretched and players are tired. I’m sure chelsea fans said the same thing when we scored against them, along with fans of all our other late winners and equalisers.

Totally agree with this. Positives? Both young fullbacks looked pretty comfortable for most of the match against World class players. Nelson needs to pull his socks up now, he has real competition from Hoever on that performance. I hope Vithino gets more game time now. I`m not Traore`s biggest fan but thought he did a great job of winning headers and holding the ball at times with little support. I don`t think, giving the circumstances, we need to worry too much about recent results. If that break happens that they are talking about it will benefit us and give us time to bed in that new striker that is a must in this window.

 

[prawnking]

Sorry Mom !
ps. You're not a lecturer or preacher by any chance are you ?

You're the one talking about faith, brother!

 

[redvictor]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1344249427729461250

This is the move i was talking about.

 

[Lycan]

That's just the sort of thing that happens when you've got a lack of experience throughout your side.

Aït-Nouri and Kilman were probably having their best games for Wolves up until the goal. They'll learn from the experience and become better players for it but that doesn't help us now we've lost the game.

Unfortunately we've got Raúl, Dendoncker, Jonny, Boly & Marçal sat at home and until we can get them back on the pitch or get replacements in Jan then we're never going to be able to put a consistent run together.

Can't get too down about it. We're not going to go down and we're not going to get into the European positions. Just one of those seasons.

 

[StuardoWulf]

Adama running out of steam after 60 minutes, running his bollocks off and carrying an injury may be a clue.
I think in all but attack we are a top team but this is always the case. Don't think Silva is anywhere near at the moment but it's definitely in him. We need to learn to draw fouls we just don't run into the box. I would tell Adama to run into box with the ball with his close control he could get us a few penalties although I'd prefer us to play 4 at the back and get people into the box.

For me when we put so much emphasis on defence it follows attack will be blunted.

Good performance with Saiss showing why a lot rate him so highly.

Finally Utd are jammy B*******

 

[prawnking]

Unfortunately we've got Raúl, Dendoncker, Jonny, Boly & Marçal sat at home and until we can get them back on the pitch or get replacements in Jan then we're never going to be able to put a consistent run together.

Can't get too down about it. We're not going to go down and we're not going to get into the European positions. Just one of those seasons.

I'm not entirely convinced with how you've reached this neat conclusion... We weren't on any kind of consistent run this season when those players were available!

We've known Jonny was out months ago, and prior to their injuries Donk and Boly weren't pulling up trees. In fact many people were dropping Boly from their teams and wondering whether Donk was really a good fit for the attacking mid role. Even Raul was middling before his injury, and it was only yesterday's game that Marcal missed.

I take the point that this is a chunk of experience to miss, but we still have Rui, Coady, Saiss, Semedo, Neves, Moutinho, Traore and Podence.

It was the club's choice to have this balance of experience and youth. I'm not going to bitch about it and I'm happy for all those young players to get a chance, but I don't want the narrative to be that finishing 15th is fine because we have injuries that are probably on a par with most PL clubs.

If we do finish significantly lower than the past couple of seasons, I feel the club and Nuno shouldn't be exempt from any reasonable and fair scrutiny. 'We're not going down' is a considerable reduction in our ambitions and expectations.

Incidentally, this doesn't mean I have my knives sharpened, I actually think with a decent striker signing next month and continued development we can push on and challenge for 7th-10th, although we've probably left ourselves too much to do to realistically reach the higher end of that spectrum

 

[StuardoWulf]

On the whole we are a good team and hard to beat, I feel we are an established top 10 team and don't feel we will be back to the championship anytime in the near future. Which from the starting place with Fosun I'm delighted with.
I miss going to the games and I think we suffer a lot from empty stadiums where as Villa are better without the
crowd on their backs.

 

[sycophantia]

To reiterate, I was very impressed by all the youngsters, Kilman was superb, a bit harsh to call him out for the goal imo...a very small mistake in 95 minutes of a towering performance. RAN too had his best performance defensively.
Hoever got caught a couple of times early on with balls behind him, not sure if it was poor positioning/awareness or they were just overloading down that side? Anyway we soon fixed that and he had a very good game both defensively and going forward. Not sure who I'd pick first from him and Semedo...good options.
Vitihna was tidy without pulling up any trees, we looked better balanced while he was on.
Felt a bit sorry for Silva, not his type of game at all, spent most of his time on the edge of our box and tracking Pogba.
Its all looking very good imo, obviously we need a few wins and I hope we go for it at Brighton, not gung ho but certainly in an attacking sense

 

[Lycan]

I'm not going to bitch about it

Right.

 

[Tony Towner]

On the whole we are a good team and hard to beat, I feel we are an established top 10 team and don't feel we will be back to the championship anytime in the near future. Which from the starting place with Fosun I'm delighted with.
I miss going to the games and I think we suffer a lot from empty stadiums where as Villa are better without the
crowd on their backs.

There are a multitude of mitigating factors, but we aren't hard to beat - we've lost 44% of our league games

 

[Quirkafleeg]

I know the Twitter is full of trolls but you cant tell me all Utd followers on Twitter saw that game as if we parked the bus for 90 minutes, Im pretty sure we have more attempts on target then them and at times passed them off the park and cut them wide open.

 

[sycophantia]

I'm not entirely convinced with how you've reached this neat conclusion... We weren't on any kind of consistent run this season when those players were available!

We've known Jonny was out months ago, and prior to their injuries Donk and Boly weren't pulling up trees. In fact many people were dropping Boly from their teams and wondering whether Donk was really a good fit for the attacking mid role. Even Raul was middling before his injury, and it was only yesterday's game that Marcal missed.

I take the point that this is a chunk of experience to miss, but we still have Rui, Coady, Saiss, Semedo, Neves, Moutinho, Traore and Podence.

It was the club's choice to have this balance of experience and youth. I'm not going to bitch about it and I'm happy for all those young players to get a chance, but I don't want the narrative to be that finishing 15th is fine because we have injuries that are probably on a par with most PL clubs.

If we do finish significantly lower than the past couple of seasons, I feel the club and Nuno shouldn't be exempt from any reasonable and fair scrutiny. 'We're not going down' is a considerable reduction in our ambitions and expectations.

Incidentally, this doesn't mean I have my knives sharpened, I actually think with a decent striker signing next month and continued development we can push on and challenge for 7th-10th, although we've probably left ourselves too much to do to realistically reach the higher end of that spectrum

agree with most of this but as I've said ad nauseum, even if they weren't at their best, don't think you can discount the effect of missing a third of your best players...whatever our transfer policy

 

[prawnking]

Right.

Thanks for the discussion mate

 

[sycophantia]

I know the Twitter is full of trolls but you cant tell me all Utd followers on Twitter saw that game as if we parked the bus for 90 minutes, Im pretty sure we have more attempts on target then them and at times passed them off the park and cut them wide open.

Not sure I'd be paying much attention to a load of deluded Utd fans, especially on twitter, which seems to me to be a cesspit of human existance......tbf I'm not on it and only see stuff from there reposted on here, so probably not a true reflection of it

 

[Charlie Wolf]

Just a comment/ opinion on the Traore discussion, now I’m no sports scientist, nutritionist etc. but with the way data is gathered and used now, maybe Adama is pacing himself where he is being challenged to make no more than 4 or 5 pacy runs a game, however, it’s his choice at which point those runs are made.

This may make him perhaps look lazy if he fails to make the right run or drift out of the game after 60 minutes or so, especially if the ball doesn’t come to him quickly enough or in the right area, drawing such criticism and even more so when he shanks it into the stand

My opinion is that he obviously frightens the shit out of most if not all opposition defences and considering he has this unique talent, we are lucky not to see significant leg muscle injuries we see from other speed merchants that normally result in several weeks out injured or early burn out.

So he/ we must be doing something right.

Hence, rather than condemn him I see Wolves and Nuno especially work with him. It doesn’t always work but I would rather have a fit Traore playing for us for 60 mins than him being constantly injured or cashing in on him now to a Leeeedzzz or Arsenal for example

The ultimate goal as he approaches his peak is that we need that end product, whilst keeping him fit, that seems to have eluded him this season.

Again only a suggestion, but with such technically good players instead of giving the ball to Traore to put the afterburners on down the line, and wait to see what develops, we need to find the gaps between CH’s and wing backs for him to run onto.

I know, easier said than done but I’m sure this would reap better rewards, whilst expending less energy.

Live at the game you don’t always see it but with the aerial view of TV I’m losing count of the times I see a pass on in the final third, that we regularly fail to make and end up going backwards. We have to find these and use Adama’a pace to exploit the space behind the opposing defences

 

[Paul]

I'm not entirely convinced with how you've reached this neat conclusion... We weren't on any kind of consistent run this season when those players were available!

We've known Jonny was out months ago, and prior to their injuries Donk and Boly weren't pulling up trees. In fact many people were dropping Boly from their teams and wondering whether Donk was really a good fit for the attacking mid role. Even Raul was middling before his injury, and it was only yesterday's game that Marcal missed.

I take the point that this is a chunk of experience to miss, but we still have Rui, Coady, Saiss, Semedo, Neves, Moutinho, Traore and Podence.

It was the club's choice to have this balance of experience and youth. I'm not going to bitch about it and I'm happy for all those young players to get a chance, but I don't want the narrative to be that finishing 15th is fine because we have injuries that are probably on a par with most PL clubs.

If we do finish significantly lower than the past couple of seasons, I feel the club and Nuno shouldn't be exempt from any reasonable and fair scrutiny. 'We're not going down' is a considerable reduction in our ambitions and expectations.

Incidentally, this doesn't mean I have my knives sharpened, I actually think with a decent striker signing next month and continued development we can push on and challenge for 7th-10th, although we've probably left ourselves too much to do to realistically reach the higher end of that spectrum

My God man is the word succinct alien to you ?

 

[Paul]

Just a comment/ opinion on the Traore discussion, now I’m no sports scientist, nutritionist etc. but with the way data is gathered and used now, maybe Adama is pacing himself where he is being challenged to make no more than 4 or 5 pacy runs a game, however, it’s his choice at which point those runs are made.

Mate you must have loved Dave Edwards

 

[AndyWolves]

After the performances against Spurs and Man United, two of the best teams in the country the real test will be taking those types of performances into games where we would expect to get points.

If we do that, then we've got it cracked.

Our next game is away at Brighton, if we can show some of the good things we've done against Spurs and Man U into those games I'll be happy.