Wolves 0-2 Crystal Palace: Verdict Thread

[Johnny75]

But for how long? He's missed all of this season and over 40% of each of the previous two. At 31 I'm not sure that's going to improve?

You'd work all week with him in a 4 then he'd drop out on the Friday and you'd be chucking Coady or Saiss in anyway

That is the risk, but that's the case with any player.

I missed Gomes off who stood in admirably for Saiss in January and looks to have speed and build to play in a four.

There certainly needs to be a defender bought this summer. Particularly as Saiss is going to leave by the looks of things.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

I'd be interested to see a foot race between our CBs, i'm not sure that Boly and Kilman would be the two quickest? Maybe they would, i don't think there's a great deal of difference between Boly, Kilman, Saiss and Coady though? Toti may well be the quickest actually?

Also the pace of CBs in a 2 is only a big aspect if we are playing a high line, and even then there are plenty of CBs that play in a 2 that aren't quick, look at Burnley, United and Brighton for example.

 

[Throbber3]

Bruno has had players he wanted. Adama, Trincao, Chiquinho, Hwang. Let's not pretend we haven't given him players.

I cant get behind that. He asked for a midfielder and a centre half and got neither. Then he was put back in his box. TT is correct with this.

I think he'd like to play expansive football and 4 at the back. The first died in pre season and the second after 3 games.

The complaint I have is that if he has a preferred way he should now go for it to prep for next season and if that means some of the favoured stars dont play , well so be it. We arent going down , we arent going higher. We could get some pretty good practice in playing with a back four to set us up for next season.

Probability is that next season will be without Neves. Maybe Moutinho. Sa has had such great reviews we will do well to hang on to him ( My view others differ) Saiss is out of contract and will be the wrong side of 30. Raul has misfired since his injury( no blame, just fact) Hwang and Silva are ours now so they best start working together better and Trincoward is on loan thank fuck. Kilman having an off spell is bad short term but may be good medium term as interest will cool. He is on Big Six teams radar at the moment . And dont forget Newcastle. They are the unknown package for next season with money to burn and a real chance of breaking into the top 10 or better.

If Lage is to stay he needs to have faith in his convictions. 4231 or 4222 I would have thought.

 

[sycophantia]

From what I've seen, I would say Kilman is a fair bit quicker than Coady or Saiss, Boly was quite quick but currently who knows.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I'd be interested to see a foot race between our CBs, i'm not sure that Boly and Kilman would be the two quickest? Maybe they would, i don't think there's a great deal of difference between Boly, Kilman, Saiss and Coady though? Toti may well be the quickest actually?

Also the pace of CBs in a 2 is only a big aspect if we are playing a high line, and even then there are plenty of CBs that play in a 2 that aren't quick, look at Burnley, United and Brighton for example.

Coady slowest by a long way, he's glacial.

 

[YoungWolf]

Coady and Saiss definitely slowest I'd say. Boly isn't rapid but covers ground well. Kilman has surprised me in that aspect too. Toti is probably quickest though.

 

[Throbber3]

So for this season I would go with

Sa
Semedo Coady/ Kilman Saiss Jonny
Dendoncker
Neves Moutinho
Podence Raul Neto

Giving minutes to Toti, Hwang, Silva, RAN Kilman (He needs a rest atm )Cundle. Those in Orange I dont think will be here next season so lets start to prep for it. In the summer we will need at least one , probably two premier league standard midfield players. One can be young and ready to develop but must still be worthy of his place. One can be the Moutinho replacement. We aklso need someone up from. Weghorst has been really good for Burnley so far, putting himself about a lot more than Wood did and more than Raul has. Someone similar would be good for the style Lage wants ( Some may not like that style). Dendoncker would do the job he is asked to do for Belgium , nothing more. It will then allow the other midfield to push on.

I would be looking to ship out the following
Silva (loan)
Hoever (sell)
Trincao (return)
Boly (sell)
Marcal (sell)

Saiss and Neves is 45 million the pair realistically. So you will have about 60-70m to spend in the summer.Thats enough to get the players you need if you recruit properly ( we dont always do that though). Then at least we have backed Bruno and its up top him and his team. We dcould easily go top 6 or bottom three. The margins are that fine.

 

[Nando]

Saiss and Marcal will be out of contract.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

So for this season I would go with

Sa
Semedo Coady/ Kilman Saiss Jonny
Dendoncker
Neves Moutinho
Podence Raul Neto

Giving minutes to Toti, Hwang, Silva, RAN Kilman (He needs a rest atm )Cundle. Those in Orange I dont think will be here next season so lets start to prep for it. In the summer we will need at least one , probably two premier league standard midfield players. One can be young and ready to develop but must still be worthy of his place. One can be the Moutinho replacement. We aklso need someone up from. Weghorst has been really good for Burnley so far, putting himself about a lot more than Wood did and more than Raul has. Someone similar would be good for the style Lage wants ( Some may not like that style). Dendoncker would do the job he is asked to do for Belgium , nothing more. It will then allow the other midfield to push on.

I would be looking to ship out the following
Silva (loan)
Hoever (sell)
Trincao (return)
Boly (sell)
Marcal (sell)

Saiss and Neves is 45 million the pair realistically. So you will have about 60-70m to spend in the summer.Thats enough to get the players you need if you recruit properly ( we dont always do that though). Then at least we have backed Bruno and its up top him and his team. We dcould easily go top 6 or bottom three. The margins are that fine.

We’ll have to spend a hell of a lot more than £70m to get top six even if we kept Neves.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I wouldn't want to give Lage that kind of money, there's no basis for it.

 

[prawnking]

I wouldn't want to give Lage that kind of money, there's no basis for it.

He's got us to a similar league position this season as Nuno at his best, with all the concerns we have. How is he supposed to significantly improve things without getting new blood in?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

1) He hasn't got us there yet, and we won't be anywhere near on current form and performance levels

2) I'm not sure the answer to "the manager plays rubbish football" is "give him a load of money". Especially as he seems fully on board with us signing Hwang permanently, when we can see that he looks a really poor footballer most of the time, and he tried to sign Kieffer Moore

I saw us play well very sporadically under McGhee and Hoddle, didn't want to give them a massive warchest either because the overwhelming bulk of the evidence was that it'd be wasted, due to poor judgement and worse style.

 

[PuntsWolf]

I'd be interested to see a foot race between our CBs, i'm not sure that Boly and Kilman would be the two quickest? Maybe they would, i don't think there's a great deal of difference between Boly, Kilman, Saiss and Coady though? Toti may well be the quickest actually?

Also the pace of CBs in a 2 is only a big aspect if we are playing a high line, and even then there are plenty of CBs that play in a 2 that aren't quick, look at Burnley, United and Brighton for example.

I took a video of Coady running when I re-watched a game at home to show my mate as we always laugh at how slow he is.

Streamable Video

Watch this video on Streamable.

streamable.com

Yes he starts jogging right at the end but he looks like he’s towing a caravan at the start and you can see the pain on his face.

Also remember Adam Idah destroying him late on against Norwich in the cup and him trying to get back was painful.

 

[Hereford Wolf]

Only because older generations didn't have social media themselves.

I am 64. I have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

 

[prawnking]

1) He hasn't got us there yet, and we won't be anywhere near on current form and performance levels

2) I'm not sure the answer to "the manager plays rubbish football" is "give him a load of money". Especially as he seems fully on board with us signing Hwang permanently, when we can see that he looks a really poor footballer most of the time, and he tried to sign Kieffer Moore

I saw us play well very sporadically under McGhee and Hoddle, didn't want to give them a massive warchest either because the overwhelming bulk of the evidence was that it'd be wasted, due to poor judgement and worse style.

Bruno seems to be getting a lot of blame for our signings (even ones that didn't happen), when I was under the impression these weren't under his control?

I don't disagree that I want more from him but his football isn't 'rubbish' , it's been generally effective and successful this season in terms of points haul. Just not particularly entertaining. Certainly no worse than most of last season, imo.

Of course it's not progressive or attractive, but as fans we're hardly Albion or West Ham where we (delusionally) fancy our club as silky, purist pioneers.

Are you saying you want him to prove he can play attractive football with the current crop (which even Nuno couldn't do) before he gets the chance to splash any cash to improve it from the outside?

Like Alan and Mel, I just sense you want him gone?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We don't need to play the way we currently do. Not by any stretch.

If that carries on for the rest of the season then I absolutely do not want him to be given money (why would I?) and in that case then he may as well go. In an atmosphere whereby we're in no danger at all and he can try different approaches if he wants over the next 11 games, if he can't improve matters now then I'm not sure when he's going to do it.

As I say, we've been just about average to very, very bad in two thirds of our games this season. It's up to him to improve that.

I didn't want him in the first place and I haven't especially warmed to him, we're no fun at all to watch, he's coming out with complete nonsense in public, he's picking stupid teams that obviously won't work, so right now it wouldn't bother me if we got rid.

As for "Nuno couldn't get these players playing good football", we did for three years under him. I'm not having the gaslighting that we were always crap to watch when that doesn't even remotely reflect his whole time in charge.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I took a video of Coady running when I re-watched a game at home to show my mate as we always laugh at how slow he is.

Streamable Video

Watch this video on Streamable.

streamable.com

Yes he starts jogging right at the end but he looks like he’s towing a caravan at the start and you can see the pain on his face.

Also remember Adam Idah destroying him late on against Norwich in the cup and him trying to get back was painful.

That was the exact run that came to my mind when the pace of the centre halves was mentioned! He makes Kilman look like Bolt there.

 

[Mel Evo]

Bruno seems to be getting a lot of blame for our signings (even ones that didn't happen), when I was under the impression these weren't under his control?

I don't disagree that I want more from him but his football isn't 'rubbish' , it's been generally effective and successful this season in terms of points haul. Just not particularly entertaining. Certainly no worse than most of last season, imo.

Of course it's not progressive or attractive, but as fans we're hardly Albion or West Ham where we (delusionally) fancy our club as silky, purist pioneers.

Are you saying you want him to prove he can play attractive football with the current crop (which even Nuno couldn't do) before he gets the chance to splash any cash to improve it from the outside?

Like Alan and Mel, I just sense you want him gone?

It's a clumsy slight of hand to suggest that anyone 'wants him gone' in a sense that is completely disassociated with either the performances delivered or a discretionary judgement made on the potential he has to turn things around. As stated somewhere above in the last 24 hours, I don't want to see anyone fail and I'll be supporting him and the team on Thursday.

That said... I'm not blaming him for our signings, so we can move on from that. I do think his football is poor and deteriorating, most reasonable people are comparing the here and now to where we were in 18/19 and 19/20, and I'm less interested with silky purism than I am in playing with conviction to a plausible plan. You raise plenty of fair challenges, but I suspect even you struggle to see the hallmarks of good leadership material in what has been going on of late? If not, well I hope you're not appointing people to leadership teams.

 

[Derby Wolf]

We don't need to play the way we currently do. Not by any stretch.

If that carries on for the rest of the season then I absolutely do not want him to be given money (why would I?) and in that case then he may as well go. In an atmosphere whereby we're in no danger at all and he can try different approaches if he wants over the next 11 games, if he can't improve matters now then I'm not sure when he's going to do it.

As I say, we've been just about average to very, very bad in two thirds of our games this season. It's up to him to improve that.

I didn't want him in the first place and I haven't especially warmed to him, we're no fun at all to watch, he's coming out with complete nonsense in public, so right now it wouldn't bother me if we got rid.

As for "Nuno couldn't get these players playing good football", we did for three years under him. I'm not having the gaslighting that we were always crap to watch when that doesn't even remotely reflect his whole time in charge.

It all feels very Lambert for me.

I'm disillusioned with him, he talks a good game, bigs up the fans but then plays the same players and same old shit every week.

At the end of 16/17 I didn't want or trust him with transfer funds and not to clog up the squad with (rumoured at the time) shite like Grant Hanley. Nor do I want our squad to be clogged with shite like Kieffer Moore now.

I suspect we're going to spend the rest of the season recreating Curbishley's Charlton and after looking like cracking europe pre christmas we'll slide down the table after it.

 

[1986]

With all the talk of Boly here , I'd like to see him get some game time before the season is over . He needs to play a full 90 minutes to judge him .
He's been dismissed , despite the fact that we all thought he was our main man at the back only a short while ago .

If his fitness has returned and his health is AI again , then surely he deserves a chance to show what he can do .

Why not slot him in against Watford ?