Lage OUT

[Leigh72]

The forward players Need to help here , not one of them is performing at the required level, for whatever reason.

 

[Fifty Niner]

Yup its frustrating to watch as actually our back four seem to 'get it'.

Numerous times already this season I've seen Collins and Kilman take the ball from the back (which is what Lage wanted, ball carrying CB's!) almost over the half way line, to run into blind alleys with no-one giving them forward looking options, and frequently Neves or Mouthino have been yards behind them which results in the inevitable back pass, then sideways out to the wings, putting the brakes on that momentum.

That’s a coaching issue which it appears the whole team aren’t getting. Either they are not very intelligent players or they are confused. I think he will have at least another 5 or 6 games, maybe more if they decide to effectively write off our next 4 as ‘developmental’.

 

[SmokeyGB]

I don't think AVB even wants to manage any more, and assuming Poch says no, then what?

I think i put in brackets mate - not sure

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

7/2, fifth favourites to go down, behind Bournemouth, Forest, Everton and Leicester. Saints are 6th.

Thanks @Ches78 . Not as bad as I thought but obviously still terrible!

 

[nomadwolf]

The fact that only Brighton have conceded less goals than us, would imply back 4 working well, so far.

Just need sort out lack of confidence of not winning league match for 5 months, which usually starts with scoring and not conceding.

Things hopefully look much better at 5pm tomorrow.

 

[Rubberball]

Interesting that folks think we've bought these players for Lage.

I think they already have a manager lined up for the International break ready to take over the squad.

 

[Flump]

I think i put in brackets mate - not sure

Well it could well be quite important!

I'd take Pep first, Klopp second - after that I'm not sure.

 

[Polish Wolf]

That’s a coaching issue which it appears the whole team aren’t getting. Either they are not very intelligent players or they are confused. I think he will have at least another 5 or 6 games, maybe more if they decide to effectively write off our next 4 as ‘developmental’.

Moutinho and Neves are super intelligent players, they always seem to know what happens around them. The problem is... nothing really happens and the only option to carry the play forward is to get the ball to the wing.

 

[Streathamwolf]

Interesting that folks think we've bought these players for Lage.

I think they already have a manager lined up for the International break ready to take over the squad.

Based on what?

 

[Rubberball]

Based on what?

Nothing at all just a hunch

 

[WickedWolfie]

No it's not exactly that, I just explained that my dislike of his managerial abilities (not him personally) aren't the reason for my comments about his ability to speak English, it's his ability to speak English! It's not as good as Matheus Nunes English either by the way

Matheus Nunes is a bad comparator given that he has an English step-father.

 

[Ironfistedmonk]

Matheus Nunes is a bad comparator given that he has an English step-father.

Its a perfect comparison (more of a dig at Mr Know it All on here though), but the speaking English part has been pounced on as a reason to question me not debate what I said, it was his all round communication I was questioning, not helped by him not being able to express himself clearly in English, unless he rambles in Portuguese too?

 

[SmokeyGB]

Well it could well be quite important!

I'd take Pep first, Klopp second - after that I'm not sure.

I'm sure it is quite important but your preference and mine means jack really as we can only wish (some more realistic than others) but I'm positive the people on the top table at Wolves will have already drawn up a list of potential suitors as a 'just in case and would be willing to come' situation and could say with 99.99% certainty that both of yours wont be on it and be willing to come, same could be said about mine.

At the end of the day, I i'll stand by my choice / limited judgment Bruno is not the 1st team coach for Wolves.
If i am wrong i can live with it, if i am right I can still live with it but i'm sure 1000's will struggle as we are near bottom 3 or in it with a few games to go..

 

[Pengwern]

Wenger was not a personality-coach who relied on motivation. He was an analytical coach and so is Lage. Wenger was successful and Lage, given time, will get these players gelling into a new identity!

 

[Contrarian]

'Vast majority'? 7 out of 20 of the players who went to Bournemouth don't know Portuguese or Spanish. That's one-third. If you look at the whole of the Ist team squad, it would be about half who don't.

The defenders appear to know very well what they should be doing and only one of those is Portugese - Semedo. I don't think it a language problem. Though results and performance suggest there is a problem somewhere. No way are our performances "going to plan".
Seems that we drop back into playing much the same way we did for years before, only not as effective.

That suggests that the players have not absorbed anything new since Bruno took over. Chiquinho and Hwang (initially) started well, but Hwang fairly soon was looking lost as to what his role was. As do Guedes and Nunes so far. Neto does what he always did. For all the talk of Raul looking finished, he was doing fine once he'd been back for a few games around October/November last season. Then he too started looking frustrated and unconvincing as to what he should be doing.

Looks like more of a general inability to work on the roles the midfield and attackers have to play, given their strengths and weaknesses. We saw Nunes only a month ago playing against us and he looked just about the best player on the pitch. So far for us, it's hard to recognise him as the same player. He's definititely quality, the way we play just means much of the game is passing him by.

What aspects of any of that are down to communication or Bruno just not being good enough tactically or not able to motivate, who knows? But something is definitely going badly wrong at the moment.

 

[Mark Rankines Lovechild]

Wenger was not a personality-coach who relied on motivation. He was an analytical coach and so is Lage. Wenger was successful and Lage, given time, will get these players gelling into a new identity!

Whatever happens we are now in a position where the players needing moving on had left - a new manager (if it happens) will come in with no culpability for this clear out and, effectively a clean slate and pretty decent team.

 

[nomadwolf]

My view is this Soton report, more on the button, than some...

Tactical Watch: Full-backs must pass Wolves' wing-play test

Sam Tighe previews Southampton’s Premier League trip to Wolves in the latest edition of Tactical Watch, in association with Sportsbet.io.

www.southamptonfc.com

 

[Madmalc]

Press boys starting to point out the pressure Lage is under here:
Inside story of the £100m Wolves spree which puts pressure on Bruno Lage

 

[Contrarian]

Wenger was not a personality-coach who relied on motivation. He was an analytical coach and so is Lage. Wenger was successful and Lage, given time, will get these players gelling into a new identity!

Exactly when did Bruno demonstrate his analytical abilities? Must be saving them for a rainy day as we sure haven't seen any sign of anything even remotely smart tactics wise. Sounds crazy to me to even imagine that Wenger couldn't devise some tactics to have got us at least a few wins in the last 12 matches.

 

[OoohRobbieRobbie]

Gigantic game for Bruno tomorrow. I'm torn in many ways, but ultimately my thought process comes down to "who else would we get". The age old adage.

There is absolutely no guarantee that whoever we bring in will improve is in 6 months, more than Bruno might improve us in 6 months.

It would be a shame for him to be sacked having only had 4-6 games with Collins, Guedes, Nunes and 1 with Saša.

Something needs to click and we do need some luck to get us off the ground. The intent was there against Bournemouth - I thought we worked brilliantly off the ball to regain possession. Our cutting edge and decision making in the final third was however, woeful. It sounds very basic but we just need to attack faster and more direct! We allow far too much time for the opposition to re-set. We were electric on the counter under Nuno (mostly), however we did have Jota who was imperative to it.

I want him to do well, but it's not looking great statistically (less than 1 goal a game?) especially when you look back over the 45+ games.

2-0 win tomorrow. One for Raul, one for Saša. Get that hotel booked for Dublin 2024....

 

[Bill S Preston Esq.]

Just give Bruno a break!

Yes, performances haven’t been great of late but we’ve been a little bit spoiled with the quality signings we have made so far, whether we add to the list in the closing few hours who knows?

Personally I think we’ll see a change in fortunes next game with the new players showing that they’re adapting to the EPL.

And if it's another game, largely drawing a blank? What then?

 

[nomadwolf]

I'll take 0-0 in next 3 games...think a better 3 points, than beat Soton and 2 losses.

There are no easy games anymore, for any team, apart Man C....who have a 6'4" centre forward...

Now if only we had one...

 

[WickedWolfie]

I'll take 0-0 in next 3 games...think a better 3 points, than beat Soton and 2 losses.

There are no easy games anymore, for any team, apart Man C....who have a 6'4" centre forward...

Now if only we had one...

Realistically our only prospect of points any time soon are tomorrow and West Ham. If, God forbid, we lose tomorrow l expect things may get very, very nasty very fast.

 

[nomadwolf]

Sorry, but over 60 years of usually false optimism supporting Wolves, will never wain for me.

Optimism and pessimism...the outcome is the same, but more enjoyment in optimism.

PS...listen to Brendan Rodgers presser today...talk about pessimism and many think he the answer.

 

[Loefah]

Wenger was not a personality-coach who relied on motivation. He was an analytical coach and so is Lage. Wenger was successful and Lage, given time, will get these players gelling into a new identity!

For an analytical coach, he really struggles to have any positive influence on the game after it kicks off.

Bruno's ability to implement tactical tweaks and make the right subs at the right time is questionable to say the least.

 

[SilverstoneWolf]

Am amazed at criticism of Lage media interviews. With English not his native language and knowing the English media and their delight in destroying anyone who says anything that can be misinterpreted and mis-represented, OF COURSE he does not come over as fluent. But I suspect in the privacy of the dressing room he is more than capable getting messages across. Unfortunately, some of the players have simply not performed in front of goal in the way we would want. Rome not built in a day! Patience!!

 

[Flea]

Am amazed at criticism of Lage media interviews. With English not his native language and knowing the English media and their delight in destroying anyone who says anything that can be misinterpreted and mis-represented, OF COURSE he does not come over as fluent. But I suspect in the privacy of the dressing room he is more than capable getting messages across. Unfortunately, some of the players have simply not performed in front of goal in the way we would want. Rome not built in a day! Patience!!

I agree.
We basically had the same problems under Nuno.
Central midfield is still to uncreative for me,and still lies too deep for large parts of matches.
What really does my head in is that we become so very defensiveminded when getting ahead by a scarce goal.
We just give the initiative away,or even gives up continuing struggling for it,as soon as we get ahead.Happend against Leeds and happened againg against Toon.I just don´t get it..a goal up should really work the other way around..it should give us more confidence and more spirit..instead the opposite happens.
We are simply not as good at soaking up pressure we once were..and we have no rub of the green on top of that currently..I mean..ASMs strike is just unfortunate coincidence,but it happened because we basically stopped trying going forward in a decent manner.

Our central midfield is still a work in progress given the fact that Nunes obviously needs some time to adapt to the Premier League.

Another thing is that both Neto,Podence and Raul has been overall sub par thus far.Especially Neto has much greater potential that what he has showed so far.We get him going it will be a different matter all together.

Us going negative for large parts of matches is the one thing that Lage can and probably should be critised for thus far IMO.Bruno correcting this could be the factor that saves his future career as headcoach for us.

 

[chignalwolf]

I confess that despite a number of years in the building and construction industry where a good Irish contingent was always the norm, I still found some of Rodgers mumbling Irish damned difficult to follow. For me, a crash course in Portuguese would be a better bet!

Agree, he sort of sounds between Irish and Scottish and a bit of West Country, so as you say a "crash course in Portuguese" LOL

 

[Wolf316]

And if it's another game, largely drawing a blank? What then?

Can see a pretty toxic atmosphere tomorrow if things aren’t going the right way.

 

[JOSWolf]

Read some of his press conference quotes today and I just feel he speaks almost in riddles at times. Talks about players needing time and patience which is all good and well but we are 5 games into the season now, hardy score any goals and with some really tough fixtures coming up and havent won a game since the start of April. We really need a win tomorrow. Anything else will be very concerning.

 

[DasWolf]

Exactly when did Bruno demonstrate his analytical abilities? Must be saving them for a rainy day as we sure haven't seen any sign of anything even remotely smart tactics wise. Sounds crazy to me to even imagine that Wenger couldn't devise some tactics to have got us at least a few wins in the last 12 matches.

Bruno has no ability to adapt. We've seen many, many times where opponent managers adapt their approach and come out on top. Our second half performances would indicate Lage can't motivate, and he can't counter what other managers do, suggesting he doesn't analyse things, or that he's so slow to do so he can't change if he hasn't had all week to run his calculations.

 

[Green Wolf]

Do you think Lage chose the players and brought them in?

Being the manager, I would guess he had something to do with it, to say the least. How it all works exactly, I don't know.

 

[Green Wolf]

What if you are upgrading him? AVB - Potch are both available and would be a massive upgrade.
AVB sounds perfect, been in the league before, done reasonable well in other countries (not just in Portugal).
This is just like moving players outs and buying / refreshing the squad so i don't take notion that £100m been spent will keep the Portuguese Saunders in a job if anything it could speed up his exit.

AVB / Potch (after that not sure)

On the face of it, those do seem like upgrades to me. Would we tempt them to the club? Personally, I can't see that.

 

[DC sits in the NORTHSTAND]

You put your left lage in your left lage out....

 

[Woburn Wolf]

Southgate…

I’d rather have Bruno.

 

[oldgolded]

AVB seems to stay in each job for an average of about one year. Never played professional football. Don't know how important that is. He is Portuguese though. Would have thought it would appeal to him. Don't know who his agent is.

 

[AlexWolvesHD]

I think Lage has the next 3 games and if we are still winless after that then he likely will be moved on.

If so I would move for Sergio Conceicao at Porto, plays either a 4231 or 442 with a high pressing team. Has the Portuguese connection as well as success with young players like Vieira, Vitinha & Evanilson. Think he would be a good fit for us and a higher calibre manager than Lage.

 

[BCWolf]

I would still sack him now but imagine that win gives him 6 games.

 

[TheStalePolice]

Shambles again today. Very lucky to win. LAGE OUT.

 

[Mugwump]

I would still sack him now but imagine that win gives him 6 games.

It was another very ordinary performance. I think he is still on very shaky ground.