Verdict: Wolves 0-1 Newcastle.

[Jonzy54]

Neither have scored since August last year! Quite incredible. May as well get the Duck and Donovan Wilson up top against Wigan!

Agreed

 

[Jonzy54]

How many games without goals for Dicko and Bod now - must be getting close to 20 apiece? At some point you have to try something different.

At least

 

[JOSWolf]

Ronan should have come on
We needed creativity

Tell me about it Jonzy! I have been banging on about Ronan all evening and I will continue doing so. Unbelievable he hasn't had a kick since the Barnsley game when he was so good.
Marshall looks like he needs a 4 week fitness programme!

 

[Wolf316]

From what I saw from Marshall today he shouldn't even be on the bench. Nowhere near fit enough.

Pretty disgraceful to be honest yet Saiss can't even make the bench.

 

[Sutton]

We lack a striker but are a world away from the **** being served up by Zenga.

Spot on. The game I watched today was a world away from the game I watched earlier this season at St James.........

Sick of watching our centre midfield being given the run around. How many times does it have to happen. Evans, Saville, Price, Edwards all not good enough if we want to challenge anywhere near the top of the table (at least PL has found a better place for Coady though!). Saiss and Ronan in CM for the rest of the season for me and then we need to invest in some real quality in CM and lose our league one CM.

 

[JOSWolf]

Spot on. The game I watched today was a world away from the game I watched earlier this season at St James.........

Sick of watching our centre midfield being given the run around. How many times does it have to happen. Evans, Saville, Price, Edwards all not good enough if we want to challenge anywhere near the top of the table (at least PL has found a better place for Coady though!). Saiss and Ronan in CM for the rest of the season for me and then we need to invest in some real quality in CM and lose our league one CM.

Totally agree.
Sick of our **** central midfield.

 

[WolfLing]

Poor game all round. Newcastle came for a point but ended up with all three from a scrappy offside goal, scored by a player that shouldn't have been on the pitch.

We lacked the quality to overcome their negative tactics.

 

[Adrian_Monk]

No doubt we will get the usual *******s about Saïss having had a long flight...well he could have hitch-hiked back from the African nations and he'd still have been in better condition than Marshall.

The 'style' of football today and increasingly in the league under Lambert is frankly ****ing dreadful.

 

[WasStefan]

Newcastle did a job on us. Best team in the league. No more needs to be said

 

[Wolf316]

No doubt we will get the usual *******s about Saïss having had a long flight...well he could have hitch-hiked back from the African nations and he'd still have been in better condition than Marshall.

The 'style' of football today and increasingly in the league under Lambert is frankly ****ing dreadful.

If Saiss does play he'd better be man of the match or we won't see him again!

 

[Deleted member 4023]

Poor game all round. Newcastle came for a point but ended up with all three from a scrappy offside goal, scored by a player that shouldn't have been on the pitch.

We lacked the quality to overcome their negative tactics.

Agree with your first comment, but would change the second to 'We lacked quality'.

 

[JOSWolf]

Newcastle did a job on us. Best team in the league. No more needs to be said

I know what you are saying but they were there for the taking today and have been poor for a few weeks now. QPR outplayed them and got a draw the other week and QPR are ****! Wigan game is massive now.

 

[Sutton]

No doubt we will get the usual *******s about Saïss having had a long flight...well he could have hitch-hiked back from the African nations and he'd still have been in better condition than Marshall.

The 'style' of football today and increasingly in the league under Lambert is frankly ****ing dreadful.

Agreed. Annoying as well as I was starting to warm to PL after being unsure about his appt to start with. We were playing good, attacking football at times but in the last two games though PL has:

- Not had Saiss in the squad but persisted with a CM of Price/Evans/Saville/Edwards
- Brought on Marshall twice on the left wing when (i) that is not his position and (ii) he has not played or trained properly for a month
- Left Ronan on the bench twice when we have desperately needed creativity
- Took off Bright today who was looking our best player on the ball
- Resorted to long ball to Dicko when he is being marked by CBs 1/2 foot taller than him

Managers get paid to make more right decisions than wrong. At the moment that balance is looking dubious to me.

 

[JOSWolf]

Agreed. Annoying as well as I was starting to warm to PL after being unsure about his appt to start with. We were playing good, attacking football at times but in the last two games though PL has:

- Not had Saiss in the squad but persisted with a CM of Price/Evans/Saville/Edwards
- Brought on Marshall twice on the left wing when (i) that is not his position and (ii) he has not played or trained properly for a month
- Left Ronan on the bench twice when we have desperately needed creativity
- Took off Bright today who was looking our best player on the ball
- Resorted to long ball to Dicko when he is being marked by CBs 1/2 foot taller than him

Managers get paid to make more right decisions than wrong. At the moment that balance is looking dubious to me.

Agree with all of that.

 

[Jamwolf]

Bright was pure class. Crazy to sub him.

I get a bad vibe about Marshall. He must have something on Lambert.

Ronan needs to start regularly. So does Bright. They are the future.

Outside the box Dicko is a handful. Inside the box, he's not the same player and doesn't look like scoring.

All in all I thought we were OK. If anyone should have edged it 1-0, it was us. Stearman should have scored, and Dave came very close. No complaints about the ref from me.

 

[lostwolf]

We were the better side and conceded a goal to a player who should have been sent off twice from a free kick that wasn't a foul. We lack a striker but are a world away from the **** being served up by Zenga. It embarassing reading comments by the Lambert out brigade who either don't go to games or have an agenda.

Our support was **** today as well. 24k for a Saturday game against Newcastle is pathetic. The Steve Bull was full of one game wonders who sat there on their phones most of the time taking selfies while pulling duck faces. The Geordies mugged us today on and off the pitch.

Re: our support, it was average but better then theirs at St James's. They didn't make a peep there

 

[Ian]

Only 4 for Dicko? Really? Was one of our better players today IMO (and I've slated him recently). Don't see how Price gets a 6 as he only played for a half and I'm not sure he passed to one of our players in those 45 minutes.

All about opinions though!

I don't get the love for Price at all.... Evans who himself is far from the finished article is an infinitely better player.

 

[Ian]

You talk too much sense, mate.

We lost and the rank and file are up in arms about it not giving credit to a decent display from us. I was actually heartened by our football with the proviso that we all know that we haven't got a decent striker. Toon did sweet FA to win that match except that they scored a jammy goal and offered no other threat. Their defence was good and so be it. Had that been a draw I'd say fair play and the mood on here would also have been different.

You're a fan of "hoof"ball? that's what we played for 75% of the match.

Toon did sweet F.A? They scored and then their defence stayed strong and didn't give us a sniff... ummm its called WINNING the game!

 

[Ian]

We needed bod on though. Maybe dicko should have come off instead but he needs persisting with.

The problem without cav is we are a one sided. Everything to costa .

I would like to give Costa a free role in the middle as he's restricted having to track back and also leaves gaps when he does go on a run.

With cav and weimman it would work well but without cav we don't have another winger .

Both wingers need to be having paint on their studs but ours were far too central too often today - cramping up the pitch and possession .

No he doesn't.

 

[astraltrader]

Its strange really although we are playing far better than we did under Zenga we have yet to see this translated into the wins we should be getting. I do think that PL will eventually make this happen but the best we can hope for is a gradual improvement during the rest of the season.
Todays performance was not bad and for most of the game we matched Newcastle especially in the second half.
If we had a striker who could score we would certainly have achieved a draw at least.
Defensively we were generally ok other than the one fiasco that lead to the Newcastle goal which according to the Sky comms should have been disallowed because one of their players was offside and interfered with play.
In all honesty despite rewinding the game twice I am not sure how much he did interfere with the play but what was clear was the mess three of our defenders got into which was more to the point.
I thought Bright and Coady were our best two players.
Our immediate task is to ensure we do not get sucked down into a relegation battle starting with the Wigan game on Tuesday.
I hope PL makes a few improvements to the midfield at least. Maybe Ronan and Saiss might get a chance??
Not much more to say really....

 

[Adrian_Monk]

You're a fan of "hoof"ball? that's what we played for 75% of the match.

Toon did sweet F.A? They scored and then their defence stayed strong and didn't give us a sniff... ummm its called WINNING the game!

Agree, they barely had to get out of first gear with our meat and drink kabbadiball tactics.

What a crap team Wolves are, as Rodney Marsh would say. Even ****ing Mitrovic, Newcastle's Frankowski, managed to score against us.

 

[Deleted member 4594]

Newcastle turned up, got the goal and saw the game out very comfortably. It was a promotion performance from them.
We created next to nothing.

 

[ShropshireLad]

You're a fan of "hoof"ball? that's what we played for 75% of the match.

Toon did sweet F.A? They scored and then their defence stayed strong and didn't give us a sniff... ummm its called WINNING the game!

You saw a different game. I saw ball to feet and a bit of long ball. I also Match of the Day and there was a bit of hoofing from the area in that and hoofing across the field by Man U and other long balls pumped forward by other teams.

I fully agree with the start of your second sentence but because we lost to a jammy goal in a game where both defences gave very little away I'm not wetting my pants and letting the result colour my observation that overall, despite a poor performance from Dicko and a nondescript performance from Weimann.

The glass is half full.

 

[reanswolf]

It really is interesting how differently respected posters see the game.
It was incredibly frustrating, but defensively I thought we were strong and thought the entire back four were very good, midfield was ok except Edwards (but yet again he was only one to nearly pop up with a goal), but up front and creatively we were poor against a resolute Newcastle defence. £59m they may have spent but the difference was not that great.
Bright looks to have real natural ability.

Only thing I am disappointed with its Lamberts statement that new acquisitions would "walk into the team". The jury is out on that one for me.

 

[ShropshireLad]

Only thing I am disappointed with its Lamberts statement that new acquisitions would "walk into the team". The jury is out on that one for me.

I didn't know that. Daft or what? With Mason injured his options up front are limited but Dicko isn't the answer.

 

[AndyY]

I watched on Sky. I thought we played pretty well - that goes against the majority view but we controlled much of the game and didn't let Newcastle play. They are Champions elect and unbeaten in god knows how many games but we controlled things.

I don't agree that we played "hoof ball" , we were passing across the park to try to create, and to players in space at times. I accept that we created very few chances but neither did they. Let's be clear we were beaten by a team whose goal was scored by a player who should not have been on the pitch, assisted by a player who admitted himself that he was offside and we were denied a decent shout for a penalty for hand ball in the second half.

I thought Stearman, Coady, Price and Evans were all ok but Newcastle put 2 players on Costa to keep him quiet, and Bright looked good. I don't know why he was substituted and Ronan should have come on instead of Marshall.

All in all we still look a far better and more cohesive football team than earlier in the season. Results (and refs) are not going our way but we are a long way from the doom and gloom being dished out on here.

 

[reanswolf]

I'm not knocking Lambert, but yes he said there was no point filling the team/squad with bit part players that simply fill the squad.

 

[reanswolf]

I hope we make more noise against Chelsea than yesterday - there was little encouragement for the team second half, which disappointed me. I am not knocking anyone, I know it was frustrating and bloody cold, but the North Bank made as much noise as the South Bank in the second half.

"We" had more of an off day than the players, in my opinion. At least they kept at it.
And I know some fans will slate me for saying that. But I love to praise our fans, but yesterday "we" just were not at the races. It doesn't mean any given individual on here wasn't shouting their head off, but collectively it was poor.

Geordies were superb, hats off to them. Hard to believe its the same fan base as was at St James Park.

We need a wall of noise next week v Wigan, lets hope normal service is resumed.

 

[Optimistic Hove Wolf]

[QUOTE="ShropshireLad, post: 4911672, member: 4695

The glass is half full.[/QUOTE]
A tad early to be on the Merlot my friend.

 

[Supadavewolf]

Regarding the Bright sub, like others on here I was surprised. To me he was MoM at the time.

I really don't think an experienced manager such as Lambert would not have seen what we all saw.

So, perhaps the reason for taking Bright off was that, at 18, Lambert wants to keep him fresh and start him again Tuesday? This season, he has tended not to be able to play flat out for the full 90 in the first team.

I can't see how Bright could have played all match and then also started against Wigan, and remember that, without Mason, we're short of any decent threat in advanced positions centrally - other than Dangerous.

Just a thought.

 

[Jamwolf]

Why can't a professional footballer play 90 minutes on Saturday and Tuesday ?

 

[Lupu]

We don't have the quality to break teams down. Games like today, where we go behind, are the ones where our shortcomings are exposed and people like Edwards look poor.

Spot on. Edwards has his good points and his loyalty and work rate are to of them. However, he is not able to break down teams like NU.

 

[Supadavewolf]

Why can't a professional footballer play 90 minutes on Saturday and Tuesday ?

They can. It's just that, at 18, Bright is not the finished article and evidence this season is that he struggles physically towards the end of matches. At his age that's typical for a teenage pro, even given the relatively quick recovery the younger body makes from physical exertion.

It's also a mental concentration thing - we know that playing at this level requires full mental alertness for the 90, and we often see even seasoned pros make mental errors at the end of games they wouldn't make in the first half.

As I say, just a thought that maybe Lambert wants to start him centrally against Wigan, and needs to make sure he's fresh enough for this. We'll see Tuesday if he does start or not!

 

[Ian]

I watched on Sky. I thought we played pretty well - that goes against the majority view but we controlled much of the game and didn't let Newcastle play. They are Champions elect and unbeaten in god knows how many games but we controlled things.

I don't agree that we played "hoof ball" , we were passing across the park to try to create, and to players in space at times. I accept that we created very few chances but neither did they. Let's be clear we were beaten by a team whose goal was scored by a player who should not have been on the pitch, assisted by a player who admitted himself that he was offside and we were denied a decent shout for a penalty for hand ball in the second half.

I thought Stearman, Coady, Price and Evans were all ok but Newcastle put 2 players on Costa to keep him quiet, and Bright looked good. I don't know why he was substituted and Ronan should have come on instead of Marshall.

All in all we still look a far better and more cohesive football team than earlier in the season. Results (and refs) are not going our way but we are a long way from the doom and gloom being dished out on here.

Would that be the less cohesive team that beat Newcastle(and beat them well) at St James? ...
I like Lambert and do believe he is the man to eventually take us back to the Premier but at this stage of the season I don't think we are a "million miles" away from Zenga's team, we are still inconsistent and lose games we should be winning.
People can blame Refs all they want, but we had 3 defenders all jumping to head the same ball from the free kick that led to the goal and both Batth and Stearman were on their backsides when the ball fell to their unmarked striker to put away... its stupid mistakes and bad decisions that happen every week from pretty average, experienced players that has led to Wolves hovering in the depths, not bad refs or being unlucky.

 

[Phitsanulok (Poole) Wolf]

Would that be the less cohesive team that beat Newcastle(and beat them well) at St James? ...
I like Lambert and do believe he is the man to eventually take us back to the Premier but at this stage of the season I don't think we are a "million miles" away from Zenga's team, we are still inconsistent and lose games we should be winning.
People can blame Refs all they want, but we had 3 defenders all jumping to head the same ball from the free kick that led to the goal and both Batth and Stearman were on their backsides when the ball fell to their unmarked striker to put away... its stupid mistakes and bad decisions that happen every week from pretty average, experienced players that has led to Wolves hovering in the depths, not bad refs or being unlucky.

Two defenders and Dangerous getting in the way. He later on tackled Evans and took the ball off him. Unbelievable.

 

[WISAW]

Edwards just isn't a CM, great off the bench impact player but he should not be a permanent fixture in the starting 11. So many times I found myself swearing at the tv for his lack of awareness and speed of thought in the CM area. On at least 2 occasions yesterday he played it straight back to Batth who had no option but to send it long to Bod ( this seemed to be a tactic when he came on, a very crap one).
We will never control a match with him in the 11. He's great when we're playing away and hitting teams on the break but not when we're playing at home and meant to be dictating the play.

 

[ShropshireLad]

I must have missed this creative bright performance

It seems that you did.

 

[Deleted member 4099]

We lack quality in central midfield and Center forward positions. All the effort in the world can't hide that.

A bit of a mixed bag of feelings really. It's clear that we are a more organised team with a pattern play full of energy and desire. BUT ! On the flip we lack quality in key positions. I'll repeat myself we are desperate in the Center of midfield we lack a general and a playmaker. And obviously we desperate for a proper no 9. This must addressed in the summer.

Yesterday we were unlucky to lose but at the same wouldn't have scored if we'd played all night. Newcastle a far superior team all over the pitch by the way did a job on us plain and simple.

Need to see more of Ronan in coming weeks and Evans as they seem to the only midfielders with the kind of pass we're missing. Not sure what other options to try up front.

Ikeme 7
Coady 6
Batth 7
Stearman 7
Doherty 6
Price 6
Edwards 5
Bright 8
Costa 7
Wienman 6
Dicko 6

 

[Ironfistedmonk]

All I saw was hoof, it was a horrible game to watch, there is a reason we are 18th in the table and better away from home, we can't keep possession, don't play in the opponents half, have too many cloggers and are better on the break so spend most the game chasing hoofs upfield

 

[Jonzy54]

I noticed about 5 minutes from the end Edwards made an attempt to win the ball in midfield and then put his hands on his knees because he was knackered .No one could ever criticise his effort but that summed it up for me.He had one decent second half effort but apart from that he didn't break up play,create or dictate play from midfield .As such most of it was wasted expended effort .
I like Edwards a lot but he is the archetypal curate's egg,the goal scorer who will always be a Marmite player -you either love him or hate him.
One day a Wolves Manager won't hang on sentiment and will actually sort the midfield out.A midfield that protects the back 4,can be creative,can dominate the opposition,can be supportive to the strikers and will have sufficient spatial awareness to see games out.
We have had years of dilly dallying ,square pegs in round holes ,extended contracts based on loyalty and sentiment rather than a hard nosed desire to actually compete.Wolves fans are not stupid .We can all see our deficiencies but blind faith will only take you so far and successive Managers have failed to address these failings .I still hope with a full pre-season Lambert will get things right .