Will Fosun realise?

[VancouverWolf]

GON didn't make any huge revelations last night, you're right the squad is too small, the point is that this isn't new news, everyone has known this all season!

Exactly…….

What did Gary say yesterday that we all didn’t know?…….nothing.
We all knew, Gary, Hobbs, Jeff included that the squad is small…..that we ran a risk with injuries…..that we wanted a CF in Jan. etc.

Gary’s statement yesterday was not a criticism…….he was expressing some MILD frustration .
No big deal. Did anyone think before yesterday that Gary was thrilled with everything? Of course he wasn’t.

 

[VancouverWolf]

So why bother replying to me on a forum that is about discussion of points?

Cows

 

[QB Wolf]

I don't think there's a single club in the third tier of our size, with Derby being the closest. The big clubs in the second tier (the Sheffield Wednesdays, the Leicesters, soon to be Everton) are a unique corollary of modern football. They overspent at the top, exploded, some have especially suffered during the pandemic and then declined.

Wolves' underachievement circa 1990s-2010s wasn't because of that. It was because of under investment (from the Morgans) and misinvestment (Sir Jack and the Golden Tit), or a combination of the two (Sir Jack shutting off the taps the minute we went up). There was never really a strong plan or vision in place (except maybe the "young and hungry" slogan popularised under MM). It feels a bit like that with Fosun at times.

Yep you've named some big ones Leeds too, Forest, Sunderland, Portsmouth some other big clubs too! There's 7 who'd happily swap places with us.

 

[wolfslair]

Cows

You are so funny……

you invite debate/discussion by replying to a person, then pull this hollier than thou and sanctimonious crap…….

Hilarious…..

 

[QB Wolf]

Exactly…….

What did Gary say yesterday that we all didn’t know?…….nothing.
We all knew, Gary, Hobbs, Jeff included that the squad is small…..that we ran a risk with injuries…..that we wanted a CF in Jan. etc.

Gary’s statement yesterday was not a criticism…….he was expressing some MILD frustration .
No big deal. Did anyone think before yesterday that Gary was thrilled with everything? Of course he wasn’t.

Some are making out he was personally backing their posts from early Feb.

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

Exactly…….

What did Gary say yesterday that we all didn’t know?…….nothing.
We all knew, Gary, Hobbs, Jeff included that the squad is small…..that we ran a risk with injuries…..that we wanted a CF in Jan. etc.

Gary’s statement yesterday was not a criticism…….he was expressing some MILD frustration .
No big deal. Did anyone think before yesterday that Gary was thrilled with everything? Of course he wasn’t.

You and others have said this but it's not true.

'We all' most certainly did not know. Look back at the transfer window thread. Look back at the Matheus Cunha thread following his injury.

There were many posters, including a few getting involved here now, who stuck up for what went on and said the squad was fine.

Your opinion is that yesterday was no big deal. It's not shared by many others, including journalists who cover the club and generally defend them.

 

[QB Wolf]

You and others have said this but it's not true.

'We all' most certainly did not know. Look back at the transfer window thread. Look back at the Matheus Cunha thread following his injury.

There were many posters, including a few getting involved here now, who stuck up for what went on and said the squad was fine.

Your opinion is that yesterday was no big deal. It's not shared by many others, including journalists who cover the club and generally defend them.

The vast vast majority of people knew we needed to sign a centre forward and another wide forward, it's hardly rocket science, we haven't got a seasoned reliable no 9, signed to the club, actually here or on loan.

 

[wolfslair]

Some are making out he was personally backing their posts from early Feb.

He isn’t personally backing them is he….. he wouldn’t waste his time on our opinions on here…..

what he says is his own opinion, and last night that mirrored the opinions of said posters who got pelters for saying the very same things……

 

[Mutchy]

You are so funny……

you invite debate/discussion by replying to a person, then pull this hollier than thou and sanctimonious crap…….

Hilarious…..

Wind your neck in a little.

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

The vast vast majority of people knew we needed to sign a centre forward and another wide forward, it's hardly rocket science, we haven't got a seasoned reliable no 9, signed to the club, actually here or on loan.

Yes I agree with you.

However, you know how people work on here. I don't have time to go too far into it at the moment, but Vancouver for example can be seen liking a post that says we didn't need Broja and we should wait until the summer because we're fine.

So, whilst me and you and others think it wasn't 'rocket science', it was not the 'vast vast majority' that shared that opinion. A load of them were happy to stick up for the club and defend the decision to do nothing.

 

[steve vena]

I just think he was being totally transparent, as he always has been, no over reaction, no silly emotional stuff, no hissy fits, just laying out exactly how it is, he's an impressive guy.

He is. He's great, hope he stays a long time.

 

[steve vena]

Come on. There's giving the benefit of the doubt, and then there's being willfully obtuse. Does Gary out-and-out say, "Fosun have let me and the squad down?" Of course not - Lopetegui never used explicit language like that either, but this is pretty darned close to it. You only need look at the language he is using to sense he is not a happy bunny with the deteriorating conditions under which he is expected to work.

"I was clear with them that we were overloading the players and I felt our injury record had a really good chance of getting worse during the second half of the season. On top of that, I also flagged how short we were in attacking positions and if we suffered even a couple of injuries to the top line if would make a huge difference to what we were able to produce.

Unfortunately, the club were not in a position to be able to help us with that due to financial reasons. We had a Premier League number nine lined up to come in and help us and a fairly small amount of money stopped us doing it. The situation the club is in is showing now. You can see now why the aim at the start of the season was to stay in the Premier League. We have some unbelievable players but if you lose a couple, I'm trying to pick a starting XI from 12 fit senior outfield players. I would doubt there's another club in the other 91 in the country that are down that low."

He warned the club about the iceberg dead ahead - it's not hard to fill in the blanks ("and it fell on deaf ears"). This is supported by his emphasis on the word, "small" to describe the fee required to bring in a Premier League number 9. He is making the point to say he wasn't asking for much, but still nothing was doing. It echoes similar rhetoric from Lopetegui in the Summer. If you cast your minds back to an interview from a few months ago, Gary doesn't actually know for sure if this is FFP (where Fosun's hands are tied) or if it's the club's internal financial policy (which could be relaxed in extraordinary circumstances).

His comment about having the worst working conditions out of all 92 Football League clubs squad-wise is particularly excoriating. Nobody is to blame for that state of affairs than the people steering the ship - Gary in his subtle and clever manner is conveying his frustration at being subjected to these worsening conditions.

I wonder who the striker was ?

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

I wonder who the striker was ?

Broja according to Keen and Judah.

 

[wolfslair]

Wind your neck in a little.

What have I said wrong?

Tone may be a bit strong, but they routinely invites discussion with me then does posts like the cows come home and the like……

 

[steve vena]

Did your face fall into the exclamation mark key typing that?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lol

 

[wolfslair]

Broja according to Keen and Judah.

I was told Broja didn’t want to come if a London club came in.

So you can’t go after the club, when he wasn’t going to come. Whether we had the money or not

 

[lets all have a disco]

It has to be Broja....if we had stumped up the cash earlier I reckon we would have got him early on...I reckon we wasn't sure about the fee, hung on hoping it would drop.....then Jimenez gets injured for Fulham and bang it all went out the window...

 

[VancouverWolf]

You and others have said this but it's not true.

'We all' most certainly did not know. Look back at the transfer window thread. Look back at the Matheus Cunha thread following his injury.

There were many posters, including a few getting involved here now, who stuck up for what went on and said the squad was fine.

Your opinion is that yesterday was no big deal. It's not shared by many others, including journalists who cover the club and generally defend them.

Did you learn anything yesterday that you didn’t know or assume?

Did you see criticism of the January window apart from disappointment?

Didn’t everybody know that Gary, like all coaches, wants a better and bigger squad?

Didn’t we all know that we risked losing players through injuries?

There was no surprises from Gary’s comments.

 

[Mutchy]

What have I said wrong?

Tone may be a bit strong, but they routinely invites discussion with me then does posts like the cows come home and the like……

He can agree with a post without you haranguing him.

 

[wolfslair]

He can agree with a post with you haranguing him.

I didn’t harrang him for disagreeing with me.

Look at the chain properly……

I sent the post in question because of the dismissive post he replied to me after about cows coming home…… which he routinely does….. starts conversation/invites discussion then backs out with a passive aggressive post…..,

That is what I replied to

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

Did you learn anything yesterday that you didn’t know or assume?

Did you see criticism of the January window apart from disappointment?

Didn’t everybody know that Gary, like all coaches, wants a better and bigger squad?

Didn’t we all know that we risked losing players through injuries?

There was no surprises from Gary’s comments.

No, you did not.

You were liking posts saying the squad was fine in January. On February 4 you said we had a 'great squad' as you continued to praise the owners.

So you have presumably learnt quite a lot.

 

[Mutchy]

I didn’t harrang him for disagreeing with me.

Look at the chain properly……

I sent the post in question because of the dismissive post he replied to me after about cows coming home…… which he routinely does….. starts conversation/invites discussion then backs out with a passive aggressive post…..,

That is what I replied to

You didn’t like him agreeing with another post and set about that. He’s entitled to do so if he wishes.

 

[wolvesjoe]

Eh?

In my opinion I was wrongly banned. And you're actively lying because you're saying I'm vocal after a defeat but I literally couldn't post for one week after the Coventry game and I maybe posted once in the week that followed. So I wasn't that vocal was I?

Also, I would dispute if this was a 'poor' result given the circumstances. I thought we would lose.

Top deflecting though. You got it completely wrong about Fosun/January, you should be apologising to posters for how wide of the mark you were instead of trolling.

Yeah, I am waiting too for the apologies.

 

[VancouverWolf]

No, you did not.

You were liking posts saying the squad was fine in January. On February 4 you said we had a 'great squad' as you continued to praise the owners.

So you have presumably learnt quite a lot.

I was thrilled we were doing great in Feb. …..and, imo, the squad was fine enough, but we all know it could have been bigger.
Who would have thought that we’d have 4 forwards injured?….that’s just bad luck.

And I do praise the owners for what they’ve given us . I’m not stupid, they’re not perfect but I’m grateful. Very much so.

 

[wolvesjoe]

Exactly…….

What did Gary say yesterday that we all didn’t know?…….nothing.
We all knew, Gary, Hobbs, Jeff included that the squad is small…..that we ran a risk with injuries…..that we wanted a CF in Jan. etc.

Gary’s statement yesterday was not a criticism…….he was expressing some MILD frustration .
No big deal. Did anyone think before yesterday that Gary was thrilled with everything? Of course he wasn’t.

Saying the board's policy is forcing him to "overload" players is major criticism, which will have some deadly serious consequences, imv.

Wolves have an obligation of care towards the players, and it is an arguable question now as to whether they have violated that obligation.

I dont understand why the usual suspects cant see this.

 

[wolfslair]

You didn’t like him agreeing with another post and set about that. He’s entitled to do so if he wishes.

Not what the response was to……….

The response was to the cows come home post……..

Look properly at the post that led to the response…….. it had NOTHING to do with that…….

All to do with the last response!

I have had good back and forth with everyone else who disagreed with me in the last 24 hours……

Even had good and respectful back and forth with SBK! We have had respectful back and forth discussions, and we argue like cats and dogs normally……..

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

I was thrilled we were doing great in Feb. …..and, imo, the squad was fine enough, but we all know it could have been bigger.
Who would have thought that we’d have 4 forwards injured?….that’s just bad luck.

And I do praise the owners for what they’ve given us . I’m not stupid, they’re not perfect but I’m grateful. Very much so.

But you didn't seem to know it could've been bigger, because you said it was 'great' (not 'fine enough').

Lots of people thought we could've had injuries.

I have absolutely no problem if that was your opinion, but it seems now you're backtracking. You want it both ways. The squad was never fine enough and it needed to be addressed.

The fact it wasn't has cost us an FA Cup semi-final in the eyes of many and potentially Europe.

 

[WeAreTheWolvesII]

Not what the response was to……….

The response was to the cows come home post……..

Look properly at the post that led to the response…….. it had NOTHING to do with that…….

All to do with the last response!

I have had good back and forth with everyone else who disagreed with me in the last 24 hours……

Even had good and respectful back and forth with SBK! We have had respectful back and forth discussions, and we argue like cats and dogs normally……..

You're moderated to a different standard when you have a 'negative' view, in my opinion.

I also don't see what you did wrong and felt it was a rude and needless response from Vancouver, but there we go. You won't win this one, so probably best to leave it IMO.

 

[bod101]

Nuno, Lage, JL and now O'Neill the trend continues.

Amazing how Fosun never learn. Are they just incompetent or do they generally think running a small squad is smart ? or just doing it on the cheap ?

So think about the above and maybe switch your thinking to fosun, every time they've ignored the managers but we've ended up OK, so they could argue they've learnt that there aren't adverse consequences to their actions and that they have been correct in their decisions.

 

[Lobo de Ouro]

I await the people who have attacked some of us saying we know nothing about football, making mocking and personally attacking/mocking posts when we said the squad depth wasn’t good enough and wasn’t where a prem club should be….. add onto it the mocking and excuses around saying that you couldn’t predict the injuries…..

Oops……

Gon said thinnest squad depth in the EPL……

Then said he predicted and told the club about work load being too much and injuries going up.

I await people attacking GON with the same energy that they went after fellow fans for making those SAME statements publicly!!!!!!!!

Stop trying to make it an argument.



Besides.... he's clearly backing what I said, so ner ner ner ner ner.

 

[wolfslair]

So think about the above and maybe switch your thinking to fosun, every time they've ignored the managers but we've ended up OK, so they could argue they've learnt that there aren't adverse consequences to their actions and that they have been correct in their decisions.

For example they have come up trumps from the JL summer **** storm…….

That could and in most cases have been a terrible incident! But GON has performed well above their low expectations of just getting survival.

The Lage sacking, kept too long, but us bottom of the league……. They got JL and he kept us up.

You are correct, they have learned so far, that they can get away with bad practice

 

[Mutchy]

Not what the response was to……….

The response was to the cows come home post……..

Look properly at the post that led to the response…….. it had NOTHING to do with that…….

All to do with the last response!

I have had good back and forth with everyone else who disagreed with me in the last 24 hours……

Even had good and respectful back and forth with SBK! We have had respectful back and forth discussions, and we argue like cats and dogs normally……..

You said to look back. I had, and I saw that he hadn't initially posted to you.
Now enough. Take a breath. Calm down. Slow down.

 

[Passedit]

Not sure if this has been posted anywhere, but it makes an interesting read.

Wolverhampton Wanderers - BBC Sport

The home of Wolverhampton Wanderers on BBC Sport online. Includes the latest news stories, results, fixtures, video and audio.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Wolf in the sun]

Jeeez this thread has turned to turd ! Fights at the back of bike sheds etc...

 

[VancouverWolf]

Saying the board's policy is forcing him to "overload" players is major criticism, which will have some deadly serious consequences, imv.

Wolves have an obligation of care towards the players, and it is an arguable question now as to whether they have violated that obligation.

I dont understand why the usual suspects cant see

The overload remark was more a factual statement rather than a criticism. Just saying the way things are.
And let’s not forget that the Board/Wolves have a lot of money invested in their players……the last thing any of them want is to have the players in “deadly serious” situations. Deadly?

Anyway, @ Black Country Wanderer has a very good post , #288

“Im not ignoring anything
Its you and others putting a different twist on what was actually said

If you havent listened to the radio interview i hope you will
He says catagorically in that that he isnt moaning about the club, and hes more than happy to be here,just the unfortunate position we are in now, whereas if we could have done things differently we could be pushing for top 7

Theres no malice in telling the truth,and we all know the situation,it isnt all some great conspiracy cover up is it?
People are saying hes been lied to,and goal posts are being moved,where is there any evidence of that?

He was told before he took the job exactly where we were/are,there was money available in January just not enough for the players we really needed,and a few that fell through,it happens

This is not JL part two by any means,just a manager that sees what could have been had we had the money to make it happen
We havent so move on ,and thats what hes doing”.

 

[wolfslair]

You said to look back. I had, and I saw that he hadn't initially posted to you.
Now enough. Take a breath. Calm down. Slow down.

I am calm, hence why I said my tone was probably too strong on that post.

But I am asking you to know that post was due to the cows come home post. Not the others.

I am not fussed about the disagreement to the post I made.

I was frustracted by the rude retort post.

We can agree to disagree that is always cool. I wanted you to know the reason for the post, as I feel you didn’t understand the one that it was about as the discussion about disagreement was polite and cordial before that one.

But we can leave it.

I hope you are well after your post the other day, i shouldn’t take up energy of yours over a trivial matter x

 

[VancouverWolf]

But you didn't seem to know it could've been bigger, because you said it was 'great' (not 'fine enough').

Lots of people thought we could've had injuries.

I have absolutely no problem if that was your opinion, but it seems now you're backtracking. You want it both ways. The squad was never fine enough and it needed to be addressed.

The fact it wasn't has cost us an FA Cup semi-final in the eyes of many and potentially Europe.

Gawd…..you’re splitting hairs. There’s no backtracking.

Who didn’t know we could have injuries?
The squad still is great…..that’s why we’re having a better season than we expected. I never said that the squad couldn’t be improved……of course it could.

But there’s the little matter of money and ffp…..

 

[bod101]

For example they have come up trumps from the JL summer **** storm…….

That could and in most cases have been a terrible incident! But GON has performed well above their low expectations of just getting survival.

The Lage sacking, kept too long, but us bottom of the league……. They got JL and he kept us up.

You are correct, they have learned so far, that they can get away with bad practice

That's the thing, if you were doing what they're doing with no consequences so far would you think it incompetent?

For the record I just think they've been incredibly lucky to get away with it. Whereas initially we picked up young scarlets that have carried us through, but we don't seem to have that pipeline anymore so won't have that buffer once neto ait nouri etc. Have gone

 

[wolfslair]

That's the thing, if you were doing what they're doing with no consequences so far would you think it incompetent?

For the record I just think they've been incredibly lucky to get away with it. Whereas initially we picked up young scarlets that have carried us through, but we don't seem to have that pipeline anymore so won't have that buffer once neto ait nouri etc. Have gone

You know my stance on Jeff……. Post about it enough lol

Fosun did great at the start but it has been consistent mistakes since the final 7th place season…….

 

[Bill McCai]

We changed our transfer approach two or three times under Lopetegui (Plan A then B then C - and we only really acted when Nunes was sold) in the Summer.

In Jan - GoN said this

"Fabio and Sasa were better off going to play at this moment, but that doesn't mean it will be the case next season. Both of them, especially Sasa, worked his socks off every day to play a part in what we were doing.

"It was important for the club that we shifted wages before we were able to do something, so now if something comes up that can fit what we can do financially, we're in a place to push the button and do it.

"Whereas, if we'd waited, we'd then have had to try and shift people before we could do it.

"So we're in a spot now where we can do something and lets see what happens over the next few days. I'm confident we'll get something done.

"I would expect it to be a loan. We don't want to be adding too much to the net spend at this moment in time."

This was Jan 22nd. Three days later he said;

"Me, Matt Hobbs and the recruitment team have done an awful lot of work on a couple of options," O'Neil said.

"It looks like they are not going to be financially doable for us. It's disappointing as we felt like we were making some headway on a couple but it looks like we won't be able to do it.

"I don't want it to be seen as a negative as the group we have have given us so much so far. I'm not just going to sign anyone.

"We need to take people who deserve the opportunity to play for Wolves and are good enough to help the group. January is tricky, prices are sometimes inflated. If we can't find ones who can help us we'll go with what we've got, which is fine."

Last night he said this;

"It's a tough situation and there is a bit of me that's disappointed because we've come so far in the league and got into such an unbelievable situation, and then the injuries have caught up with us," he said after the draw at Turf Moor.

"The good thing from my point of view is that we did flag it to the club really clearly in January, and Matt Hobbs to be fair to him. He was very supportive and understanding.

"I was clear with them that we were overloading the players and I felt our injury record had a really good chance of getting worse during the second half of the season.

"On top of that, I also flagged how short we were in attacking positions and if we suffered even a couple of injuries to the top line if would make a huge difference to what we were able to produce.

"Unfortunately, the club were not in a position to be able to help us with that due to financial reasons.

"We had a Premier League number nine lined up to come in and help us and a fairly small amount of money stopped us doing it.

"The situation the club is in is showing now. You can see now why the aim at the start of the season was to stay in the Premier League.

"We have some unbelievable players but if you lose a couple, I'm trying to pick a starting XI from 12 fit senior outfield players.

"I would doubt there's another club in the other 91 in the country that are down that low.

"The point of all that, is that the group are out on their feet and deserve massive credit. To fight like they do, they deserve huge credit, with 42 points surpassing last year's total with eight games to go.

"It's an incredible effort from a special group of players that have given a lot to the club this year."