Wolves 0 Man City 3 Verdict

[Kashmire Hawker]

Pick the bones out of that, in a game which we played better and with more intent with 10 men.

Think that says a lot.

City did what they needed to do and at least this one is out the way.

At least B.Traore looks decent.

 

[jonesy]

The Portuguese are soft

 

[Perton Wolf]

That first 20 was embarrassing, clearly not set up properly. Lage isn't up to it, both our form and performances tell us that.

 

[Oh Robbie Robie]

First half was a nightmare. Early goal and then a second after 15 mins plus a sending off. Always going to be difficult in the Prem against any team let alone the Champions.

Second half was a damage limitation session and I have to give credit to our players for containing City with just 10 men. Much will be made that City took their foot off the pedal but our guys continued to put effort in and went at them a bit. Problem is, just as it has been for over 12 months, we are toothless in attack. If we score, you tend to think it's more by accident than design these days.

I thought before the game we might miss Coady organising today and when you looked at the huge gaps between Collins and Kilman to start the game, it was obvious we were being naive. Also, playing the ball around the back against City is asking for trouble. I hate it and Sa got very lucky a coupleof times today.

Overall, the result we all expected.

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

No goals no surprise

Back to normal service under Big Bruno.

Act please.

 

[Fifty Niner]

Posted on another thread, we’re a nice footballing team heading for relegation if Costa doesn’t start banging them in.

We haven’t scored a goal in the second half any of our PL games and have only scored 3 PL goals so far. Podence as a false nine isn’t working. Andy Townsend on radio comms said that with Podence in that position Wolves need to be very accurate, and quick, with their passes throughout the game. But we still play the same way every game.

 

[jonesy]

Something has to change and with an international break now coming up it’s time to pull the trigger

 

[Ogerp]

 

[Ned]

If we would have started with the urgency and application we showed in the second half then it would have been much better and probably not game over at half time. We were too soft and too nice for the first half, nobody seemed truly up for the fight and nobody seemed to believe we could get anything. It was only when the game was gone and a few players started trying harder that the confidence seemed to come back into the team.

We are a bit flakey at the moment.

 

[sillytuna]

Should have been a free hit but Lage got decision after decision wrong. Collins did us a favour as we played tighter with ten men and city stopped bothering. Without that we'd have been spanked.

Quite why we didn't give our reserve CBs a chance I don't know. Neves CB for 3 games?!

Lage out - and I very rarely call for a manager's head. Hoddle and Saunders... Lage is in that club. Don't count terry connor!

 

[clivewolves]

What can you say about that? Started in the crappiest way possible. A terrible tackle by Collins. More of an assault really. The players kept going, but Man City took the foot off the gas in that second half. I'm glad it was only three.

The Man of the Match for me was Neves. He filled in at centre-back well. I was wondering why Mosquera or Gomes didn't come on and what it says about them, but in fairness Lage was right and Neves played very well.

A decent cameo from Traore.

Now another couple of weeks to ponder it.

 

[Kebab Warrior]

Something has to change and with an international break now coming up it’s time to pull the trigger

It’s time

 

[The Wolf In The North]

Not sure much can be taken from that.

Man City are great, and never had to move out of third gear. Collins' challenge was idiotic. Traore looked decent when he came on. Neto would be better on the right. Set pieces are ****ing woeful. Et cetera.

The overall impression I have, every single week, is that the style we play and pace we play it at are down to Lage as coach and Moutinho in midfield, and while the merits of both can debated back and forth from here to eternity, we will never change whilst those two key elements remain unchanged.

 

[Sussex Wolf]

Started badly, got worse, and could have become embarrassing. Credit to those on the pitch that they stood up after Collins went off. In saying that, Citeh clearly dropped a couple of gears and never looked troubled after the third.

Neves, Nunes and Boubs all looked good, RAN gets extra credit second half, and Kilman solid even when paired with Neves as a makeshift CB. Guedes good but needs to score to get confidence in front of goal. Neto looks a shadow of himself at the moment. Others fine apart from Collins and his stupid tackle. He will learn, and likely it didn’t end up affecting the outcome, but he’s now suspended for 3 games which is a bigger loss.

Lage… We have so much talent available now, but even after an extended break, we didn’t look like a team at the start. That can only be down to him, and cannot continue. He may be a decent coach, assistant etc but a manager, he is not. Time to go.

 

[jonesy]

Not sure much can be taken from that.

Man City are great, and never had to move out of third gear. Collins' challenge was idiotic. Traore looked decent when he came on. Neto would be better on the right. Set pieces are ****ing woeful. Et cetera.

The overall impression I have, every single week, is that the style we play and pace we play it at are down to Lage as coach and Moutinho in midfield, and while the merits of both can debated back and forth from here to eternity, we will never change whilst those two key elements remain unchanged.

Yes

 

[manchesterwolf17]

Even less enjoyable than I knew it would be. Conceding after less than a minute against the best team in the world then going down to 10 men in the first half. I mean, what more could we possibly have done to make it even more impossible?

Man City knowing full well the game was won gave a portrayal that we were at least showing a bit of character in our play, but as per, never ever look like scoring even when put in promising positions.

Where do we go from here? Well, if not for a manager change, then bringing back Semedo and having Costa as a focal point will be a start.

Moutinho and Guedes total wastes of time.

 

[Jefe]

The word today is naivety. Naive from Collins of course (whom we absolutely cannot afford to lose for three games), but more so from our manager. We went toe-to-toe with City last season and shipped five, why did he think we could get a result matching them up again today? Bruno never seems to learn. Nuno set the template for frustrating City - it's almost like Lage won't consider those tactics out of spite. Fosun cannot be happy with what Lage has achieved in his first 45 league games in charge.

 

[Eastern Wolf]

We are so crap as a goal threat that City could have played with a rush goalie and we would not have scored. Yes they are City but we are still embarrassing bad in front of goal

 

[Oldgold Wolfcub]

The Portuguese are soft

Lucky there aren't many of them playing for us then.

 

[Matt]

Collins an absolute idiot, but thankfully after the fantastic transfer window we had we have a host of experience to replace him for the next few games.

The game, yeah we lost 0-3 to City, as expected, and luckily City didn’t fancy shifting out of first gear so we were able to keep the score down. That’s not the story here though.

The first 32 minutes. Absolutely woeful, yet again. If someone could let me know the game plan, that would be great as it seemed to me it was to keep possession between Sa, Kilman and Collins in the 18 yard box. No desire, no fight, no urgency to make things happen. We have nothing about us at all. We have no style of play.

Bruno, it was great to think that we’d got hold of an exciting attacking manager after his short spell at Benfica, but he hasn’t got it. He is not up to managing a football club at this level. I refuse to believe that this group of players are consistently this bad. A change is needed, now.

 

[jonesy]

Everything is too slow, build up, pressures, energy and movement it’s all to slow.

I hate to say it but moutinho is the problem in the middle he just hasn’t the legs to play the intensity game. You can see bou and Nunes do but mouts just slows it down. The front 3 have 0 movement and interchange and the transition from defence to attack is mind numbingly predicable

 

[KnowNuttin]

Stroll in the park for City... Teams used to have to work hard to beat us, but they didn't need to break sweat.

Awful first goal to set the tone inside a minute. Jonny out muscled by that big brute Greasy... Why isn't Semedo starting?

Collins' Calamity factor is off the scale every time I've seen him.. Needs to be wiser and keep his concentration if he's to be anything other than a middling Championship player... Stearmanesque as someone said in the comms thread.. I think that sums it up.

On the plus side, I thought Nunes had his best game and was probably MOTM for us... Guedes also has a decent game, so obviously Lage took him off. Also after a shaky first half RAN played well second half, so obviously Lage took him off.

Still haven't seen anything from this team to suggest we are heading in the right direction. Time is running out for Bruno.

 

[Parkfieldswolf]

Crap. I expect to lose I think most fans do especially going down to 10 men but we’re not improving are we? What do we do on the training pitch? It isn’t set pieces as our short corners are woeful. Did we have a plan today? Why wasn’t anyone tight on Haaland considering we all know how dangerous he is? Playing Neto out on the right is a basic error that not even a youth coach would do. Nunes looks dangerous driving forward as he did at times in the 2nd half but he’s been playing so deep he is at the moment an expensive Dendoncker. Leaving Neves in defence shows Lage doesn’t trust his bench but was happy to let Coady,Boly and Saiss go? The one bright spot was Traore’s cameo where he at least showed sone attacking intent with forward passes. Much like the signing of Costa where we’ve been crying out for a proven Premier striker I would like to see a proven Premier coach come in where since Nuno lost his way we’ve been crying out for one. Lage to go for me we are sleepwalking into the Championship with him.

 

[Tojo the grass]

Concerning that we lose one of our central defenders and we don’t replace him with another one.

 

[TheRetroChief]

Well, it could have been a lot worse I guess at least?

 

[SquaddieWolf]

All in all, I'm nowhere near as ****ed off as I thought I would be today, a 3-0 loss against that team is quite respectable when you are down to 10 men. I doubt there are many teams that would only concede 1 goal in 60 minutes of been a man down against that lot. Kept Haaland relatively quiet with just a solitary goal.

Not sure why Bruno didn't bring Yerson or Toti on for some gametime when it's clear how important they are going to be in the next few games. Still don't look like scoring even with great chances, not sure where the goals are going to come from and think it's very unlikely we will have a player score double figures for the season yet again.

 

[marrs-guitar]

Hopeless performance, starting as ever with absolutely zero intensity, which is fatal against top quality teams. Collins then committed hari kiri, but we were already a drowning man who had no hope of salvation.

City kindly came out of the dressing room after the break in snooze mode and let us have a bit of a kickaround with 20 minutes, then slapped us back down with ease and the rest of the game was just us trying to protect our goal difference.

No structure, no tempo, no cutting edge whatsoever. A repeat of almost all our matches, but today the opposition was much better than usual so it laid bare just how poor a football team we are. On paper 0-3 is "respectable", but watching the full 90 minutes from a Wolves' perspective was just painful.

 

[A wanderer from Bristol]

I don't see how you can start calling for the manager's head based on a 3-0 defeat to one of the best sides in the world when we were down to 10 men.

Of course we came up short at times. First half, we were loose defensively and left too many spaces, although we did show some attacking intent. Second half we showed some real spirit and kept trying to play football.

Judge us when Costa and/or Jimenez are back into the team and we're playing anybody other than City

 

[George AlooGobi]

Is Collins definitely out for 3 games?

Neves looked good in central defence. I wouldn't object to him starting there to cover Collins

Might help us in an attacking sense too if we're cutting out 2/3 passes for him to get on the ball and pick his pass

 

[Saltyjim]

3-0 feels like we got away with one. When Collins got a red, I guess we all feared the worst, but Neves did a great job in the back four and City didn't play with much urgency. I thought Jonny did well and Traore looked useful when he came on. When you get so few true opportunities you need to be really clinical - we are the opposite of that. 3 matches without Collins doesn't fill me with confidence.

 

[Ned]

The word today is naivety. Naive from Collins of course (whom we absolutely cannot afford to lose for three games), but more so from our manager. We went toe-to-toe with City last season and shipped five, why did he think we could get a result matching them up again today? Bruno never seems to learn. Nuno set the template for frustrating City - it's almost like Lage won't consider those tactics out of spite. Fosun cannot be happy with what Lage has achieved in his first 45 league games in charge.

We played a back 5 against them last season when we lost 5-1. Nobody asked for us to go toe to toe with them but we needed to pick our moments better and get our ball players actually playing with the ball as much as possible. Without the athleticism in midfield we will always chase shadows against sides like City in midfield, we can’t play without the ball like we used to do with Nuno.

 

[sc91]

Not sure how people defend Bruno at this point. He must go.

 

[manchesterwolf17]

I don't see how you can start calling for the manager's head based on a 3-0 defeat to one of the best sides in the world when we were down to 10 men.

Of course we came up short at times. First half, we were loose defensively and left too many spaces, although we did show some attacking intent. Second half we showed some real spirit and kept trying to play football.

Judge us when Costa and/or Jimenez are back into the team and we're playing anybody other than City

I don't think anybody is judging him purely on that. Far from it. More so the 1 win in 14 games and the constant ineffectiveness in front of goal. The lifeless play. The lack of identity. The total lack of rapport with fans and seemingly players too. The fact we never ever look like winning a game without hanging on for dear life. I'm sick of hearing wait for this, wait for that. Nothing changes. It's not good enough.

 

[Bognor_Wolf]

I don't see how you can start calling for the manager's head based on a 3-0 defeat to one of the best sides in the world when we were down to 10 men.

Of course we came up short at times. First half, we were loose defensively and left too many spaces, although we did show some attacking intent. Second half we showed some real spirit and kept trying to play football.

Judge us when Costa and/or Jimenez are back into the team and we're playing anybody other than City

Let's be real here Man City could have and should have got more in the second half they completely dropped a gear as the game was already won at half time...

 

[Oldgold Wolfcub]

I don't see how you can start calling for the manager's head based on a 3-0 defeat to one of the best sides in the world when we were down to 10 men.

Of course we came up short at times. First half, we were loose defensively and left too many spaces, although we did show some attacking intent. Second half we showed some real spirit and kept trying to play football.

Judge us when Costa and/or Jimenez are back into the team and we're playing anybody other than City

If you are judging us by the team with Raul in it then I am afraid your argument is not a very strong one at present.

 

[DasWolf]

Does anyone remember the days under Nuno where no matter who the opponents were, you felt 9 times out of 10 we'd give them a good game?

Feels a very long time ago now.

I don't see how you can start calling for the manager's head based on a 3-0 defeat to one of the best sides in the world when we were down to 10 men.

Of course we came up short at times. First half, we were loose defensively and left too many spaces, although we did show some attacking intent. Second half we showed some real spirit and kept trying to play football.

Judge us when Costa and/or Jimenez are back into the team and we're playing anybody other than City

Anyone who thinks the Raul of old is coming back is in denial or on some powerful stuff.

I predict some will still be here in 10 years "Raul just needs another 5 years and he'll be back to his old self".

 

[Jefe]

We played a back 5 against them last season when we lost 5-1. Nobody asked for us to go toe to toe with them but we needed to pick our moments better and get our ball players actually playing with the ball as much as possible. Without the athleticism in midfield we will always chase shadows against sides like City in midfield, we can’t play without the ball like we used to do with Nuno.

Yes, the game where Chiquinho was at "RWB" and Jonny was "RCB". It was a back four in practice.

 

[SA Wolf]

So ****ing predictable, even allowing for the new arrivals. No heart in the first half, no goals, no threat and even allowing for the start to the second half, no positives.
Guedes had our only shot on target, but even he was meh! Not seen anything in him yet.
Nunes did OK, but that was about it.
Collins is an absolute idiot and should publicly apologise to Bruno, his team mates and the fans. Let everyone down.
We are in a relegation scrap, let's be totally honest. That's not just based on today's ***********, but on the season to date. We don't have leaders in this team, unfortunately.
Traore looked OK once the game was done.
Neto's and RAN's decision making was suspect.
Jonny - meh!
Kilman did as well as he could without much help, but was like a schoolboy for Harland's goal.
Neves and Mouts were overrun.
Podence did little.
Sa could do nothing about the first and third, but may have read Erlings shot better. Perhaps that's a little harsh.

We are so lightweight and so easily beatable!

 

[SA Wolf]

Does anyone remember the days under Nuno where no matter who the opponents were, you felt 9 times out of 10 we'd give them a good game?

Feels a very long time ago now.



Anyone who thinks the Raul of old is coming back is in denial or on some powerful stuff.

I predict some will still be here in 10 years "Raul just needs another 5 years and he'll be back to his old self".

Very long time ago and was the last time I enjoyed watching with pride!

 

[Longford Wolf]

I don't see how you can start calling for the manager's head based on a 3-0 defeat to one of the best sides in the world when we were down to 10 men.

Of course we came up short at times. First half, we were loose defensively and left too many spaces, although we did show some attacking intent. Second half we showed some real spirit and kept trying to play football.

Judge us when Costa and/or Jimenez are back into the team and we're playing anybody other than City

FFS, how long do you suggest we give him. Jimenez is finished, Costa isn’t anywhere being match fit.
It’s true we played Man City today, but what about the other 49 games, the bloke is clueless, but you want him to give him more time.