Arsenal needed an own goal four minutes into added time to beat these. They only have two points, but they have lost a lot of games by one or two goals. I think City beat them 4-0, but I don’t think they are getting whacked every week. No-one is saying we should be throwing a party, but nor do we have to be miserable twats. There are no easy games in the premier league, and anyone who thinks we should be brushing teams aside needs to recalibrate. The aforementioned ‘best team in the league’ needed their goalkeeper to bail them out today with a wonder save.
We got three point and extending our unbeaten run to seven games. Wirtz looked another level and it was a really good first half. The second half was a worry and we need to control games better when we’re ahead. So there are plenty of positives and negatives to work through.
my initial reaction is one of satisfaction at the points, positivity in gaining a bit more momentum and very glad to see Wirtz sparkle…and somehow…somehow…we find ourselves in fourth place and only ten points from the first place team
the further away from the game the more negative i become though, to counter every positive, in order listed;
points are great to have, but very very vunerable again, against what could possibly become the worst premier league team ever terms of points…we should have been out and over the horizon
the biggest issue, again, for me, is that we seem to garner points from the quality of our players, another situation of again, the team being worse than the sum of its parts… we arent winning games because of our set up or application to a plan, we are simply winning games because we have superior players
Wirtz is a rolls royce and the way he pops up all over the park is brilliant…my only negative for this point is that theres only one of him, which is quite selfish of him
being in fourth and ten points is a positive considering where we have been from October into November, but its also beyond frustrating that, only a few moments had to change in any of those games for us to be a hell of a lot closer than we are
all in all, im going to remain positive, not put a lot of stock in this game as the longer Wolves remain terrible, the less they have to lose, the more mud theyll throw at the wall…in..out…points in the bank. OK.
suprised to see Kerkez get praise and votes, i thought he was beyond frustrating to watch, very one dimensional and quite simple in his application… he got in great positions at moments, but he was really allowed free reign out there.
As others have said Wolves aren’t being steamrolled well not every game. There are probably worse teams in terms of that. They’ve evidently stepped up against teams and they hadn’t conceded in the first half in the last 11 games.
My biggest negative is the way we crap ourselves when we concede. We still had good enough chances to finish the tie and they did little in the last 20 but Leeds could easily have happened in that spell.
Another dismal, mind-numbingly dull performance. We did play well for 5 minutes just before HT so credit where it’s due.
10 times this season we have led 2-0 and not once have we scored the 3rd goal. We’ve conceded it 7 times and have seen out a 2-0 win three times. That’s a really odd statistic and it will take a better man than me to explain it.
Again we looked gassed after 70 minutes despite having 6 days rest and it’s not like we’re playing high-tempo football which causes it. Our 1st halves are played at walking pace so something is seriously wrong with our conditioning.
On the plus side Wirtz is different class, he has this ability to almost walk past players like they’re not there. Frimpong and Kerkez both looked much improved and Ekiteke produced a great assist.
Downside for me was Chiesa, he was tidy enough on the ball but just didn’t get involved enough. I don’t think we’ll see much of him as we get players back from injury.
yeah as Jaffod says, i dont think that applies to what we are seeing at the moment.
we have been playing once a week and our playing tempo is one of our issues…to mentally and physically be done at the 70 minute mark is a massive issue.
Pretty decent first half, overall,but going to the pub for the second half is dicey.
Wonder about what is said in the dressing room at half times has been said VVD needs to take the game by the balls at the restart whistle, relaxing is OK if you know you can get anything back, if not ,you don’t,as a very good coach ,I knew well,used to to say to his team,regularly…they rarely lost!
Anyway,cant go past Wirtz for MOTM,he is getting up to speed quite nicely!
The apparent lack of fitness of our players has me questioning our pre season conditioning and what the fitness coaches are actually doing and why we blow up after 70 minutes
Absolutely agree @Mascot. Don’t read the inmatch threads but I felt the same (watching it ~8hrs later in Adelaide) at HT. Part of the problem for me is that we are awful at winning the second balls when, for example, Alisson plays it long and we also don’t have enough movement in midfield (Macca is a problem I feel) or up top (Hugo looked gassed quite early and Flo’s movement still isn’t on other players radars) so we can struggle to provide easy out balls at times and end up giving away possession. This was a textbook example of a second half where a non injured/fit Isak for would been the difference.
We are very poor and I think it’s partly because we aren’t physical enough especially as LegoMan grapple ball has been increasingly adopted across the division. To return the game to football, I think the authorities need to make short pulling a mandatory yellow, announce it now and that it’s coming in next season - sure the month of August would be carnage but, just like tackles from behind, slaps to the face or any other outlawed behaviour of the past it would stop dead.
Back in the real world, until this happens Slot and his team needs to continue to work harder on this.
