Given our frenetic end to the transfer window, it was perhaps too much of a stretch to expect a coherent performance today.
Nonetheless, we certainly started the better of the two sides, playing on the front foot and asking questions of a Palace side that looked uncharacteristically ragged.
Neto was our biggest attacking threat, delivering the sort of swashbuckling performance that was routine prior to his injury woes.
Sadly, the same could not be said of the rest of our attacking contingent, with Cunha and Sarabia both anonymous for large parts of the game.
Silva, on the other hand, showed plenty of willing but continues to offer no end product, a shortcoming that ultimately proved to be our undoing in this fixture.
Though Palace were unquestionably the better team in the second half, the gulf in class was marginal on the whole, leaving us to once again bemoan our lack of potency in the final third.
Gary O’Neil is in plenty of credit for his early conduct in trying circumstances, but should be questioned all the same for the timing of his substitutions.
Although Hwang came on and scored, the game was crying out for Kalajdzic long before he emerged, with his absence allowing the home side to wrestle control of a fixture that otherwise could have gone either way.
Regardless of our tactical manoeuvring (or lack thereof), the defensive efforts of our backline left a lot to be desired, with all of Palace’s goals being arguably preventable.
On today’s evidence, Santiago Bueno will certainly fancy his chances of ousting a below-par Dawson from the starting eleven, and the same can be said of Doherty, who continues to miss out at the expense of the endlessly hapless Semedo.
While things can never be doom and gloom at this early stage, an inability to score goals or keep them out is certainly cause for concern.
One can only hope that the international break has come at a good time, and that the new signings will provide some much needed impetus in a fortnight’s time.
Rather upbeat for me I’m afraid Ben. Losing has become a habit for us.
After a brief resurgence of hope with Friday’s late signings we were back to Groundhog Day today and worse. At least we used to be able to defend; but the real problem has not been addressed – we can’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo and haven’t been able to for 3 years. Stats. say it all – 4 shots on target v Palace’s 11, again averaging a goal a game albeit 2 of them in a cause already lost. Other than possibly Bellegarde can’t see any of the new faces having much early impact other than to “beef up” the numbers. But we lack genuine quality in every department. Still on the “ones for the future” pathway when we’re desperate for PL quality NOW.
Sad to say with Liverpool and Citeh coming up Luton away becomes massive 6 pointer.
The first goal was hardly in a cause already lost unless that’s what you call an equaliser.
No but the second was as was the Brighton goal.
Thanks Ben for a very balanced summary on a Summery afternoon.
Your last paragraph resonates; the international break comes at a perfect time for us. Gary O had literally no pre- season and a minor influx of players just hours ago.
Hats off to Matt Hobbs and the scouts. Nunes sale (good riddance) left little time, nevertheless rabbits were plucked from hats in the shape of Gonzalez, Bueno, Bellagarde and Doyle.
I’m confident we will be ok this season and far more optimistic about our future based on the way recruitment has been handled over the last two windows.
Hopefully our negotiating position will be less compromised in future windows.
UTW
Great to meet up with you Ben to watch the game. I concur with much of what you say but would like to add that apart from the calamity in the first half which was rescued by Kilman I thought Jose Sa kept us in the game. He dominanted on crosses and corners and made a number of fine saves. Yet again we were pretty ineffective in the final third and although we scored twice lacked any real creativity. Palace simply looked sharper and more hungry up front and deserved their win. It troubles me that we seem to have reverted to always attacking down the wings with nothing through the middle, it’s too predictable. To be honest this was a typical Wolves performance, plenty of endvour but little end product. Hopefully the next 2 weeks will give Gary O’Neil time to integrate our new signings. It’s perhaps unfair to single out players but I’m yet to see what Sarabia adds to our team although he was not alone today. I still think there is enough quality in this side to finish in the top 12 but we have to find a way to be more direct. There is much to improve in the weeks ahead.
‘Powdepuff’ sums it up. Lots of possession. But nothing in the final third. I will give GON some slack. He has only been here 3 weeks. November could be a time to reflect on progress . We will see. Pretty disappointing after WHC got the eqilualiser then for some reason we just sat back and the inevitable happened.. Still Palace were shite anyway. Just had the cutting edge.
“Endlessly hapless Semedo” ???
Still waiting for Fabio to resemble a no 9 shoved off the ball far to easily for me
Agree Sasa should have come on earlier and that Sa made some good saves
We had control thanks to Lemina and Gomes and no surprise that when Gomes was taken off Palace walked through our midfield.
Semedo? Marks were actually smiley faces totally agree.
Origi was available for a loan
When, oh when, will Wolves managers realise that dear Fabio is not a Premier standard footballer. Ran around tirelessly like a headless chicken and in that respect gave his all for the team, unfortunately giving him the No.9 shirt is a travesty of some of our great past No.9’s.
The game was crying out for Kaladzic to come on long before they took Fabio off in the 70th.
And so it goes on……Semedo..really? Docherty scored twice in the cup and doesn’t get a kick.
Lemina and Neto were our 2 stand out performers, but afraid our defence was ripped apart by Palace forwards repeatedly,
This is going to be a long, hard season….GO’N has a lot to sort out.
I’ve backed Fabio endlessly but I’m afraid even I am running out of patience. The underlying problem however is that he’s a Mendes man so I’m not sure “the manager” has much say in where he plays, who he plays for or even possibly what car he drives.
Jorge still rules ok!
I absolutely agree, Paul. Fabio Silva is not, and never will be a Premier league striker. He`s been enormously over rated, and A best is Championship league standard . And even there he`s d struggle to make the starting line up in the better teams. Worse, it seems we are paying him 80K per week to be so non productive !
I understand that Sasa is not fully fit, but surely he must be a better option up front. His size causes problems for defenders, and he appears to be no slouch with the ball at his feet. And he`s demonstrated that he can actually score !!
It is now almost three years since Raul suffered his life threatening injury. Since then our goal threat has been almost non existent. Six transfer windows have come and gone, yet we have failed miserably to replace Raul with a proven striker. Even in this latest window the signing of a decent striker appeared not to have been a priority.
What must Shi be thinking of to allow such a basic mistake to be repeated time and time again ? Does he not understand that to win games we have to score ?
In my opinion our lack of a cutting edge is likely to hurt us badly as the season progresses. It could well become a very long hard slog in the coming months
Mike
Think Shi’s idea of a “striker” in footballing terms is someone like Matheus Nunes; like a “stopper” (GK) is something that goes in a wash basin.
Striker? Matheus Nunes is more Arthur Scargill than Lionel Messi.
Soft performance that. We’ve seen it countless times in recent years away from home. We move the ball around but don’t threaten and then just fade away in the game.
We’re not physically robust enough to compete with teams and I’m shocked that with all the science that goes into match analysis, this isn’t addressed.
Ait-Nouri is so frail and I can’t see what he brings to the side. If it’s offensive prowess, where is the output?
At the other end Fabio runs around a lot and there’s no shortage of effort but he bounces off defenders and isn’t attacking the six yard box. He wants to link play, he doesn’t want to finish it off.
It took us until the 96th minute to send a cross over in open play and get two forwards in and around the goal. What happened?
Sasa has to start and then be hooked if he can’t do more minutes, not the other way around.
Doc has to come into the team or one there needs to be a change of shape at the back or one of the centre backs needs to be deployed at full back as we did with Toti last season. We can’t continue to believe that Semedo and Ait-Nouri are the answer because they’ve had ample opportunity and showed us the opposite. We can’t keep both in a back four, we’re too open and too weak.
My fear is that all our midfield signings are vertically challenged and will similarly struggle to meet the physical demands of the PL. I hope they have the tenacity, power and aggression to compensate.
O’Neil has to make bigger changes or I think we’re going to see more of these performances where we exist on the edge of games.
Just for you PJB. Your comments made me chuckle. Which helped as I was pretty miffed after today.
Whoops and now the picture
Where’s no 9?
I’m hoping it is Sasa who is reluctant to play more minutes and not Gary who doesn’t want him on the pitch.
Hopefully, in two weeks, he will bring ready to go.
Predictable utterly predictable, the only surprising thing was that we scored.
Screech couldn’t score in a brothel (though he did manage it once on a night out with a load of Blackpool lads). Cunha looks exactly the kind of player to play off a proper number 9 like hwang, Neto, Podence, Jota etc we’re before them. We have a decent target man sat on bench but choose to play featherweight up front. Our only hope this season is that there are three worse teams than us.
Gary sorry pal you walked into a mess.
We get back into the game thanks to Hwangs shoulder then we self destruct. Midfield and defence go awol. We’ve got to get the new players in for the Liverpool game and start Doherty. Maybe Jonny also needs a chance? How many more times will we allow teams to exploit our two full- backs? As for our forwards……least said the better, although Neto looked ok in first half but faded.
Well everything was going all right till calamitous defending and not being able to score. 1 why do we persist with Silva when he’s not good enough for the PL he is 6 foot tall and they have defenders at 6.5 . ONiel keeps saying Sasa needs minutes but he puts him on with 10 minutes to go how is he going to getfit. I just
hope the signings in this window bring a bit more fluency to are MF and add some goals or after that performance it’s going to be one long slog.
Personally – I think Silva shows double what Sasa does
Lou, That is an interesting opinion.
However, in order to make a quantitative comparison of these two very different players, at least they need to be compared on minutes played.
You may well, in the long run, be correct but in my opinion , we have not yet seen enough of the recovering Sasa . Time will tell.
Like you, I would be delighted to see Silva succeed but playing him deep will not get the best out of him.
When I was at work they said I did the work of two men….
Laurel and Hardy.
“It will be difficult for other people to see this today, of course, because it just goes down to a 3-2 defeat away to Crystal Palace but big strides have been made from the team that I saw and was working with three weeks ago to where they were today.” – GO
Anyone else seeing this? We looked great against Rennes.
Semedo and Silva need replacing.
I think we should go to a back five now we have enough central defenders. Lemino and our new addition in midfield, Neto, Sasa and Cunha up front.
Then wait for January to buy a real “fox in the box” like Che Evans to save us from relegation
Why do think the idiot Shi is going to buy a striker when he has not for the last 3 years ? Hope over experience I guess .
I thought Gomes and Neto did well but many of the rest not great .
As for Fabio I suppose when they offload him next summer for half what they paid for him ( if that) they can say they tried him out .
Come on Nick, let`s be real. We`ll be lucky to get 5 million for a striker who doesn`t know how to score. I say we should just bite the bullet, get what we can, as soon as we can, and move on.
Semedo and Kilman were awful and why we didn’t cash in on them I don’t know.
Both at fault for two of the goals and even Dawson was below par.
I agree with Ben the big man should have come on earlier I’d even say he should have started and when he tired bring Silva or Hwang on the a for mentioned Silva for all his hoof and puff seems to be going the way of his last season with us which was a fruitless one hence him then going out on loan which should have been to a Championship side to get prepared for the Premier League but no he was sent to Belgium.
I still cannot understand why I am still be moaning why we still haven’t prioritied getting a striker in……three years I’ve been, sorry we have been saying this and again we couldn’t manage it in this window…..don’t even go there with the excuse we didn’t have the time …….how is it we managed to get 4 or three other positions covered then.
Again I agree with Ben O’Neil needs to get a grip and soon because the honey moon period will only last so long.
I agree we need a proper striker but therin lies the problem. They have to be both available and good enough. They tried with Adams but we may have dodged a bullet there. Can’t get a regular game for Southampton.
Iwenacho of the same ilk.
P.S
The Doc has to start against Liverpool and the big man.
Living in Panama City Florida, my week has been dominated by the Hurricane., which devastated many miles of the Florida coast line. Fortunately we dodged the bullet, being located some 60 miles to the west of the Hurricane`s landfall.
Therefore I was hoping for Wolves to provide me with a nice old pick-me -up today. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, this was not to be. Same old same old. Little creativity in midfield; zero penetration up front; and, probably worst of all, growing weaknesses emerging at the back. It seems to me that very urgently GON needs to accept that Semedo and Ait are not defenders of a the necessary quality. The introduction of Doc and Toti must be worthy of consideration.
But Hey !! We`re alive and our home is still standing. Priorities re-balanced – we have a new spring in the step. We`ll be able to enjoy Wolves` resurgence after the international break. Hope springs eternal
Puts it all into context, Mike. Glad you’re ok.
Hope you are all ok Mike. Looks bad news on telly with the tropical storms and all that in Florida.
We in the Leeward islands in the Caribbean are keeping a close eye on a potential major hurricane that could pass over us next weekend! Fingers crossed it goes North!
At least there are no PL games then!
I watched quite a few games over the weekend and the gulf between us and teams like Brighton, Arsenal etc is vast.
Luckily, this applies to a number of sides in the division.
The best I can say about the game today is that it involved two poor teams, and the poorest of the two lost.
Let’s hope that the infusion of new blood – and some old, why on earth did the Doc not get on the pitch? – will improve us.
To say that the visit of Liverpool worries me is an understatement.
Perhaps Sala will be in Saudi by then, earning his meagre £1.5 million a week.
Since the demise of Lord Nuno and the regimented 3-4-3 (sometimes 3-5-2). To me we have been on a downward spiral ever since.. I just don’t think we ever look safe at the back. I think it’s time to get back to basics and grind a few resilts out. We have natural wing backs in Ait Nouri and Doc. Use them.
Bang on the mark COD.
Like you, many of us never understood why Bruno, was so determined to move away from a system which worked so well. Never since that time have we ever looked secure at the back, and at this time when we can`t score at the other end, surely it`s the time to get back to basics, and again make ourselves difficult to beat
Maybe because it didn’t work so well against teams at the bottom of the table and we were throwing away 10 points a season.
And the difference between 57 points and 67 points is close to Europe and close to the Champions League.
But still got to 57 60 points anyway
Was at the game today with my Palace mates and in all honesty there wasn’t a huge amount between the two sides. We really did start off with some nice passing and a look of confidence and for a little while I really thought it was going to be a good afternoon. But the Palace goal when it came really seemed to knock the stuffing out of us and after that we continued to look particularly vulnerable down the flanks. Palace are such a physical side, that I couldn’t really understand the omission of Doherty. This is something we will have to sort out, otherwise it is inevitable we will concede goals from the same positions. The other thing I found really frustrating was some truly frightening passing-out from the back and some lamentable throw-ins. Our corners are a bit better than they were, but we’re still a bit crap. We continued throughout to unnecessarily put ourselves under pressure. I know GoN has only been in the hot seat for a short period of time, but there is some basic stuff to be coached here that would really tighten-up our play. Linked to this are our general levels of intensity during a game. When we played with a bit of pace and urgency we really did look half-decent – it just didn’t happen often enough, or in a sustained way. Over to you again Gary.
I hate to repeat what is a broken record, but boy do we look painfully toothless up front. At times it was excruciating. I don’t really want to put the boot in on Silva and he really does try, but he just never ever looked like he was going to score. He does a half-decent job with his lay-offs and link-up play, but we need a goal scorer so badly! I know some people said Sasa should have come on earlier but, when he did, he looked a little off the pace. In my humble opinion (and recognising he needs to get fitter), I remain to be convinced that he’s the answer. Any useful free agents out there? So, all in all, a bit of a disappointment in the lovely Selhurst Park sunshine. I honestly do think there is a nucleus of good players in the team like Neto, Lemina and Cunha, but there is real work for GoN to do at either end of the pitch. One final consolation – and recognising that they may have been humouring me – but every single Palace mate thought Wolves would still be alright this season. 🙂 UTW
The centre backs we’re all at sea today and as much as I’ve tried to defend Silva since he was thrown in way before he was ready he doesn’t look like he’s going to be the answer to our goal drought.
Sasa on the other hand looks a real handful. Hopefully he’s being held back til he’s 100% and no risks are being taken.
Overall not dreadful or hopeless but needs some improvement.
I keep screaming for the Doc. Maybe with all you others screaming for him, GON will sit up and listen.
Didn’t see the game as I was ‘on the road’, but it sounded all so familiar. Despite his hard efforts, poor old Fabio is not strong enough against big defenders is he?
You guys have said it all really.
At least I had a laugh at the not being able to hit a cow’s arse with a banjo.
That was funny.
Agree with just about all of your summation Ben.
I pretty much agree with your summary Ben. For me, Neto was Wolves MOTM. We may have bossed the first half in possession but we never really looked like scoring. After Semedo had been given a ludicrous yellow card I was yearning for him to be hooked for Doc at half-time. Silva should have given way to Sasa too. The Palace goals were all preventable by an alert defence, which is something we just don’t have. That Keystone Cops moment when Sa made the most stupid pass out had to be seen to be believed. Comically inept. In spite of his saves, Sa must have been due an absolute bollocking for that pass. That incident in itself might have given the defence the shakes for the rest of the match. At least we responded quickly to going down. Just when the commentator was saying that Neto’s free kicks went nowhere, he produced a peach of a delivery for Hwang to score from a dandruff shampoo (Head ‘n Shoulders). After that is was almost inevitable that Palace would exploit our tiring and dozy defence again, but at least we nicked that consolation goal. Gary now has the international break to integrate the new signings and hopefully make up for the absence of a preseason. He will have his work cut out in trying to make Silva worthy of that number on his back. Maybe a close look at free agents is a possibility, but no repeats of the Diego Costa-types please.
Fabio will come good and you’ll all be eating your hats…..that’s really all the hope I have left though..
“It’s the hope that kills you” (Ted Lasso).
“Ones for the future”?
We’ve heard a lot about the above during the latter part of the Fosun era both relating to The Academy and a whole host of speculative low to middle range inbound transfers (never mind Fabio).
I can only think of Max Kilman and Pedro Neto who have actually become “ones for the present.”
Bellegarde excepted the latest round of recruitment is following the trend and given the almost total lack of success so far Jeff maybe as our CEO this philosophy and it’s lack of success needs a serious review.
That’s your job.
Add MGW, he brought in a decent fee.
That’s the only way clubs of our ilk can succeed PJB. The problem is picking the right ones. You can add Neves and Jota to the successes so the success rate is probably on a par with many other clubs, Brighton obviously excepted.
We’ve had our fingers well and truly burnt in the tried and tested market.
It takes a lot to maintain Premier League status. Fosun have not only got us to the Prem but have kept us there. Surely they deserve some credit.
COD
Admire your loyalty to Fosun.
But for whatever reasons (politics?, misjudgement?, poor management at local level latterly?, etc.) they’ve completely cocked it up. We are going back to where we were when they came in. We nearly really made it.
But the 3 years under Nuno for me was as good as it ever got as a Wolves supporter.
Agree PJB about those 3 seasons promotion. Then two top 7 finishes the greatest experience of my Wolves sipporting life including the FA cup semi final at Wembley when we had a few beers around Camden before the game and the legendary Robert Plant came walking down Camden High Street towards us and stopped to have a chat!. Those were the days PJB. As a long sufferering Wolves fan I can’t extend negativity to Fosun. They have given me (us) the greatest days as Wolves fans. Someone said Fosun have spent £500 million on players since they came along. Surely any right minded Wolves fan can be appreciative of the money pumped in. Sure PJB you will argue the way the money has been spent is up for debate. I actually agree we have spent ludicrous sums of money on some questionable signings. But i don’t think anyone can question Fosuns backing in terms of dosh.
COD
£500 million out – will take your word.
Transfer income this window £150 million
Down the years from memory.
Patricio £10m
Jota £43m
Doc £15m
Costa £20m
Cav £20m
Others over 7 years say £32m.
So close to £300 million in total.
If you do the maths NET transfer spend over 7 years is around £30 million per annum.
Not exactly a fortune by PL standards and petty cash in Fosun terms,
Jack Hayward and maybe even The Scouser might have spent more.
Not even going to mention the dilapidated state of the ground.
No need to be too grateful to Shanghai.
Can’t agree there PJB. No other owner has come close to what Fosun have pumped in. No other owner have sustained our place in the premier league like Fosun. Mistakes? Yes. Enjoy year six in the prem. Previous owners got us 1 or 2 years before we went again to the lower leagues.
Petty cash but you are ignoring Financial Sustainability Regulations (FSR).
I agree that they may not want to spend more but, the point is, we have already been sanctioned by UEFA for being successful too quickly and reaching the Europa League in our first season in the Premier League.
Why would they want to risk that again?
Maybe not sanctioned but punished for becoming a threat to the cartel? Because that’s the rationale behind FFP/FSR and it’s arguably in contravention of anti trust / competition legislation. It’s just another ruse in the European Super League for the self appointed few project and if that happens it’s time for us all to pack it in because if we can’t all aspire to the ultimate heights with open competition it’s literally game over.
Dilapidated state of the Steve Bull but not the rest of the ground PJB. We don’t need a new ground just a new stand, although we were promised a new stand. I’d much rather have a decent team first before even thinking about a ground. I can see the logic in not building a stand if the long term aim is a new ground but that can’t happen till the team merits a 50,000 seater stadium which ibviously they haven’t for the last 3 seasons. Good financial management in my book although i believe the long term aim is to build one out of town irrespective of the universal objections from the fanbase. This is just a hunch though tbh.
have to agree there happy,
ive said for ages that if there is a new ground it will up the stafford rd somewhere.
If we are relegated that would be a great time to replace the Steve Bull. If not then, when?
It is true to say that Fosun have financed three super seasons.
As an old timer, I began life as a supporter of an elite top six club.
I have to accept that we have been overtaken. It seems to be in the interests of FFP, VAR, and the FA for Wolves and other clubs with a great pedigree, to be kept out of the upper reaches of the Premier.
Personally, I find playing in Europe a distraction. For me , remaining and residing as permanently as possible in the Premier, probably in the bottom half, will represent success. That way we support a club in the top league in the World and see the occasional victory over a top six club.
Achieving that , for me, will be success.
Pretty sure I read here that it has something to do with the Chinese economy.
“Daniel Podence agrees new three-year contract with Wolves before moving to former side Olympiacos on a season-long loan deal”
Anyone see how this makes any sense?? I thought they wanted to get rid of them but apparently, Jeff thinks they can still make some money out of him.
“In The Know Greek journalist Giannis Chorianopoulos has said that there is a purchase option of just €6m to make the deal permanent.”
No option to buy according to the E & S.
Can’t be Arsed to get involved with are Fosun crap or aren’t they banter
Team look nearly good enough for mid table and nearly bad enough for bottom 5.. or 3
So what now? Fosun can’t help much if at all … that’s for sure. The cards are dealt for this season and if we we want another PL chance next season we have to play them well.
So GoN and his team have maybe a couple of months to develop a winning formula with the squad in old gold and black ( or whatever crap the other kits are)
The next 6 games need to show progress in converting pressure into goals … maybe it’s the giraffe who will do it? Think it’s trickier than that however
We have a couple of whippings in prospect with ‘Poop and Citeh but the other matches will either keep us in milk cup and lower mid table or reveal that our cards aren’t good enough… and JLo timed it right
My folks were born and bred inDudley and
so I have the ‘tattoo for life’ of a Wolves fan …with inbuilt optimism and faith that the Light will come… soon enough!
Let’s focus on how the club can negotiate itself out of this corner via coaching / team selection/ game management and football skills
after all … Even Geordie’s feel like shit right now
OODCL
Not just the Mugpies.
McChelsea have spent £1.5 billion to have Coops Turn up and spank them 1-0. First time in 99 years or something. Twats. 1 lv.
So …,after watching the game twice …apart from the odd hickup …Wolves seemed to be on top for long periods especially early on . As usual we lacked in the final third . Apart from agreeing that Doc and Toti should probably start- here is a suggestion
Why don’t we start with Sasha ..get a goal or two and then reorganise to protect his rehabilitation
Just a suggestion like !?
I mentioned (many times) that we should be flexible in formations. Play back 3 against the harder teams. I guess they won’t come much harder than Citeh and L’pool. Now that we (seem) to have three CB’s it is time to use them. We also have recognised wingbacks Semedo and Doc on the right and Bueno and RAN on the left. Sasa, Neto and Cunha upfront. And for heaven’s sake, leave Silva at Asda or somewhere far away !!
Greetings Lads,
It would look unprofessional / daft to have to sub Sasa off after 15mins. So bin that idea. We have to play to him when on the turf, so get Doc on at 60 mins to warm up, chuck Sasa on for 10 mins, all guns blazing, whack crosses in and hope for the best.
Our only option.
Oh no.
Hoping Fabio and Cunha reach some kind of understanding before Citeh arrive.
Still can’t get my noggin round Conor Coady at Leicester. From England Captain to Sore Foot, East Midlands.
We could have got it right like Brighton?
The best is yet to come.
1 lv & COYW.
I don’t think it is so much that Sasa isn’t in pretty good shape, just that he’s not as sharp as he feels he should be.
So a Sasa that is not sharp but scores of the back of his head or missing hitting the ball squarely but still scoring is better than what the other options are.
Anyway, things should be different in two weeks if he doesn’t have any issues.
Saudi window closes today. I guess Sarabia won’t be going to Arabia then?
I still can’t my head around Podence leaving, considering that our three PL goals have come from assists out wide. And what’s the point in giving him a contract extension so that we could loan him out? That suggests we still value him, but he was frozen out before GoN took over.
Because, He could quite possibly be the worse player that ever played in a Wolves shirt….
That’s just plain ridiculous given the dross we were subjected to week in and out during the relegation freefall of the mid eighties.
Interesting to see that Sky Sports top 5 championship goals included two Wolves loanees. Both absolute crackers which would look good from someone in a gold shirt.
For anyone who might not have seen this yet, an interesting, if ultimately frustrating, watch on how VAR ‘works’ (a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one), and Howard Webb’s opinion of some of their decisions we’ve been subjected to so far this season.
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12955649/match-officials-micd-up-premier-league-in-game-audio-shown-in-new-programme-on-sky-sports
That’s how easy it is to assist in rigging the outcome of a game . All bets in tact .
Close shave for them though .
As unsatisfactory as it is, VAR is better than nothing. One obvious improvement is to use VAR facilities abroad on a reciprocal basis. Given the technology available it is as easy to use facilities abroad as it is to use Stockley Park. By the same token Stockley Park would officiate in top level matches abroad.
The scandalous revelation that last season Mike Dean on VAR didn’t send his on-field referee mate Antony Taylor to the monitor (when he wanted to) is unbelievable. He wanted to spare him grief and embarrassment. By this statement Mike Dean should be sacked. This has made a mockery of VAR and totally undermined it. The multiple apologies received by Wolves is another example of the need for international help with VAR to avoid bias.
Here’s the Mike Dean link:
https://sportstar.thehindu.com/football/epl/chelsea-vs-tottenham-var-controversy-referee-mike-dean-mistake-protect-friend-premier-league-news-updates/article67234189.ece#:~:text=Former%20Premier%20League%20referee%20Mike,spare%20him%20%E2%80%9Cmore%20grief%E2%80%9D.
I’d imagine the premier league would organise their VAR swap with a middle eastern or Asian country, read into that what you want hohoho
One of the greats:-
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/george-best-quit-jehovahs-witness-30937945