comment by Tamwolf (U17286)
posted 44 minutes ago
comment by Cinciwolf--Top ten finish? Piece of pee (U11551)
posted 3 minutes ago
Personally wouldn't want Afobe starting any games but I wouldn't want Bonatini doing so either but when it comes to one or the other off the bench if we need a goal then it's Afobe all day long.

As for this lazy lazy nonsense thrown at Afobe not being capable of being involved in build up play, well that's just crap as he was plenty involved when he came back last season, far more so than Bonatini was the last five months of last season that is for sure.

We need another striker and until we get one we are not going to fulfil our massive potential this season and will leave plenty of points on the pitch.
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He was fecking awful in the build up play last season. He went missing whenever we played one of the better teams, drifted out wide too much to find space (as his movement and touch aren’t good enough to do that in the middle of the pitch) but he struggled to hold onto the ball there anyway and wanted to run channels which didn’t fit our system.

He is good at two things; being in the box or running in behind. He plays in straight lines though, so gets found out on those things at this level. He may grab the odd goal when we are already winning, but he would not have won us any points in a tight game.

Given all the negative press there has been about him in recent months, I am pretty glad we have got rid.
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Bottom line is scoring goals and afobe is better at doing that than anyone else we have at the moment.

Have to say I really do like Jimenez overall though and thought Jonny Castro was quality today as well

Jonny Cast (as he was referred to by the Portuguese commentators) was superb, MOTM for me

Yeah, I thought Jonny was really good yesterday.

comment by tommy mundons fashion advisor (U8869)
posted 7 hours, 33 minutes ago
comment by Tamwolf (U17286)
posted 44 minutes ago
comment by Cinciwolf--Top ten finish? Piece of pee (U11551)
posted 3 minutes ago
Personally wouldn't want Afobe starting any games but I wouldn't want Bonatini doing so either but when it comes to one or the other off the bench if we need a goal then it's Afobe all day long.

As for this lazy lazy nonsense thrown at Afobe not being capable of being involved in build up play, well that's just crap as he was plenty involved when he came back last season, far more so than Bonatini was the last five months of last season that is for sure.

We need another striker and until we get one we are not going to fulfil our massive potential this season and will leave plenty of points on the pitch.
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He was fecking awful in the build up play last season. He went missing whenever we played one of the better teams, drifted out wide too much to find space (as his movement and touch aren’t good enough to do that in the middle of the pitch) but he struggled to hold onto the ball there anyway and wanted to run channels which didn’t fit our system.

He is good at two things; being in the box or running in behind. He plays in straight lines though, so gets found out on those things at this level. He may grab the odd goal when we are already winning, but he would not have won us any points in a tight game.

Given all the negative press there has been about him in recent months, I am pretty glad we have got rid.
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Bottom line is scoring goals and afobe is better at doing that than anyone else we have at the moment.
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Afobe averages a goal every 290 minutes at this level.

Raul Jimenez averages a goal every 213 minutes.

Bottom line is that he isn’t better at scoring at this level than anything else we have. Bonatini has only played 96 minutes in 4 games, so with Bonatini’s minutes (I am sure you are not suggesting Afobe starts over Jimenez as that would be ridiculous) Afobe would score once every 12 games. Hardly inspiring.

Has much more to his game than Barry Douglas to me, both in defence and attack. Him and Boly the star men for me yesterday. The ability of Boly to pick out a positive pass when in a tight situation set up loads of counter attacks yesterday. But everybody in a Wolves shirt played well and although there have been some calls to change the team, particuikarly to bring Traore in, I think we are seeing the benefit of a settled team now as well as having good attacking subs that can make an impact. Traore and Bonatini won the game for us at West Ham and created lots of chances late on yesterday. The goals will come if we keep playing like that.

Haven't been on here much lately. Thought I had entered a time warp when I looked in on the match thread after a great win, to see people still talking about Afobe?? Could have sworn our first choice striker and match winner is called Jimenez?

May as well be discussing whether Dicko should get a game, or if Edwards would offer more off the bench than MGW

Not sure about this goals per minute as a stat for measuring a strikers success rate. If a player comes on for the last 15 minutes and scores does it mean if only we had played him from the beginning he would have scored 6? What matters for any player in any position to me is their contribution to the team over the 90 minutes and over the season. If someone starts on the bench it’s generally because the manager thinks someone else can help the team more. And the measure of how a player is doing is more how many minutes they play than how many they score per minute.

If you look at Afobe the key stat for him at Bournemouth is that he was rarely selected to start. And the reason Wolves didn’t want him this season was because his contribution to the team last season was poor whereas in the first half of the season Bonatini was excellent, as he has been when he has come on this season. Creating the winner at West Ham and continually finding space yesterday. He is a much harder player to mark than Afobe and he did score twice as many goals for Wolves last season as Afobe and if he keeps getting into the positions he will get some this season.

But neither offer as much as Jiminez who is an excellent signing

comment by gbwolf VI - the year of the dog (U17280)
posted 19 minutes ago
Haven't been on here much lately. Thought I had entered a time warp when I looked in on the match thread after a great win, to see people still talking about Afobe?? Could have sworn our first choice striker and match winner is called Jimenez?

May as well be discussing whether Dicko should get a game, or if Edwards would offer more off the bench than MGW
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Be good to see you on here more gb

Hope you are enjoying the season. We were commenting at the game yesterday how unbelievable the quality is after what we have watched for many years

lets hope our goalscoring can soon match our overall play - going to need better strikers than we have for that though.

I’ve got a great idea guys ?

Let’s give Jimenez a few games to acclimatise to the Prem, before we downgrade him to ‘Afobe standard’ ?

I did think it was a great Match thread though, and much better than having to sit in the stands with those hooligans

Talk of bringing in extra strikers is fine, but remember we only play one up front and Jiminez is doing ok so far.

What we need is for the likes of Jota, Doc, Castro and Costa to start making their mark at this level. Had they taken some of the golden chances that were created yesterday we would have been out of site by 70 mins.

One case in point, Jota's break from a Burnley mistake was very similar to his goal against Villa at home last season. He went all the way and finished superbly in the Villa game, yesterday he got to the edge of the box, tripped over the ball and had to offload to Bonatini who fluffed it. Just a bit of extra confidence required and we will be putting games like this to bed much earlier.

I think Jiminez is doing much better than ok.


I would be concerned if we weren't creating any chances, the fact that we are creating loads of chances and not at the moment taking them, is a problem that I think over the season we will put right, with the current group of players.


At the end of August into early September last season we lost at home to Cardiff, drew 0-0 at Brentford and scraped home by 1-0 at home to Millwall. And I seem to remember people saying similar things then. We went on to score 16 in the next 7 games.

One thing I think yesterday showed was Traore isn't ready.

I have no doubt about his potential, especially going forward, but he seemed lost when we were defending, not sure about his position or when to close down.

I'm sure he will learn, but until then, nobody can argue with Costa and Jota starting ahead of him.

Traore is a fantastic impact player to use as a sub but I agree at the moment he probably wouldn't contribute as much as Costa or Jota over 90 minutes. Presume he will get a chance to prove us wrong against Leicester in the Carabao Cup next week

at times, not every time, when an attack breaks down traore jogs back.
surprised that nuno has let him get away with it

Yeah, I was understating it a bit in saying Jiminez has done 'ok' !

We definitely control the game better when Costa is on the field, wouldnt necessarily say that Traore isn't ready, he's been sent on to stretch defences late on in games and get us a goal. Didnt see him play against Wednesday, but will be going to the Leicester game next week so will be interesting to see how he does from the start (assuming he does). He may well be able to shield and hold up and burst in to space in a similar way to Costa but I've not seen him do it yet.

Oldgold it is essential to Wolves play that the players know there job with and without the ball.

Closing down the angles and pressing the opposition is as important as bursting forward with the ball.

I am going to the leicester game too and will be surprised if Traore dose not start. but there is a lot that Costa and Jota do, outside of pushing forward with the ball that Traore needs to learn.

Wouldn't be changing the team at the moment and it looks like Costa and Jota, particularly Costa are getting to grips with the prem now after slow starts.

Jimenez is our only choice to.start up front and if he gets injured I suspect we will see either cav(when fit) or Traore come in ahead of Bonatini pretty quickly.

Dendoncker is an interesting one as I don't see where he fits in right now.

Dendoncker has to have been bought in as a replacement for Bennett. It was very evident yesterday how Boly's ability to bring out the ball and play the ball forward, opened up all sorts of opportunities.

It was also evident, despite Bennett doing nothing wrong defensively, how he is often bypassed in favour of a more accomplished player on the ball.

Dendoncker is an accomplished player, can carry the ball out, and pick out a pass. If his denfending can match or at least come close to Bennett. then as much as it would be harsh, Dendoncker would have to start.

You are probably right Amiga but it would be harsh on Bennett right now that is for sure.

Good to see us continuing to push forward yesterday as well, all too often sides take the lead and sit back.

Harsh indeed Cinci, but if we are to progress as a team, these are the sort of decisions that need to be made.

It's a good problem to have, an £18 million player on the bench, and a £12 million player, not even on it.

A great performance and the most one sided match I've ever seen in the 50+ years I've been following this club. But I hope we're not going down the same road we did last season with "we need another striker" bollox.

I'll stand corrected, but I think we've started with the same eleven players for every league match this season and being able to do this is beginning to reap rewards.

Traore is a devastating impact players and it would be harsh to drop anyone at the moment in order for him to start a league match. I fully expect the same starting eleven for the Man Utd game.

As for getting another striker in, we have until January to decide if that is a viable option. Jimenez is doing very well at the moment and had we taken a few more chances yesterday and got 4 or 5 then the issue would not have been mentioned, I'm sure.

I said last season that we would be sharing the goals amongst the whole squad and that we didn't need a 20+ goal striker and it proved to be the case. Now whether the squad can replicate that in the Premier League remains to be seen, but to start talking, at this stage of the season about needing another striker, seems a wee bit premature and unnecessary.

We're 9th in the table having scored 5 goals. How bad is that for a team that plays the kind of football that's getting rave reviews from the commentators over here. Many are saying what a breath of fresh air it is, to see a newly promoted side play the way we do. Remember, it's points that matter, not how many goals we score. (I also seem to remember stating the same thing about winning 1-0 last season) Goals will come from this squad I'm sure and let's not forget that apart from Bennett, none of these players have played in this league before.

So as usual, let's enjoy the ride, give credit to Nuno and the lads for the entertaining football we're all watching this season and hope it continues.

Didn't go the Wednesday cup tie so looking forward to seeing Dendoncker live for the first time against Leicester. He maybe was seen as someone that can play on the right of the defence, but most of his career has been spent in midfield so who knows. I certainly cant see Bennett getting left out at the moment as he has been excellent.

But we are only 5 games in to a 38 game season and although we have kept a steady team at the moment, there will be plenty of changes to the line up between now and May. And Dendoncker is very highly rated so his time will come, maybe instead of Bennett, but through injuries, suspensions, loss of form etc, I suspect he could equally come in for Coady, Boly, Neves or Moutinho. Surprised we haven't at least seen him on the bench for the league games yet.