Not even see the 5th or 6th goals, turned to the Vuelta Espana

FFS lads, I left at 2-2, did not expect to come back to this!

What a dreadful start to the home season. An entertaining first half with Wolves playing well after conceding early. Excellent set up by Ait Nouri for a fine finish by Cunha. Then a good finish by Strand Larsen. The half spiced up by Chelsea players constantly moaning at every referee decision and Jackson lucky not to see red for his winding up of both the crowd and the Wolves players.

And yet there was that worrying feeling that Chelsea looked like scoring most times they attacked, and in the second half they virtually did just that. For the second game running Ait Nouri given a roasting and sad to say he will never make a full back. The central defenders struggled with the mobility of the Chelsea forwards, particularly Palmer who was excellent. Hwang and Bellegarde anonymous for us with Strand Larsen the brightest spark along with Cunha.

Don’t know where we go from here. Can these players really make a back four work?. Certainly Air Nouri cannot play full back again. Reinforcements needed

The quick fix for me would be

doc, dawson, Mosquera, Toti
.......lemina, gomes
......ran, cunha, R Gomes
.............Strand Larsen

And of course we will see arrivals this week as well

Consensus seems to be play a back 4 and drop RAN or revert to a back 5 with Dawson in. The latter for me. RAN is a really good player just not a fullback. We will recover from this and I think GON is to good not learn lessons. Just hope it doesn’t take a couple of months.

I have faith in GON but with matches in the near future against Newcastle, Villa, Liverpool and Man City we could arrive at the end of October with not many points. With the players we have at the club right now it feels to me that a back 5 is the way to go. Semedo and Ait Nouri are both better wing backs than full backs, and I don’t feel we can go forward with just two pretty inexperienced centre backs.

With Larsen and Cunha we will still score goals and with Ait Nouri and the returning Semedo able to get forward more then we could be even more of an attacking unit. But once we know what the squad is on 1st September we will be clearer what’s best

Still has the feel of RAN not being 100% settled as well, wonder if he could still leave this window.

Wolves have now played 19 league games in August since returning to the Premier League in 2019.

We have won 1, drawn 8 and lost 10

You have got to stop making excuses for him and finally others are coming to the conclusion that he's not a LB, something I've been advocating for the past two seasons.

Very pleased with Cunha, Larsen and Lemina today. The less said about the defence the better. How a side can change from being as good a Chelsea in one half, to completely collapsing in the second is mind boggling.

We keep reading about how we're going to stop making schoolboy mistakes, but it ain't happening, if anything, they're getting worse.

comment by wolfieinFL (U16306)
posted 10 minutes ago
You have got to stop making excuses for him and finally others are coming to the conclusion that he's not a LB, something I've been advocating for the past two seasons.

Very pleased with Cunha, Larsen and Lemina today. The less said about the defence the better. How a side can change from being as good a Chelsea in one half, to completely collapsing in the second is mind boggling.

We keep reading about how we're going to stop making schoolboy mistakes, but it ain't happening, if anything, they're getting worse.
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He is a capable left back, not brilliant, but we have feckin seen it ffs!! Why keep saying otherwise.

Is it his best position, obviously not, but enough with this see see see crap when we have all seen him defend very well in a 4 or 5 the last few years.

The problem is quite clearly more than that, he is in a bit of a weird hybrid role and is clearly encouraged to move forward when we have the ball. That is fine against some sides, just not against the better sides in the league.

We saw for at least two of the goals we lost possession quickly after trying to move forward and all some see is RAN out of position, no shat, he is instructed to move forward when we have the ball. A few of the goals were also just plain bad defending from him as well of course.

Sa pee poor as well today, seems his head is elsewhere.

He's not a capable LB and practically everyone else agrees. Your constant defence of this player is getting embarrassing.

comment by wolfieinFL (U16306)
posted 6 minutes ago
He's not a capable LB and practically everyone else agrees. Your constant defence of this player is getting embarrassing.
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I am not defending him, just pointing out facts. He was poor today, zero doubt. He has also had plenty of good games defensively.

Fairly clear to anybody he looks poorer now defensively than he has done in the past, so to me that signals a bigger issue than RAN just being crap defensively.

A few of us said in the summer RAN was creating quite the dilemma, and so it has proved. No doubt a better WB than FB and GON wants him attacking even in a four and that is suicide against better teams.

For me Dawson comes in and Toti goes LB for now and see what the window brings.

The Toti/Mosquera pairing seems very much an expirement given last season you would not have expected to ever see that as a first choice pairing. So what’s the situation with S Bueno?

With the run of games we have at the start I hope that if we don’t pick up too many points then the board hold their nerve as I think GON will prove to be a decent manager / coach and on the basis of what I saw today (admittedly it seems I saw the best of the game from our first goal to half time only), I felt there is a good team there.

How did Hwang play generally, as I don’t think I saw him and I don’t particularly rate his overall game.

Hwang was invisible. A pee poor player altogether except in the 18 yard box. Needs to be the 20 min replacement for Larsen and thats it.

Santi Bueno is allegedly on the verge of a loan which would seem to suggest he isn't rated by GON.

I don't criticise RAN. I think he is a really good player. He's just not a fullback. Would we criticise Cunha, for example, for not being a good defender if GON chose to play him at fullback? Of course not.

Play RAN in his best position - wingback and have someone else in defence - for me, if he's fit. Dawson

At Arsenal last week Saka taking Ait Nouri for a ride was ultimately the difference between the teams. Any team watching that game would have realised that was the weakness in the Wolves team and set up to attack down that side. And guess what, their right winger who scored 5 league goals all last season, today scored 3 in 15 minutes

Hwang and Bellegarde made no impact on the game today and neither looked to be players you’d want to start with regularly.

As for Santi Bueno, I think he’s ok but no better than ok. I’m sure he’s 4th choice behind Dawson, Toti and Mosquera. Seems to be the case that he’ll be loaned out if we sign another centre back

Evidently everyone in the ground could see what changes needed to be made except GON. The defending in the second half was shambolic, and it’s inexcusable to concede four in one half at home.

Worrying continuation of the form seen in the latter quarter of last season. We haven’t got the players to play a back four. If all you’ve got is lemons, make lemonade FFS.

Matt Dawson back at Forest evidently

Next game seems fairly straight forward to me. Dawson in, Toti to LB and RAN to replace Hwang or Bellegarde and I personally would have Rodrigo Gomes replace the other as well.

It was an awful individual performance from Ait-Nouri but not helped by us giving the ball away with him far too high up the pitch with us in possession which I assume was tactical. Left him chasing shadows. Felt that they were right on it from the off and was not surprised when they got that early goal. We were the better side then for most of the first half but got caught cold again from a free kick from their keeper. Sloppy, unprofessional way to concede yet we still got one back and deserved to be level at the break. But then half asleep again from a free kick and we're behind again early in the second half and by then they'd figured out the weakness and exploited it. Good finishing for sure but you have to question the keeper for the second and third Madueke goals.

Some positives from the first half performance, but serious questions re the back four and selection.

Met up with my Chelsea fan cousin for a drink after the game who thought it could've gone either way at half time. He wasn't that impressed with his team either, said they just took their chances.

On the plus side I saw Carl Ikeme in Spoons after the game, looking really well, with I think SEB

Not a great fan of some of the stats quoted after games but was interested to read tonight that Wolves expected goals from the chances created in today’s game was 1.92 whereas Chelsea’s was 1.56.

Seems to reflect that this was not a game Chelsea dominated nor that they were ripping us apart and creating chance after chance. More that we let them score more often than their attacking play deserved

comment by herecomesthelight (U17321)
posted 31 minutes ago
On the plus side I saw Carl Ikeme in Spoons after the game, looking really well, with I think SEB
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Was in spoons before the game, clearly have a better class of clientele than the Newhampton.