Probably the most honest assessment he’s given. We were far too open, first match where I’ll happily say we seemed to play with no structure and just had mistake after mistake. He’s mentioned looking at implementing a new system after the international break and we fucking well need one. He mentioned a possible back 5 and I agree we need one, yeh it involves having our 3 senior CBs on the pitch but it is what it is, not his fault that we didn’t bring another one in. Pond and Bastian should be good enough to slot into a back 3 if needed, at least until January where we can bring another one in. I think going forward we should play:
Johnstone; Semedo, Santi, Daws, Toti, RAN; Andre, Lemina/Doyle/Joao (Joao and Lemina have been a bit shit this season so those 3 should be battling it out); Cunha, Larsen, Forbs
Let Semedo and RAN do their thing going forward, we need to keep a natural winger on to provide service to Larsen and it frees Cunha back up into that left 10 role that he did so well against last season. We can still play the possession based football with a 5-2-3 but we seriously need the extra man in defence to help cover the countless fucking stupid mistakes the lads seem to be making at the back. I trust our attack to provide goals but that’s all pointless when we concede 2+ goals per game. We need to get back to being a team that the opposition hate playing against and apparently that can only happen in a back 5 while we have the defenders we do. Plenty of time to turn things around but if Gary’s not going anywhere (which it seems he’s not any time soon) then we’ve gotta implement the system that was so successful last season
by Haakon54
2 Comments
That seems like the logical course of action
So I’m fully in the 3 at the back camp, we never should’ve abandoned it, it’s Wolves identity for this which has been a bit of a golden era for Wolves. It also made us seem a bit more refined & continental!
BUT
I think the problem isn’t how many CBs are on the field, it’s that we’re trying to get our CBs to start phases of play, we’re running disjointed press & players are confused. We can play 2 CBs with Andre doing the role of the 3rd. We need a marquee Ball Playing CB to get a decent 3 going again, or mepiyou to be low key elite level but completely overlooked because of his 8 min debut.
Everyone just needs very simple instructions & we need to go back to the counter. It’s easy to get players to make 2 lines & keep them behind the ball, then when they win it, the players that are allowed to get up field go.
GON wanting to get a decent press into the team is understandable but 1 preseason & a weakened defence isn’t the time to implement it. If we can do 10-15 min busts fine but the counter is what we do & we did it well with GON last season.
Pressing, high lines & phases are all great but we need 3 good transfer windows to get the personnel in for that.