Farkes first season Vs now

[The Raptor 1,255]

Wasn't great. The records are pretty similar. Were the fans as doom and gloom about our future prospects then as they are now? I don't remember that being the case. 

Farke  46  15 15 16 60 pts 49 for 60 against

Smith/Wagner 45 17 11 17 62 pts 57 for 53 against

[Petriix 2,855]

Farke was very evidently in the middle of a process, embedding a clear playing philosophy into the squad and building physical resilience. Wagner is still in the experimental stage, trying to figure out who to play where; Smith never got beyond that point either. 

Looking in a bit more detail, perhaps it's fair to say that there were some seriously poor players in both Farke's and Wagner's squads. Farke also had some real quality in Maddison and Hoolahan so maybe he could have got more out of that team.

The biggest difference, however, is that we had a very good transfer window that summer combined with a great crop of academy players to call on. Obviously it's possible that we might do similar again, but you've got to somehow unearth a new Buendia languishing in a continental lower league and find another Pukki on a free.That seems...unlikely. 

[chicken 2,674]

5 hours ago, The Raptor said:

Wasn't great. The records are pretty similar. Were the fans as doom and gloom about our future prospects then as they are now? I don't remember that being the case. 

Farke  46  15 15 16 60 pts 49 for 60 against

Smith/Wagner 45 17 11 17 62 pts 57 for 53 against

Oh god yes, they were! I remember walking away from the ground with people questioning the idea of bringing in an inexperienced European coach who was clearly only doing as well as he was because of Maddison. That this was just another idea that wouldn't work out.

Stiepermann was crap, Vrancic poor, Franke never got past a couple of appearances. Even Hernandez and Leitner signing in January didn't lift the mood. Looking on waybackmachine, people were very much expecting mid-table at best and were not massively confident Farke was the right man for the job.

I very much remember having that conversation with my father in law after the Wolves home game. I reassured him that I could see what Farke was trying to do, but that he just didn't have the personnel to do it. On that day we had Watkins up front and you could just see Madders waiting for him to actually make a move, instead, he'd wait to be told where to run. As a player, you have to just make a move, not wait, at the very least you'd take a player with you, create space for someone else... Watkins was just on a different page, a league one page. We had a few players like that back then.