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Tumbleweed

Bonkers team selection

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So we are playing away to a team which stormed to promotion last year, with momentum, at their place, where we have a poor record, us just being relegated after an abject season in the first game where we want to have a solid start and ease back into life in the Champs.

 

And NA picks a "powder puff midfield" (to quote from another thread) which might have been competitive against a team of farmers and posties from the Italian valleys but not exactly one which is going to dig in at a hostile Molineux and take control.

 

I just don''t fathom how you can play all of Surman, Redmond, Hoolahan and Bennett together in that situation. In a diamond, with minimal width, too high up the pitch effectively neutralisng what threat we should have had. Gary Holt may have had three lungs but poor old Bradley Johnson is only human and there is no way in game like this he was ever going to be the one enforcer and holder trying to win balls back and close down.

 

Now at times we looked neat, had some control for short periods without looking particularly threatening against, from my view on telly, a pretty average side. I think we could have won this game by a couple had we had the right personnel in there. But that team selection just mystified me, and I find it slightly worrying that it was felt appropriate to start this type of game in that way. Anyway, NA is learning his trade still, just hope he finds his feet pretty darn quickly.

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Agree totally with all that Tumbleweed.

I called the selection naïve elsewhere before a ball was kicked in anger.

It was so clearly obvious to me that this was completely the wrong team for the occasion and all my concerns about Adams''s lack of experience were resurrected in just ninety minutes of football.

Our midfield was populated by three lightweights who, for varying reasons, hardly figured for the team last season. Hoolahan has NOT suddenly become our saviour, especially in tough away fixtures. Surman has not suddenly become the complete Championship player due to his spell at Bournemouth and Bennett was never an automatic choice for either Lambert or Hughton when he was fit.

Quite frankly, if he continues to get things so badly wrong then we are in for a torrid time.

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Yep, agreed.

Adams also said at the end of the game that we tried to "dominate" the ball .... sounds like a rather different tactic to seasons gone by, to put it mildly. As a result in the first half in our best spells we had lots of possession in front of them... only started to put balls behind them in the second half. I think Adams wanted to go to Molineux and dominate possession a la Swansea, hence his team selection - technical light weight players, but that was always going to be a huge ask.

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A common failing in any form of management is when a newly-appointed person makes strategic plans in line with how they would ''like it to be'' rather than ''the way it really is''.

 

For all his good intent, I hope NA wises-up fairly quickly!...

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Getting it so wrong so early on in the season suggests that he''s out of his depth. Maybe not as badly out of his depth as Gunn, but showing no real improvement over Hughton says it all really.

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Bradley Johnson is one man??

Bennett, Hoolahan and Surman all did a better defensive job than Johnson. Maybe if we put someone in who can play the DM role, the attacking players could do their job.

Stats dont tell you everything about a game, but Bennett tackled the most in the team and Hoolahan intercepted the most in the team - But if lightweight suits your agenda then carry on.

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I have to agree with the OP.  I think Tettey should have been on the pitch from the start.

 

I''m sure NA was trying to keep possession and play the ball on the ground, but you need to win it first, and Tettey is also neat in possession once he''s won it - looked a class above when he came on but we were down to 10 by then.

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Agree there, Tettey did look class when he came on. Some nice composed mid ranged passing within a minute of being on the pitch. To be fair to Bradley though, was one of his better passing days.

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Tettey has to play. For all that some fans seem to moan about him we always look a markedly better side and much more solid when Tettey is in the team. Especially if we want to accomodate Wes as well.

The deeper midfielders should be Tettey and Fer/Howson. We can then play 4 more attacking players in front of them because we know that we have a solid back 6. Johnson is decent enough but does get by-passed a bit too easily as that holding midfielder. Tettey reads the game far better.

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Essentially agree with the opening post. But I think Tettey would have been involved from the start if he''d had a better run through pre-season, as would O''Neill if he''d been available.

When the team was announced I''m guessing most people saw the attacking nature of it and didn''t complain at the time.

Personally on past performance I''d sooner see Pilkington than Elliott B or Surnam in the side. But presumably he has had some kind of attitude problem behind the scenes that we don''t know about, so fair enough. And now the idiot''s effectively broken ranks with his tweet that''s no use to anyone - he may as well go.

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I agree, our midfield at times was completely bypassed, no one was making challenges & Wolves were just strolling through the middle of our ''powder puff'' midfield.

I did however think Lafferty did well when he came on & made an absolute nuisance of himself which was at least more than some players did that day.

I was also surprised Pilkington did not play & I guess he may have burnt his bridges now with ''that tweet''. On the surface our club looks rotten at the moment, but I guess we will never know what happens behind the scenes.

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For me, the biggest problem was not playing a "big unit" up front, which showed when Lafferty came on. Away in this league you need an outlet and a player who can bully and wherever possible do some hold up play, we didnt have that, it was all a little light weight......but it is not easy to get it right now is :-)

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Spot on post. In mitigation we were missing Fer and Howson which took away some of our options but it was obvious before we kicked off that playing the diamond with so many lightweight players at a tough away fixture was verging on the naive.

The diamond can work at this level (we''ve seen it in the past) but it is not always the answer. We looked so much better when Tetty and Lafferty came on and that was with 10 men!

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[quote user="Dubai Mark"]For me, the biggest problem was not playing a "big unit" up front, which showed when Lafferty came on. Away in this league you need an outlet and a player who can bully and wherever possible do some hold up play, we didnt have that, it was all a little light weight......but it is not easy to get it right now is :-)[/quote]

 

Agree 100%.  With Grabban any long balls from us went mostly to Wolves so we were stuck trying to pass it on the ground, which made it easier for them to close us down.  From time to time we did create well and opened them up on the edge of the box but not enough.

 

When Lafferty came on it gave us another dimension which also makes passing it on the ground easier.  I heard a comment that we need Lafferty to be fit all season as we need a player like him in the team for every game.  True, but we could have done with that last season too and didn''t have one in the squad !

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We clearly had pace there but didn''t get to show it apart from a couple of darts here and there. We seemed obsessed with passing it short and neat in the middle but too slowly to be effective. Should have gone 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 with a more traditional shape pretty soon when we saw how outplayed we were getting in the middle. Whittaker was left horribly exposed at times with only BJ in the centre and no one giving him cover- likewise Olsson at times which probably contributed to his performance. Grabban feeding off scraps, having to spend all his energy moving to try to seek the ball. But, it''s a marathon not a sprint.............

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