Wolves (H) Pre match thread

[StriderHiryu]

8 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

Interesting to see Rodgers doesn’t say Maddison is an attacking midfielder. Weird. Maybe shows he thinks he’s going to be better supporting Vardy on the left side of the 433 like the back end of last season

That's one of the reasons I posted his quotes, as it's quite interesting to here him say that. What I think he means is that he sees Maddison as a "10", whereas Tielemans and Praet are "8's." An attacking midfielder to Rodgers is an 8.

 

What that means is that an 8 is more one of those "run the game" types. Not so much goals and assists, but the assist to the assist. Think Xavi and Iniesta as the very best of this category, but even someone like Paul Scholes. They might not necessarily get a huge amount of goals or assists, but when you watch a team play, these type of players are often the reason between victory and defeat. If he says we need another one... I see his point because in games where Youri was quiet the team felt very flat. He's a great player but only 22 and isn't yet able to do it every single week, though I feel he will be able to do that in the next 2-3 years. 

 

At the end of the day we will see what he means as the season progresses, but I really rate Rodgers as a coach. He is very tactically astute and switched on and whilst in the past I do think he believed his own hype a bit too much, I think in general he has proved he's got the chops. Fascinated to see how an entire season under him goes.

 

 

Edited 9 August 2019 by StriderHiryu

[Raw Dykes]

14 hours ago, Lesterlad said:

Ndidi will be on bench instead of mendy/silva and I think Fuchs instead of Morgan

I don't think so. Justin covers both fullback positions. We'll need a CB on the bench.

[Bluetintedspecs]

Can't wait for season to start,I think Wolves are a good side but the travel and game on Thursday will impact them slughtly. Going for a 2-0  win Vards and Perez both off the mark.

[the fox]

3 of the first 4 games are very winnable IMO. I think the season will go depending on how much the young players improved. 

 

N'didi (or hamza) will be the key to success. The fullbacks are attack oriented so it is up to the midfield to close the gaps. 

 

What I think is a positive thing is the addition of players like Youri, Praet, Perez, Pereira, maddison...etc throughout the last few transfer windows who will allow the team to play with a slower tempo and a less-demanding physical effort. We can still play the counter no doubt but making it supplementary tactic instead of the main objective will net better results against teams outside the top-6 and especially in the away games.

Edited 9 August 2019 by the fox

[WigstonWanderer]

Just hope there’s a bit of patience from everyone if things do go tits up in the first match or two. Beginning of the season, anything can happen.

[foxy boxing]

really looking forward to it, it's going to be an interesting opening game with both the Foxes and Wolves scrapping and trying to take chunks out of each other!. it's going to come down to who is the most vicious in taking their chances and who has the biggest bite in attack. also who has the best rear guard (defensive) ability to ward of the threat of danger. whoever comes out on top will be the king of beasts.

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, WigstonWanderer said:

Just hope there’s a bit of patience from everyone if things do go tits up in the first match or two. Beginning of the season, anything can happen.

I hope so too, but..........we must remember that Wolves have played quite tough opposition compared to us (Excluding Atalanta)

 

[lifted*fox]

56 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

That's one of the reasons I posted his quotes, as it's quite interesting to here him say that. What I think he means is that he sees Maddison as a "10", whereas Tielemans and Praet are "8's." An attacking midfielder to Rodgers is an 8.

 

What that means is that an 8 is more one of those "run the game" types. Not so much goals and assists, but the assist to the assist. Think Xavi and Iniesta as the very best of this category, but even someone like Paul Scholes. They might not necessarily get a huge amount of goals or assists, but when you watch a team play, these type of players are often the reason between victory and defeat. If he says we need another one... I see his point because in games where Youri was quiet the team felt very flat. He's a great player but only 22 and isn't yet able to do it every single week, though I feel he will be able to do that in the next 2-3 years. 

 

At the end of the day we will see what he means as the season progresses, but I really rate Rodgers as a coach. He is very tactically astute and switched on and whilst in the past I do think he believed his own hype a bit too much, I think in general he has proved he's got the chops. Fascinated to see how an entire season under him goes.

 

I just want to say that I always enjoy your posts. your stat posts, post-match analysis, etc.

 

you're one of few on here who seems to actually understand football on a deeper level and your posts are always insightful. 

 

good stuff - have you been involved with the game at management level? 

[gerrytaggart]

6 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

Just hope there’s a bit of patience from everyone if things do go tits up in the first match or two. Beginning of the season, anything can happen.

No chance mate.... I'm ready to boo at the drop of a hat. 

[Arriba Los Zorros]

6 minutes ago, lifted*fox said:

 

I just want to say that I always enjoy your posts. your stat posts, post-match analysis, etc.

 

you're one of few on here who seems to actually understand football on a deeper level and your posts are always insightful. 

 

good stuff - have you been involved with the game at management level? 

Was just about the post the same @StriderHiryu almost all your posts are well worth a read and your football knowledge is incredibly impressive, you remind me of the TIFO football guys on Youtube

[StriderHiryu]

3 minutes ago, lifted*fox said:

 

I just want to say that I always enjoy your posts. your stat posts, post-match analysis, etc.

 

you're one of few on here who seems to actually understand football on a deeper level and your posts are always insightful. 

 

good stuff - have you been involved with the game at management level? 

Thank you! Very kind of you good sir.

 

I've got a level 2 FA badge and have done some coaching in the past, which means I could study for the UEFA B coaching badge. But in all honesty I can't see myself getting the time to do this for a long time as you have to be actively coaching in order to do it, and I don't do that anymore as I started up a company with some friends and former colleagues some 12 months ago. Also that badge still doesn't go into 11 a side and tactical coaching, which is the UEFA A coaching badge which would be another 2 years to do. But if you do all of that, then you can go up to assistant manager in the Premier League I believe, though you need a Pro Licence to actually manage a club. So Brendan is safe for at least the next 4 years I reckon  !

 

In terms of tactics where this comes from, and you are going to laugh at this, is that I make video games (well actually mobile games) for a living, which is what my start-up is. Many years ago I was working on a football management game that was ultimately canned, but we wanted to accurately replicate the tactics used in real football in a game. So how do you go about solving that problem? Well we thought it would be a good idea to ask some real coaches to talk us through the tactical side of the game! So that's what we did, we got some fairly well known coaches from academies in to quiz them about it, as well as some other people that had tactical backgrounds such as Michael Cox. As you can imagine this was a massive insight for us and it made me realise how in depth it can go. Many of the ones we spoke to really drilled into us the importance of positioning, passing triangles, defensive blocks, shifting the opposition around, etc and how they spend years drilling into players where to stand at what times and how difficult it can be. 

 

I only started writing about it on here because I got fed up of hearing people at the ground and on the site complaining about only playing Jamie Vardy up front, when most top European clubs have only been playing one up top for the past 10 years! So I thought I'd write about it, and here we are. Just because you have one player up front doesn't mean you can't be an attacking team. Man City sometimes play with zero strikers and 6 attacking midfielders the absolute madmen for example.

 

I can see why tactics aren't for everyone, because it can be super dull when explained by the wrong person. I hope that's not me! But it can be interesting, especially when you see innovation in the game. Bielsa, Guardiola, Klopp have all been massively influential in recent years and changed the way football is played. Even Chris Wilder at a less prestigious team is bringing something fresh to football with the way he uses centre backs. Should make our game against them quite interesting to watch! 

[egg_fried_rice]

8 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

Thank you! Very kind of you good sir.

 

I've got a level 2 FA badge and have done some coaching in the past, which means I could study for the UEFA B coaching badge. But in all honesty I can't see myself getting the time to do this for a long time as you have to be actively coaching in order to do it, and I don't do that anymore as I started up a company with some friends and former colleagues some 12 months ago. Also that badge still doesn't go into 11 a side and tactical coaching, which is the UEFA A coaching badge which would be another 2 years to do. But if you do all of that, then you can go up to assistant manager in the Premier League I believe, though you need a Pro Licence to actually manage a club. So Brendan is safe for at least the next 4 years I reckon  !

 

In terms of tactics where this comes from, and you are going to laugh at this, is that I make video games (well actually mobile games) for a living, which is what my start-up is. Many years ago I was working on a football management game that was ultimately canned, but we wanted to accurately replicate the tactics used in real football in a game. So how do you go about solving that problem? Well we thought it would be a good idea to ask some real coaches to talk us through the tactical side of the game! So that's what we did, we got some fairly well known coaches from academies in to quiz them about it, as well as some other people that had tactical backgrounds such as Michael Cox. As you can imagine this was a massive insight for us and it made me realise how in depth it can go. Many of the ones we spoke to really drilled into us the importance of positioning, passing triangles, defensive blocks, shifting the opposition around, etc and how they spend years drilling into players where to stand at what times and how difficult it can be. 

 

I only started writing about it on here because I got fed up of hearing people at the ground and on the site complaining about only playing Jamie Vardy up front, when most top European clubs have only been playing one up top for the past 10 years! So I thought I'd write about it, and here we are. Just because you have one player up front doesn't mean you can't be an attacking team. Man City sometimes play with zero strikers and 6 attacking midfielders the absolute madmen for example.

 

I can see why tactics aren't for everyone, because it can be super dull when explained by the wrong person. I hope that's not me! But it can be interesting, especially when you see innovation in the game. Bielsa, Guardiola, Klopp have all been massively influential in recent years and changed the way football is played. Even Chris Wilder at a less prestigious team is bringing something fresh to football with the way he uses centre backs. Should make our game against them quite interesting to watch! 

Being able to understand tactics is one thing, but being able to communicate them in an engaging way is another and something you excel at. Keep up the good posts!

[Muzzy_Larsson]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

That's one of the reasons I posted his quotes, as it's quite interesting to here him say that. What I think he means is that he sees Maddison as a "10", whereas Tielemans and Praet are "8's." An attacking midfielder to Rodgers is an 8.

 

What that means is that an 8 is more one of those "run the game" types. Not so much goals and assists, but the assist to the assist. Think Xavi and Iniesta as the very best of this category, but even someone like Paul Scholes. They might not necessarily get a huge amount of goals or assists, but when you watch a team play, these type of players are often the reason between victory and defeat. If he says we need another one... I see his point because in games where Youri was quiet the team felt very flat. He's a great player but only 22 and isn't yet able to do it every single week, though I feel he will be able to do that in the next 2-3 years. 

 

At the end of the day we will see what he means as the season progresses, but I really rate Rodgers as a coach. He is very tactically astute and switched on and whilst in the past I do think he believed his own hype a bit too much, I think in general he has proved he's got the chops. Fascinated to see how an entire season under him goes.

 

 

Exactly how he set up at Celtic, three central midfielders in a triangle, two sitting deeper and one at the head of the triangle pretty much playing as a 10 who was more often or not Rogic or McGregor.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

That's one of the reasons I posted his quotes, as it's quite interesting to here him say that. What I think he means is that he sees Maddison as a "10", whereas Tielemans and Praet are "8's." An attacking midfielder to Rodgers is an 8.

 

What that means is that an 8 is more one of those "run the game" types. Not so much goals and assists, but the assist to the assist. Think Xavi and Iniesta as the very best of this category, but even someone like Paul Scholes. They might not necessarily get a huge amount of goals or assists, but when you watch a team play, these type of players are often the reason between victory and defeat. If he says we need another one... I see his point because in games where Youri was quiet the team felt very flat. He's a great player but only 22 and isn't yet able to do it every single week, though I feel he will be able to do that in the next 2-3 years. 

 

At the end of the day we will see what he means as the season progresses, but I really rate Rodgers as a coach. He is very tactically astute and switched on and whilst in the past I do think he believed his own hype a bit too much, I think in general he has proved he's got the chops. Fascinated to see how an entire season under him goes.

 

 

Maddison and Tielemans dovetailed almost perfectly together under Rodgers as advanced central midfielders, as soon as he changed it in a 4-3-3 we looked nowhere near as threatening, although we were playing Man City and Chelsea. The fear is if we don't have 4 attacking players getting in to the box then we won't score anywhere near enough for where we want to be.

[The Bear]

16 hours ago, STUHILL said:

Maguire really wasn't that great for us last season. Evans and Morgan pairing had better stats! 

 

7 hours ago, Haywood_6 said:

A weaker defence he says.

 

Just to be clear here. I'm not saying your defence will necessarily be weaker on Sunday. I was simply responding in kind to this post that seems to think it will be as easy as last season because that's how it happened then. 

 

16 hours ago, dylanlegend said:

What’s wrong with people? There team is basically the same as last year and we beat them 2-0 at home.

 

No way would I be happy with a draw at home. Nice 4-2 win for me 

 

And no matter how well he played last season, Maguire has been a key player for you for a while now, and you don't know for sure how Soyuncu will step up yet. So that is a question mark compared to last season, that's all. He might be fantastic. He might not. I hope he does well for you, just not on Sunday. 

[The Bear]

Anyway, back to the game. How is Rodgers gonna be setting you up? 

 

Is it a 4-4-2 diamond, or more of a 4-2-3-1? Or even a 4-3-3 with wider strikers off Vardy? 

 

What has he done in your pre-season games? 

[spacemunky]

1 minute ago, The Bear said:

Anyway, back to the game. How is Rodgers gonna be setting you up? 

 

Is it a 4-4-2 diamond, or more of a 4-2-3-1? Or even a 4-3-3 with wider strikers off Vardy? 

 

What has he done in your pre-season games? 

 

Like anyone here is going to tell you that!

[rachhere]

7 minutes ago, The Bear said:

Anyway, back to the game. How is Rodgers gonna be setting you up? 

 

Is it a 4-4-2 diamond, or more of a 4-2-3-1? Or even a 4-3-3 with wider strikers off Vardy? 

 

What has he done in your pre-season games? 

I think the diamond is a work in progress, and considering that HM has moved on and Praet only just come in, I personally would like to see us stick to basics a bit, and go with the tried and tested 4-3-3. (Our last couple of games were using a diamond though, if I recall correctly). I am going to work on the basis that Brendan agrees! 

 

I would be expecting him to go with:

 

Kasper

Ric Evans Lord F Chilwell

Youri Hamza Maddison

Perez Vards Albrighton

[StriderHiryu]

10 minutes ago, The Bear said:

Anyway, back to the game. How is Rodgers gonna be setting you up? 

 

Is it a 4-4-2 diamond, or more of a 4-2-3-1? Or even a 4-3-3 with wider strikers off Vardy? 

 

What has he done in your pre-season games? 

We played 433 versus Atalanta who also play 3 at the back, so that's most likely. Their system is very different to yours though as they man mark midfielders when they run their high press, it took our team quite a while to get used to it and in fact Atalanta played us off the park for the first 30. They were very interesting to watch, and also very good! Think they might surprise a team or two in Europe this year, though I expect they will go down to the Europa League after the group stages.

 

Now that Praet has come in you never know, maybe he will be thrust straight into the team! Reckon that's a bit too cavalier though, so most likely will be tried and trusted 433.

[Ric Flair]

10 minutes ago, The Bear said:

Anyway, back to the game. How is Rodgers gonna be setting you up? 

 

Is it a 4-4-2 diamond, or more of a 4-2-3-1? Or even a 4-3-3 with wider strikers off Vardy? 

 

What has he done in your pre-season games? 

We specifically chose Atalanta as our last friendly as they play in a similar formation to you and we lined up in a 4-3-3 / 4-1-4-1 formation. 

 

What's difficult for you is we are a complete different team to what you played last season, we will press very high and look to turn it over in your final 3rd which is harder to do against wing backs but if it's done then the 3 centre halves can be exposed quite quickly. Perez will be the most difficult player to pick up, very good at pressing and winning the ball and will drift all over the gaff.

[StriderHiryu]

22 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

Maddison and Tielemans dovetailed almost perfectly together under Rodgers as advanced central midfielders, as soon as he changed it in a 4-3-3 we looked nowhere near as threatening, although we were playing Man City and Chelsea. The fear is if we don't have 4 attacking players getting in to the box then we won't score anywhere near enough for where we want to be.

Totally agree with you there. Though I felt we played a decent containment game against those teams, I felt like we were never going to score in a month of Sundays. Will be interesting to see what he does in game 2, as we got a win at the Bridge last season.

 

As controversial as this will sound, I actually think against the bigger teams, Puel set us up better!   (The counter attack was on more often)

 

I do understand what he was trying though, and using those games to see how the team would respond so he knew who he needed to sign / what adjustments he had to make might pay off big time this time round. One can hope!

[murphy]

56 minutes ago, The Bear said:

Anyway, back to the game. How is Rodgers gonna be setting you up? 

 

Is it a 4-4-2 diamond, or more of a 4-2-3-1? Or even a 4-3-3 with wider strikers off Vardy? 

 

What has he done in your pre-season games? 

 

I hope it's not the diamond.  I don't like it and I don't think we're ready for it.  Hopefully the formation that we ended last season with 4-3-3.

 

I can't pick a winner really.  I think that Wolves will be a handful.  What is the feeling among Wolves fans going into the game?

[Tom12345]

3 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

That's one of the reasons I posted his quotes, as it's quite interesting to here him say that. What I think he means is that he sees Maddison as a "10", whereas Tielemans and Praet are "8's." An attacking midfielder to Rodgers is an 8.

 

What that means is that an 8 is more one of those "run the game" types. Not so much goals and assists, but the assist to the assist. Think Xavi and Iniesta as the very best of this category, but even someone like Paul Scholes. They might not necessarily get a huge amount of goals or assists, but when you watch a team play, these type of players are often the reason between victory and defeat. If he says we need another one... I see his point because in games where Youri was quiet the team felt very flat. He's a great player but only 22 and isn't yet able to do it every single week, though I feel he will be able to do that in the next 2-3 years. 

 

At the end of the day we will see what he means as the season progresses, but I really rate Rodgers as a coach. He is very tactically astute and switched on and whilst in the past I do think he believed his own hype a bit too much, I think in general he has proved he's got the chops. Fascinated to see how an entire season under him goes.

 

 

I think he sees Maddison as being too much of a dribbler and often delays that pass one or two seconds longer than he should (or underhits or overhits the pass). Sometimes he gets it right but his final ball still needs a lot of work and more consistency. I think Rodgers likes players such as Albrighton and Barnes more because they are more direct and simple. They try to make that killer pass when they can and therefore are more threatening. As we saw last season, Barnes for example was always on the verge of something exciting. Maddison is still young and can become a great player but he is more suited as a holding type player playing deeper for now while Tielemans and Barnes can play further forward.

 

Ideally, I like to see Rodgers try this first:

 

Vardy

 

Perez (just behind Vardy but free to be second forward)

 

Barnes and Albrighton (left and right wings)

 

Tielemans (roaming down the middle behind Perez)

 

Maddison/Praet/Ndidi/Hamza (prefer we try Hamza first)

 

Chilwell, Evans, Cags and Pereira

 

Schmeichel

 

PS. I somehow see Barnes being dropped to the bench unfortunately.

Edited 9 August 2019 by Tom12345

[Countryfox]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

Thank you! Very kind of you good sir.

 

I've got a level 2 FA badge and have done some coaching in the past, which means I could study for the UEFA B coaching badge. But in all honesty I can't see myself getting the time to do this for a long time as you have to be actively coaching in order to do it, and I don't do that anymore as I started up a company with some friends and former colleagues some 12 months ago. Also that badge still doesn't go into 11 a side and tactical coaching, which is the UEFA A coaching badge which would be another 2 years to do. But if you do all of that, then you can go up to assistant manager in the Premier League I believe, though you need a Pro Licence to actually manage a club. So Brendan is safe for at least the next 4 years I reckon  !

 

In terms of tactics where this comes from, and you are going to laugh at this, is that I make video games (well actually mobile games) for a living, which is what my start-up is. Many years ago I was working on a football management game that was ultimately canned, but we wanted to accurately replicate the tactics used in real football in a game. So how do you go about solving that problem? Well we thought it would be a good idea to ask some real coaches to talk us through the tactical side of the game! So that's what we did, we got some fairly well known coaches from academies in to quiz them about it, as well as some other people that had tactical backgrounds such as Michael Cox. As you can imagine this was a massive insight for us and it made me realise how in depth it can go. Many of the ones we spoke to really drilled into us the importance of positioning, passing triangles, defensive blocks, shifting the opposition around, etc and how they spend years drilling into players where to stand at what times and how difficult it can be. 

 

I only started writing about it on here because I got fed up of hearing people at the ground and on the site complaining about only playing Jamie Vardy up front, when most top European clubs have only been playing one up top for the past 10 years! So I thought I'd write about it, and here we are. Just because you have one player up front doesn't mean you can't be an attacking team. Man City sometimes play with zero strikers and 6 attacking midfielders the absolute madmen for example.

 

I can see why tactics aren't for everyone, because it can be super dull when explained by the wrong person. I hope that's not me! But it can be interesting, especially when you see innovation in the game. Bielsa, Guardiola, Klopp have all been massively influential in recent years and changed the way football is played. Even Chris Wilder at a less prestigious team is bringing something fresh to football with the way he uses centre backs. Should make our game against them quite interesting to watch! 

 

Hmmmm ..   very interesting indeed.  We have our own resident coach on the forum ...   a certain Izzy Muzzett ( @Izzy ), who also has great experience on the coaching/tactical side of the game, albeit with very very small players ...   maybe you could pm him for help and advice ...    hopefully this might well take you to the next level more speedily ...    

[Spudulike]