1 hour ago, abramovich said:

Speaking of which, when was the last time we scored from a corner kick? How many of our goals came from corners so far this season? 

I genuinely can't remember.

Luiz with a bullet header after Giroud did some clever maneuvering is the last I remember though which match is anyone's guess.

I dont blame Sarri for this one. We call for RLC and CHO, they did not start but were his first two subs, neither pulled up trees and with 20 minutes to go he changed his system and pulled Jorginho for Willian. He showed flexability at last and Hazard gave us a moment of magic to get a point. Wolves came to spoil the game, nothing wrong with that but we are not best withut Costa or Drogba to break down those teams. We fought first minute to last. The ball did not break for us. By United standards we should have had a pen for the handball the player kicked on to his own outstretched hand and the hazard one could easily have been given as a pen rather than free kick. Higuain was centermeters from a tap in, and on another day dave blocks their goal not deflects it in. We were unlucky. We dominated them and deserved to win and Sarri showed ambition with his changes. I thought he and the team handled the game very well and tried to the last against a fine team with a solid game plan

2 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

. What I will say is that the sacking of Conte is being shown to be the biggest mistake during Abramovich's time at the club.

The shadow of Torres and Shevchencko hang over statement and then there is Carlo, surely he deserved another season.

 

did anymore Legends show up for this match?

We dominated possession, again.

Wolves are well drilled and organised and credit to them for that.

Don't quite know how Higuaín missed his chance, when it fell to him at the back post from the corner in the second half.

Thought an equaliser was never going to come.

Oh me of little faith.

 Thanks Eden Hazard, for the equalising goal in time added on.

7 minutes ago, robdog said:

did anymore Legends show up for this match?

Neither look happy , it would have been great to see their reactions after Hazards equaliser.

1 minute ago, Strider6003 said:

Neither look happy , it would have been great to see their reactions after Hazards equaliser.

both probably were thinking, "if I were out there, I would've had 3 goals already" 

38 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

The shadow of Torres and Shevchencko hang over statement and then there is Carlo, surely he deserved another season.

 

Love Carlo but he didn't win an FA Cup in his last season with arguably the worst squad of the Abramovich era.

38 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

The shadow of Torres and Shevchencko hang over statement and then there is Carlo, surely he deserved another season.

 

Love Carlo but he didn't win an FA Cup in his last season with arguably the worst squad of the Abramovich era.

5 hours ago, ItsEssexRob said:

We cant. A good result against Spurs, and a resolute display vs City in the final doesn't change that we have been woeful for  ages now.

Sometimes you have to just accept that a certain manager or player isnt cut out for either the elite level, or for a certain league, and from what we have seen Sarri and  some of his signings appear  to fall into that category.

Can't and don't often enough are two different things. 

30 minutes ago, robdog said:

did anymore Legends show up for this match?

Just me. 

I said on the top 4 thread that us and all our peers will drop points unpredictably and today was one of those days.   Wolves are a dangerous side and very physical today and defended in numbers after getting a fortunate goal. We didn't give up and kept going. Sarri made positive subs although I would like to have seen Giroud on for this one. If Utd and Arsenal do conjure up a draw we are still in the same position. 

I think playing Sarriball against Wolves didn't help. Many times we have the ball in front of Wolves box and we kept on passing it around when we should have tried to threaten them by attempting a shot on goal. Even when our wingers get the ball instead of crossing the ball into the box, most times we chose to pass from the wings back to the midfielder again. I think Sarriball is really boring with our players. The only positive for me today is the substitutions. It's much positive than what we have been seeing from the beginning of the season.

11 minutes ago, wallosh said:

5 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

I said on the top 4 thread that us and all our peers will drop points unpredictably and today was one of those days.   Wolves are a dangerous side and very physical today and defended in numbers after getting a fortunate goal. We didn't give up and kept going. Sarri made positive subs although I would like to have seen Giroud on for this one. If Utd and Arsenal do conjure up a draw we are still in the same position. 

I think playing Sarriball against Wolves didn't help. Many times we have the ball in front of Wolves box and we kept on passing it around when we should have tried to threaten them by attempting a shot on goal. Even when our wingers get the ball instead of crossing the ball into the box, most times we chose to pass from the wings back to the midfielder again. I think Sarriball is really boring with our players. The only positive for me today is the substitutions. It's much positive than what we have been seeing from the beginning of the season.

I thought they defended cleverly around the box denying us space for shots though only saw from 66 mins onwards.

I think a lot of fans often believe we have a divine right to win every game. Wolves are a well drilled side with dangerous players. They came to sit back and hit us on the counter. They did it with a stroke of fortune. They did f**k all for the rest of the game. They have a great record vs our rivals and on today's form, I don't think our rivals would have done any better. In these games you need a bit of genius to get a goal or win the game. I very much doubt we face another team as tough defensively for the rest of the season. 

4 hours ago, Spiller86 said:

Agreed just. It's a bad setup, particularly when your players don't press from the front. We know Hazard just doesn't run without the ball and the pressing of others is inconsistent.

We're trying to shoehorn a tactical system onto a set of players ill suited for it. But again we knew this would be his approach, we hired him specifically for this approach. Yet we didn't understand enough about football to know what personnel were required to make it work.

Sarri made good changes today after we conceded and tried different things, but there remains the question of why we didn't play before conceding, if we were moving the ball too slow, why did we do that for 56 minutes.

I won't throw Sarri under the bus because largely the same people who are condemning Sarri now are the same ones who carried on about 'Sufferball' last year. Those people should have a look at themselves. What I will say is that the sacking of Conte is being shown to be the biggest mistake during Abramovich's time at the club.

I think this is a fair point although personally i think the mistake was not backing Conte with the players to take us on. The attitude adopted by him after that warranted sacking eventually. If the board had properly backed him perhaps the second season's attitude issues may never have occurred.

Another sh*t performance...you wouldn't have known that top four was a possibility again...played as if they were mid-table...only time we played with pace and urgency you'd expect was after hazard's late equaliser. Not good enough

Edited March 11, 20197 yr by The Brit

4 hours ago, enigma said:

I think a lot of fans often believe we have a divine right to win every game. Wolves are a well drilled side with dangerous players. They came to sit back and hit us on the counter. They did it with a stroke of fortune. They did f**k all for the rest of the game. They have a great record vs our rivals and on today's form, I don't think our rivals would have done any better. In these games you need a bit of genius to get a goal or win the game. I very much doubt we face another team as tough defensively for the rest of the season. 

You and the same posters keep banging on about this divine right rubbish, earlier someone said something about us fans have the divine right to win the league. What a load of bs, might as well come out with the plastic fans etc.

11 hours ago, axman2526 said:

I dont blame Sarri for this one. We call for RLC and CHO, they did not start but were his first two subs, neither pulled up trees and with 20 minutes to go he changed his system and pulled Jorginho for Willian. 

I thought CHO did well when he came on, kept looking to take on his man to create some space and put in a lot of decent crosses.

RLC too did alright, was pushing up to the opposition area and driving at it as much as he could.

Trouble is both are being introduced when the team is already losing so everything is instantly more desperate and frantic and being attacking players they’ve got to take more risks when they come on to try and change the game in our favour.

Sarri starting Kovacic against Wolves at home just doesn’t make sense. It’s putting the goal scoring responsibilities on the front three and makes us easier to defend against.

I was happy to see the shift to 4-2-3-1 but again it’s so late in the game. Why not start with that formation? We knew Wolves we’re going to set up deep so why not load the team with as many attackers as we can to unlock their defence? You can then have the midfield two sitting deeper with the centre backs and lessens the vulnerability to the counter attack.

29 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

I thought CHO did well when he came on, kept looking to take on his man to create some space and put in a lot of decent crosses.

RLC too did alright, was pushing up to the opposition area and driving at it as much as he could.

Trouble is both are being introduced when the team is already losing so everything is instantly more desperate and frantic and being attacking players they’ve got to take more risks when they come on to try and change the game in our favour.

Sarri starting Kovacic against Wolves at home just doesn’t make sense. It’s putting the goal scoring responsibilities on the front three and makes us easier to defend against.

I was happy to see the shift to 4-2-3-1 but again it’s so late in the game. Why not start with that formation? We knew Wolves we’re going to set up deep so why not load the team with as many attackers as we can to unlock their defence? You can then have the midfield two sitting deeper with the centre backs and lessens the vulnerability to the counter attack.

Probably because Sarri's a one trick pony who got found out in a better league where the game is faster and more physical and managers quickly adapt to whatever tactical approach you come up with. The most infuriating thing about it is that he's seemingly clueless as to how to make any adjustments, no matter how long the crisis is taking. 

He's been playing the same lineup all season long and they're still struggling to figure out what is it they're doing out there. He's not up to it, this is a high pressure job in a a very competitive league, and he's not a good fit.

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

I was happy to see the shift to 4-2-3-1 but again it’s so late in the game. Why not start with that formation? 

I agree, it's got to be worth a try for a couple of matches.

However, after the match Sarri said 4-2-3-1 doesn't suit Jorginho.

So, does Sarri choose the formation that's best for the team or the formation that best for Jorginho?

I think I have an idea which option he'll choose.

I had a lightbulb moment during this game, and I don’t mean turning off the light and sitting in a darkened room as soon as I saw that Jorginho and Kovachik were playing .... again! No, it occurred when Azpi received the ball for the umpteenth time in a dangerous position with loads of space and time in their half, and I realised that’s exactly what our opponents want as they know nothing is going to happen! He either crosses into the box where we have one ineffectual striker waiting for it, or he recycles across the box to the left side where it happens again until ... nothing happens! Not his fault, but there has to be an alternative way of mounting an attack against a block defence ... I suppose better players might be the answer ... I think we may already have them but they can’t get into this side!!!

 

Have to credit Wolves' performance yesterday. But for our late equaliser it would have been the perfect away performance. 

I think they nullified us brilliantly and as a result we were lucky to get a point. I don't think we did enough to deserve to win the game. I will say however that i think we should have had a pen for handball in the first half. 

My only issue with our performance yesterday was that it didn't seem that there was much urgency. We went 1-0 down around the 60th minute and didn't really show any urgency until about the 88th minute. Had we gone for it a bit sooner we might have turned it around, who knows.

Overall i don't think there is much shame in dropping points against Wolves. They are comfortably the best side outside of the top 6 and have taken points off most of the other top sides this season.

Agree on the best side out of the top 6.

Just checked some of their results

Wolves have held Arsenal and Utd away, they held Man City at home and they beat Spurs 3-1 away. Also knocked Liverpool out of the FA Cup.

Also we played them in a Europa week so they had more time to prepare.

 

 

Incredibly disappointing, just showed again why we don't deserve a top 4 spot. We looked poor prepared against a well organized defence, surely we knew what's coming, right? It's not like any team outside the top 6 will play open football against us at any ground, let alone at the Bridge. We coasted through the first 45, just about put everyone to asleep, Sarri didnt do a single thing at half time, should have made a change if he's serious about winning this game. Second half more of the same, until we conceded. The Kante vs Jorginho debat is getting old, but if we look Pep's possession team and Barcalona in general, the deepest midfielder is always a capable defender, that's how you could afford others to push high up without getting killed on counters every game. We got Jorginho in that position, enough said, opposition just walked past him again. To Sarri's credit, he made some good changes for once and even took off Jorginho, only took him about 40 games to realize that sometime keep it simple is the best way against a packed defence. Higuain is just most people expected, he's done. He scored 3 against the worst 2 teams in the league, but couldn't force Gks making a decent save against better opponents. With that much possession, I'd say any decent striker would get on the end of something, he's literally non existent. Even Giroud would have been much more useful against deep defence line with his power and aerial threat. It's scary to think we will get a full season of Higuain after summer. Let's not make any excuses, Wolves has lost plenty of games this season, they are not some once in a life time good defensive team, they just decided to defend for once, and we couldn't do sh1t about it.

Edited March 11, 20197 yr by icecoolguy22