Friday night lights: Wolves Away

[Frogfish]

Wolves don't concede many goals but don't score that many either. Most of their games seem to be won/lost by the odd goal.

We will need to watch their midfield closely with Moutinho and especially Neves, a player I rate very highly indeed, he'll be at a top top team sooner rather than later, capable of very creative and powerful attacks. Coady is doing really well in the centre of their defence. Good lad.

Klopp said Millie is ready now and TAA will be ready for Newcastle. I expect Clyne to stay at RB and Milner to come in. I'd be surprised not to Hendo make the team but would be happy if Gini stays in there with Fabinho and Hendo can rotate in vs. Newcastle at home. Keita does more defensive work than Shaq. and also wins back the ball in midfield, so I'd keep him in but I'm not sure Klopp will. In the end though the choice, and formation, will depend on whether Milner makes the starting lineup and whether keita is retained. If Hendo and Milner come in Keita and Gini will go out.

----------------------------- Becker

Clyne -------- Lovren ------------- VvD ------------- Robbo

---------------------------- Fabinho

-----------------Milner------------------ Keita

Salah ------------------ Firmino ---------------- Mane

 

[Modo]

Klopp said Millie is ready now and TAA will be ready for Newcastle. I expect Clyne to stay at RB and Milner to come in.

I really hope Klopp brings Clyne back into the fold, I mean I'd rather have him on the bench as back up than Moreno.

 

[doctor_mac]

Clyne did really well, admittedly against an utterly toothless Utd, but he's definitely earned another start.

 

[rurikbird]

Here's my two cents on Wolves and how to beat them.

• They usually play in a kind of 5-2-3 formation, with 3 CBs (our former Academy graduate Coady in the middle, Boly at LCB and Bennett RCB), wing-backs, two CMs and 3 attacking players. Here was the formation against Chelsea, but it's not represented entirely correctly – Coady and Boly should be swapped, as well as Jimenez and Jota.
  
  Neves was suspended for that game.
  
• Their style of play against top teams (I watched the game against Man City and most of the game vs Chelsea) is quite different to how they play against the rest of the league. There is a reason why their results against top teams are so good – because their game is almost perfectly set up to make life difficult for them. They defend in a very compact formation, leaving almost no space between the lines (which masks one of their main weaknesses, more on that later). The front 3 are impressively diligent in defense, with the likes of Jimenez and Jota dropping surprisingly deep to try to pressure and win the ball. They also press high with a lot of energy, very much gegenpressing style, and rely on winning the ball through counter-pressing as their main way of creating scoring chances (against top teams).
• The attacking style is based on quick counters, using good understanding between the quick and technically excellent forwards, and also on delivery from the wings, which is also usually very good. The reliance on wing-play, crossing and attacking on both sides at once – making the pitch as wide as possible – shows clear traits of Portuguese style, which is obviously not surprising given they are coached by a Portuguese and have a lot of players coming from that league. In fact, their counter-attacking style of play with the quick and hard-working front 3 and a compact defense is very reminiscent of Mourinho's first Chelsea team.
• The big difference with Mourinho's Chelsea is obviously a formation with 3 at the back. I am sure the main reason for this is that Wolves simply don't have CBs and full-backs who are individually strong and reliable enough to allow them to play with a back 4 (I think this is why Mourinho, may he rest in peace, played with a back 5 at United this season as well). They are compensating for a relative lack of quality with numbers, which leads to having one less midfielder and thus an inability to control the game through possession (due to lack of numbers in midfield). So counter-attack is their best attacking weapon; they are not really set up for possession football despite having a number of excellent passers in the team – instead these passers such as Neves and Moutinho try to play the ball into space quickly to spring the front 3 into action.

How do you beat this set-up? It's definitely difficult to play against: the high press is somewhat disruptive even for great build-up teams like City and Chelsea, then once you get through this, the front 3 drops back deep and you have 11 men behind the ball and barely any space to operate. And they look to spring on the counter at every opportunity and are quite good at this. There are also secondary weapons like quality crosses from wing-backs, Neves's long-range shots, the rapid and unpredictable Traore off the bench and Bennett's Rory Delap style throw-ins (those are very annoying!). And the crowd at Molineux is extremely noisy and partisan, cheering every tackle and interception and sometimes affecting the referees (City got really robbed with a handball goal against them counted and a stonewall penalty turned down).

[2nd part coming up...]

 

[rurikbird]

[Part 2]

It's definitely not easy, but there are enough problems on the margins to take advantage of, provided you have enough quality and patience. Their CBs are either somewhat agricultural (Coady and Bennett) or positionally suspect (Boly, who tends to get sucked out of his position into challenges or following a player he is marking into no-man's land). The 2 CM's are not particularly good defenders individually and can be bypassed if the compactness between midfield and defense breaks down for any period of time; they also tend to commit obvious fouls and earn free-kicks and yellows. Patricio is a good shot-stopper, but has made quite a few mistakes coming off his line. And the attack was pretty blunt until recently, but now the striker Jimenez in an inspired run of form and Jota started performing well too, so the front 3 is probably their strongest line at this moment.

I think for us, the first order of business will be to establish control, not let the high press bother us in build up (will be a bit more difficult with Clyne and Lovren, who are not great at this) and to quiet the crowd, deliberately slowing down the tempo at times and speeding up periodically to put them under pressure. We should have a physical advantage in midfield with most midfield combinations and the threat of Salah and Mane's runs in behind should keep their CBs relatively deep, which means other lines will have to drop deep too to maintain compactness. If we can start with patience and control and gradually neutralize their threat on the counter, pushing them deeper and deeper into defense, then I'm relatively confident that we will eventually break them down. Even with compact lines, their defenders are not always proactive enough and the likes of Firmino, Shaqiri or Sturridge should be able to find small pockets of space between the lines to create some combinations that can lead to goal-scoring chances. And I can definitely see Firmino daring their CBs, particularly Boly, to follow him into midfield, with Salah and Mane exploiting the resulting space. I think it will be tougher in some way than United, but we should have enough quality and maturity to use those little problems to our advantage and prevail in the end.

In terms of personnel, the back 5 pretty much picks itself due to injuries. In midfield, I think Fabinho should be undroppable given his performance in the last game. Same goes for Shaqiri, which means we're looking at a 4-2-3-1. Gini would be a safe choice to partner Fabinho, but I would also be intrigued by the possibility of Henderson and Fabinho playing together – I think Hendo is our best midfielder at preventing counter-attacks, so this game might be the right one to try this combination (which successfully protected the lead against United BTW). In attack, somehow I have a temptation to start Sturridge and keep Salah for the last 20 minutes, but in the end this game is probably too tough and important to rest our best player. Sturridge might play an important role in the last 15-20 minutes though; similar to the Bournemouth game, he can be effective finding space between the lines, particularly against a tiring midfield.

4-2-3-1:
---------------Alisson-------------
-------Lovren------Van Dijk-----
Clyne----------------------Robbo
---------Fabinho--Hendo-------
Shaqiri-----Firmino-------Mane
----------------Salah---------------

Subs: Mignolet, Masterson, Milner, Wijnaldum, Keita, Lallana, Sturridge

 

[SummerOnions]

You'd rest a couple v Newcastle ideally (fresh for the nightmare Arsenal/City combo ahead)

Lovely analysis as always Rurik

 

[TSD]

Yep, great breakdown, rurik. They can get compact but they don't seem masterful at the low block from what I've seen of them, and we've more guile in our game these days to help overcome that. Agree Hendo is nailed on in place of Gini, although I think Keita starts with Shaq again reserved as a trump card off the bench, with his energy expended on overloading the middle perhaps, since their centre can be got at.

 

[KopRed]

What is this talk of resting players? Wolves are arguably more dangerous than United; well coached, play as a team, defensively sound, good couple of players.

We should only consider resting players if they are

1. By their own admission, tired.
2. Carrying knocks which could lead to bigger issues.
3. Doesn't perform as well in training, potentially due to them being tired but they do not consciously feel it.

Over-thinking otherwise and we are asking to be beaten.

 

[rurikbird]

What is this talk of resting players? Wolves are arguably more dangerous than United; well coached, play as a team, defensively sound, good couple of players.

We should only consider resting players if they are

1. By their own admission, tired.
2. Carrying knocks which could lead to bigger issues.
3. Doesn't perform as well in training, potentially due to them being tired but they do not consciously feel it.

Over-thinking otherwise and we are asking to be beaten.

You're right, of course. But you can't rest all of our front 4 against Newcastle, so if we had a deep squad like City's it would actually make sense to rest someone at Wolves, then play them against Newcastle and rest someone else. Or we can not rest anyone, but then we have no right to complain that Salah or Firmino doesn't look 100% fresh in every game.

So this is why I'm tempted to use Sturridge, but in the end probably I would still go with Salah.

 

[Modo]

Exactly, we should have the best possible team on the pitch against Wolves.
If any rotation is needed that should be done against Newcastle because we're playing Arsenal a few days after that.

 

[doctor_mac]

Great analysis Rurik. I think you make the case very clearly that this is a very tough fixture for us. This match screams banana skin.

 

[Fabio]

I worked out what it is

It's not my prostate tingling, it's high up the urethra that tingles when we're going to lose

And that's vibrating away like a sex toy in amsterdam

Definitely losing on friday

 

[darkstarexodus]

I worked out what it is

It's not my prostate tingling, it's high up the urethra that tingles when we're going to lose

And that's vibrating away like a sex toy in amsterdam

Definitely losing on friday

Dropping points for sure. Especially if I ditch work to watch

 

[doctor_mac]

I worked out what it is

It's not my prostate tingling, it's high up the urethra that tingles when we're going to lose

And that's vibrating away like a sex toy in amsterdam

Definitely losing on friday

I had that back in the day. Should have used a condom dude.

 

[Brizzle]

Our midfield is getting a nice rotation naturally at the moment which is important. I’d want full strength front 3 for this, rest one of them for Newcastle and rest another of them in the FA Cup. Keep it full strength for Arsenal & City.

I’m feeling ok about the energy levels of our team. Gini, Millie & Hendo getting good time to recharge.

 

[manwithnoname]

Fabio is making me nervous about this game, despite the fact that he’s said we’re going to lose in every one of our games so far this season

Dont fuck up our Xmas, Reds

 

[Holle]

I worked out what it is

It's not my prostate tingling, it's high up the urethra that tingles when we're going to lose

And that's vibrating away like a sex toy in amsterdam

Definitely losing on friday

It's your uterus, you fanny!

 

[Fabio]

It's your uterus, you fanny!

If anything it's my cervix

 

[Fabio]

Fabio is making me nervous about this game, despite the fact that he’s said we’re going to lose in every one of our games so far this season

Dont fuck up our Xmas, Reds

This time it's happening, guarantee it

 

[Frogfish]

This time it's happening, guarantee it

Law of averages eh.

 

[Fabio]

Law of averages eh.

There's nothing average about my urethra sir

 

[Frogfish]

There's nothing average about my urethra sir

LOL !

 

[keniget]

Dejan Lovren says Liverpool can go through season 'unbeaten'

We’re going to get beat.

 

[rurikbird]

Oh no, the Lovren curse. @doctor_mac, anything you can do?

 

[kingjulian]

Dejan Lovren should shut his gob. Each time he opens it, it has not ended well for us and especially for him...

What are the odds on him scoring a own goal?

 

[doctor_mac]

Oh no, the Lovren curse. @doctor_mac, anything you can do?

Oh no! The Lovren curse is beyond my powers. We're well fucked.

 

[rurikbird]

Oh no! The Lovren curse is beyond my powers. We're well fucked.

🙁

*whispers*
We just need to find a stronger wizard.

 

[Insignificance]

Oh no! The Lovren curse is beyond my powers. We're well fucked.

We are 100% fucked. First the Solskjær stuff which has been live covered minute by minute as the greatest sport achievement in Norwegian history (I kid you not, it has been said) and now Lovren. Of course I going to get my xmas ruined by all the press about how Solskjær is going to rebuild United and gather them and catch us. Unfuckingbearable, and now guaranteed about by the best Centreback in the world.

 

[Holle]

I hate the fucker.

 

[Modo]

Who is this best centerback in the world everyone's talking about?
Harry Maguire? [emoji3]