Good evening threadsters, Halfy’s apprentice, GeminMallorca once again brings you all the talking points on the day before the main event, the world famous Match Day Thread ©
So off we go again, the 4th game in our 2 week run of 5 and Wolves again hit the road, this time heading for the land of the carrot crunchers, Norwich City.
Coming on the back of a hard fought victory at home to Preston, a moral victory at the Etihad where the B string and kids almost upset Pep Guardiola’s apple cart and a disappointing loss away at QPR, Nuno now has to decide whether to stick or twist with his squad.
Against Preston and QPR Nuno went with arguably his strongest line up but he gave them a rest for the Man City game where nine of the fringe players had their chance to shine. And shine they did, very brightly. For this game, coming just 3 days after the QPR match, Nuno may well opt to again, rest some of his stars, particularly with the televised game at home to Fulham coming up on Friday. This would once again give the likes of Vinagre, N’Diaye, Price, Boly, Enobakhare and possibly, one or two more some useful game time. One player who will not feature is Romain Saiss who is suspended following his 5th booking at QPR.
Norwich City’s league results have not been all that their fans would have hoped for. Whilst only having lost 4 games, all but one of their 6 wins have been by a nail biting one goal margin. However, their results are good enough to see them currently sitting in 8th place in the league, just 7 points behind Wolves. With 14 of The Canaries 22 points have been earned on the road with only 2 wins and 2 draws at home, Daniel Farke will be hoping that his sides’ home form takes a turn for the better when Nuno’s boys come calling full of confidence.
The last time Wolves lost a league game they bounced back with a convincing win and the Wolves faithful will be hoping to see that repeated at Carrow Road.
Current form stats show that in the last 5 games Wolves have won 3 and lost 2. Norwich have won 2, drawn 2 and lost 1.
Gem’prediction: Norwich 1 Wolves 2
Norwich v Wolves match preview
posted on 30/10/17
Apart from 3 points my biggest hope tomorrow is that we start to see the Costa of last season. A front three of him Bonatini and Jota looks a bit of a dream team at this level if they were all firing.
posted on 30/10/17
Costa still looked way off his best last Tuesday so can't see him having improved to that level in a week. I fully agree when they are all fully fit and playing well, it will be really pleasing on the eyeballs 👀
posted on 30/10/17
Another point of interest will be see if N'Diaye grabs this opportunity with both hands. Is it his first full game? I think it is and if he performs as well as he has at times this season, Saiss might be struggling to get his place back.
posted on 30/10/17
I thought N'diaye looked good against City, real powerhouse of a player
posted on 30/10/17
I think Saiss has done well in most games this season but I think N'Diaye maybe has a bit more to his game. He gets up and down the pitch really quickly with his long powerful strides.
Saiss is also lacking a bit technically in that he is very one footed with his passing, everything coming off his left. There was quite a comical moment on Saturday when the ball was running away from him on his right but he still tried to knock it downfield with his left. You could tell well before he played it that it would end up in the grandstand and sure enough it did.
posted on 30/10/17
comment by GeminMallorca (U18318)
posted 3 hours, 58 minutes ago
Another point of interest will be see if N'Diaye grabs this opportunity with both hands. Is it his first full game? I think it is and if he performs as well as he has at times this season, Saiss might be struggling to get his place back.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
N'diaye has started twice for us in the league and played 90 mins gem, we drew 3-3 with Bristol and lost to Sheffield Utd.
As I have said before, I think N'diaye gives us a little more going forward but we lose an element of control in midfield in general, or at least that has been the case so far.
Saiss overall has been excellent and has been on a par with Neves just about every week and out done him a few times, it just seems he is the easier to close down of the two when a game isn't going our way and he gets much more easily distracted and niggly.
Would still rather we played 4-2-3-1 to be honest
posted on 31/10/17
Bit confused about what motivated Farke's comments on the respective models of team building at Wolves and Norwich:
“When I compare Wolves with us they can engage a really experienced goalkeeper in John Ruddy,” he said.
“We had Angus Gunn, who had never played in the Championship. Compare the midfield situation – they bought (Ruben) Neves for £15m from Porto, a 20-year-old who captained Porto at 17.
“He is a key player for them. Our key player is James Maddison, 20 as well, but he had never played in the Championship starting line up.
“Now I like our way, I wouldn’t change it and I am convinced it is the right way.
“I want to work with James Maddison and Angus Gunn, brilliant guys, but two very different ways. “Our way we chose to go with developing young players and build something for the future. Look at the heart of our side on Saturday – James, Harrison Reed, 22, and Tom Trybull, 24.
“We want to go down this path. Wolves have a high quality team. You only need to look at the value of the players on their bench. It is a big task but we will be rebellious again.
“We are hungry for this.”
https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/wolverhampton-wanderers-fc/2017/10/30/norwich-v-wolves-preview-tough-test-against-angry-canaries/
At basically the same time Norwich were tweeting a message in support of Kemes:
https://twitter.com/NorwichCityFC/status/925074834614239232
But Farke is moaning about us having the money (and strategy) to sign Ruddy....you mean the guy who is between the sticks whilst our academy graduate is on sick leave, Daniel? The guy that was nurtured at Wolves and then featured in our first team for a decade?
Ummm...and then there's the 17 yr old who just landed back in the UK with a world cup under his arm who already has at least half a dozen appearances for our first team...not developing him are we..?
Or our right wing back who arrived for peanuts as a young guy, got a full debut against Liverpool in the Premier League and has been a regular performer for years since?
Or the skipper who came through the academy and recently played his 200th game? Or the 18 year old left wing back who'd never played in the championship or at senior level anywhere before getting a chance at Wolves this season.
I mean, WTF?!
Doesn't seem like very effective mind games so is he trying to con his own board?
posted on 31/10/17
To be honest his comments seem to be those of a drunken man rambling.
posted on 31/10/17
Because of the amount of money we have spent we are going to get comments from other clubs like this. We are the championship equivalent of Man City and Chelsea and they have been regularly slated for buying success. There’s lots of rubbish in what Farke is saying but we’re going to have to get used to it, and teams will feel extra motivated to turn us over as qpr were on Saturday
posted on 31/10/17
you can only respect farke's principles in not wanting to be at a super rich top club .... oh, hang on, hasn't he come from dortmund, second richest club in germany who have spent £84 mill this summer ........