Matt1892

We should be going all out to tie him down to a contract extension, give him a 2 year deal on a bumper wage.

I disagree, we were out on our feet at one point and crying out for fresh legs. The thing for me is that if we knew we had three games in a week so why not freshen it up throughout that period? You could have had Livramento start against Palace and Targett start today.

I think there is a general acceptance that the extra fixtures and the difficulty of them would have an impact. However, you mitigate that by rotating the players you do have to best keep people fresh whilst putting a team out capable of beating the opposition. If you still refuse to rotate Trippier and Burn despite the schedule and spending a small fortune on 2 young players to fill those positions in the future, then you are inevitably going to end up with leggy performances like what they put in today and people will question that.

On the one hand you want Trippier on for his leadership but he keeps giving the ball away.

Harsh free kick.

I think we have controlled the game well for most of it, we have just been sloppy when clearing it and everything has bounced off Wilson. It wasn’t a penalty for me and if the ref hadn’t given it then VAR would never have called him over to look at it.

That isn’t a penalty either.

That isn’t a penalty.

We have been the better team since the goal.

How many passes has Trippier played straight to the opposition?

Pope didn’t do a lot wrong there, once he realised he couldn’t get it he dropped back to face up play. Trippier was the one that got beat to the ball.

Good save Pope, even if it was straight at him.

It feels like we are on top now and controlling the game.

Wolves are getting the run of the play, nearly every clearance is dropping to one of their players.

Wolves are not doing too bad this season considering the difficult start they have had and the players they lost in the summer which is a credit to the manager. We should still be beating teams like this if we have ambitions of a top four finish.

I’m conflicted on if he should receive his full wage whilst banned. On the one hand I think players are paid an obscene amount of money and he has been signed to these wages knowing that he was involved in an activity that would likely jeopardise his playing time here, with the other side being that there is a relationship to be maintained between the player and the club and if we do intend on him having a long and productive career here, there is no benefit to the club potentially damaging that by being seen to punish him for what could be a genuine addiction. The best outcome would be for him to agree to give up a portion of his wage during his ban and for it to be donated to good causes in the region, with Tonali playing an active role in supporting them in person.

It goes head to head.

Again against a quality team our flat midfield formation is left wanting in defence and attack. We really need to bring Willock on if he’s fit.

I put it down to the years of mediocrity that fans struggle with the concept of developing youth players and rotating them in to the team to get games under their belts, especially against teams that are inferior to us in nearly every position on the pitch. Anderson is fine and has played well when the team has played well when given extended minutes this season, there is also a bigger gap in quality between Trippier and Livramento than there is between Anderson and Longstaff.

The only way I can see us spending big money on a midfielder is if we always intended on doing that this window, I don’t see us going in a different direction because Tonali is out other than a loan or a cheap pick up. Arguably we need a defensive midfielder to sit with Bruno against the better teams so maybe we kill two birds and make that move in January.

It is a legitimate concern when you follow the logical steps. Maybe keep your gaslighting responses for your poor other half that has to tolerate you.

My concern is that this won’t be the end of it, as I am presuming that if he is a gambling addict that he didn’t stop betting on football once he signed for us, meaning the FA could still get involved with a separate ban for his time here. You would think that this would run concurrently but they took an age with Toney’s case that it might not.

He isn’t though, he just had a poor season when Leicester went down but was one of their better players prior to that. He nearly went to Bayern in the summer still and will likely get a decent move between now and next summer. If we could afford a top level player then fine but we can’t until at least the summer, I’m not sure if we would want to spend big on a CM even then.

It won’t be a popular suggestion on here but if we are looking for a low cost midfielder in January then Wilfred Ndidi would be a good pick up, he is out of contract in the summer and Leicester could have one foot back in the Premier League already by then. Not only is he a capable Defensive Midfielder but he has reinvented himself this season to play in Longstaff’s role on the right. Here is a good read about him this season. https://theathletic.com/4980582/2023/10/21/the-reinvention-of-wilfred-ndidi/?amp=1

They have only played against 3 teams that finished in the top 10 last season so it will even out.