The English Football Thread

[NikkiCFC 7,955]

7 minutes ago, Beigl said:

Trust me they will get owned by City next week.

I hope but they beat them 3 times last season.

[Laylabelle 9,359]

9 minutes ago, Vesper said:

not convinced of that at all

they are having a crazy run of luck and gifts

And City are dodgy!

Unless something drastic happens can't see Ole going this season. Or them falling down the table. Dodgy moments aside something atm is working...or when it doesnt it really doesn't. Either good or crap

[Beigl 1,387]

8 minutes ago, Vesper said:

not convinced of that at all

they are having a crazy run of luck and gifts

Yes but the likes of de Bruyne and Mahrez would have probably converted those chances United gifted West Ham today.

[communicate 2,703]

3 minutes ago, Laylabelle said:

And City are dodgy!

Unless something drastic happens can't see Ole going this season. Or them falling down the table. Dodgy moments aside something atm is working...

As long as their front line is firing, united will get result. 

[communicate 2,703]

Just now, Beigl said:

Yes but the likes of de Bruyne and Mahrez would have probably converted those chances United gifted West Ham today.

United record against big team under ole is actually pretty good although the game plan is actually worse than Mou plan. 

Back 5,defend2 long ball to Rashford and martial 

[Vesper 28,864]

9 minutes ago, Beigl said:

Yes but the likes of de Bruyne and Mahrez would have probably converted those chances United gifted West Ham today.

lets hope so

and I do agree on that

[Special Juan 27,429]

That ball went out but we will never know for sure because in ands outs don't matter to VAR

[Vesper 28,864]

Fewest goals ever! Why the Championship has lost its chaos

https://theathletic.com/2232325/2020/12/04/championship-fewest-goals/

It is shaping up to be a unique Championship season on and off the pitch, but there is only one place to start after going through all the facts and figures that define the 180 games that have been played so far. Where on earth have all the goals gone?

While the Premier League has enjoyed a goal deluge this season, the Championship is in the midst of a drought like never before. Before Bournemouth’s heavy win at Barnsley on Friday night, the average number of goals per game has fallen to 2.23 in England’s second tier. To put that number into context, it is the lowest ever at this level, going way back to 1892-93, when Small Heath pipped Sheffield United to the title in the inaugural second division.

Eight Championship clubs — Derby, Sheffield Wednesday, Wycombe, Nottingham Forest, Rotherham, Birmingham, Millwall and Luton — are averaging less than a goal per game. Or, to put it another way, Blackburn’s Adam Armstrong, with 14 goals to his name, has outscored six teams and is level with two others. Blackburn, for the record, are the league’s joint-highest scorers (with AFC Bournemouth after last night’s result) with 29 goals. Elsewhere, entertainment is generally at a premium — and that includes the top.

Norwich, who were the Championship leaders prior to Bournemouth’s victory last night, have scored only 19 times in 15 matches. The same goes for Watford, in third place, and Bristol City, in fifth. Swansea, who are just four points off the top in seventh, have scored only 17 goals. The Championship in 2020? This is more like Serie A in 1980.

Indeed, some who enjoy going to see live Championship football could be forgiven for thinking that they are watching from the best place at the moment — the sofa. Or perhaps that — the absence of supporters in stadiums until this week — is at the heart of all this, and more, in what has turned into a peculiar Championship season with or without the goal famine.

A trawl through every season since 1999-2000 reveals that Norwich’s tally of 28 points was the lowest for the league leaders after 15 games played. Another first at this juncture in the season is that the three clubs relegated from the Premier League — Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford — occupy first, second and third in the table.

As for the two-point margin (now four, thanks to Bournemouth’s win) between first and seventh, that is also unprecedented after 15 matches. In fact, the average gap between those positions over the last 21 seasons is nine points and has been as high as 14 at times. Does that mean the top seven are all very good this season? Or all very average?

Some will probably question if any of this matters when there are still two thirds of the season to play. It is a fair point. At the same time, it is interesting to note that in 18 of the last 21 seasons, two of the three promotion-winning clubs were in the top six after 15 games. At the other end of the table, two of the three clubs in the bottom three at this stage have gone onto be relegated on 13 occasions.

Either way, listing all of the facts and figures is the easy bit. Trying to make some sort of sense of what is going on this season is much more difficult, even with the help of experienced Championship managers.

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Daniel Farke doesn’t take long to solve the goal famine conundrum. “The easy answer would be that Neil Warnock, Tony Pulis and Aitor Karanka are back in business!” the Norwich City manager, says, smiling.

He has a point, too. Sheffield Wednesday’s games have produced the fewest number of goals in the Championship this season — 21 in total. Their goals-per-game average (including opposition goals) is 1.40 — it has fallen from 1.44 to 1.25 since Pulis replaced Garry Monk. Karanka’s Birmingham side are the next lowest in the Championship along with Millwall, averaging 1.67 goals per game. Then comes Warnock’s Middlesbrough side — 1.73 goals per game.

“It’s always difficult to break down their sides and unbelievably difficult to score against them,” adds Farke. “But in general I think it’s perhaps a bit of a coincidence. To deliver all three days (match-days) without a pre-season, sometimes you concentrate perhaps even a bit more on being solid. To be honest, it is a bit easier when you are exhausted, when you are tired, to defend and to be at least compact (rather than) to be outstanding and creative. So perhaps for a defensive player it’s a bit easier to survive during a game with experience and concentrate on putting the ball in the stand instead of the offensive players being sharp to create some magic.”

The drop-off in goals across the Championship is curious, especially as the Premier League has experienced the total opposite (rising to 2.96 goals per game this season) without supporters in stadiums. One obvious difference between the two divisions is the Premier League’s use of VAR, which has contributed to an increase in penalties, partly because of the new handball rule. That, however, doesn’t explain why the goal-per-game ratio is falling in the Championship. With the average number of shots on target per game not markedly different (down from 7.9 last season to 7.3 this season) the quality of the finishing could be a factor and something that is not helped at times by tiredness.

Paul Warne, the Rotherham manager, makes that exact point as well highlighting how football has turned into a game of chess at times in the Championship because of the prevalence of the same tactics and formations. “There are a lot of teams who are quite similar this season apart from the top three, who all came down. A lot of cancelling each other out, teams playing the same systems. They are really close, edgy games,” Warne says.

“I’ve also felt there haven’t been that many unbelievable strikes. I don’t remember seeing loads of great goals from outside the box in the Championship this season. Obviously a lack of goals would mean there’s also a lack of unbelievable goals, but whether the goalkeepers are better or the strikers aren’t as good, or it’s a hangover with the amount of games and lack of pre-season that there’s just more fatigue in the players, to make that run into the box, that double step-over and whip it in from 30 yards?”

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Gary Rowett smiles at the madness of it all. “Someone said to me the other day, ‘You’ve been Millwall manager for 13 months now and you’ve had fans for four months of that period’. I was like, ‘Wow’. You accept it. I hate this phrase but it’s become the ‘new norm’. But when you look at it from a manager’s perspective, it is so different.

“The games have completely changed. The first fact is away points will undoubtedly have gone up, because essentially now it’s a free game for everybody. In fact, there’s probably a disadvantage to the home team because you turn up to your own stadium with no fans there.

“Let’s take a Millwall game, for example. As a manager you’d be saying, ‘Let’s get off to a good start, let’s get the crowd right up’. You have those first 10-15 minutes where when you’re the away team, you think, ‘We just need to see this period out’.

“People talk in cliche about needing to weather the storm because it’s that pressure, it’s the fans. And now you haven’t got that. You can have an attack in the fifth minute, you can put a couple of crosses in the box, you can head one and the keeper makes a save, take the corner and it goes out of play, then the keeper takes a minute to get the ball, everyone walks up the pitch and there’s no tempo. And I think it’s exactly the same in the last minutes.

“I’d be interested to see how many late goals home teams score in the last five minutes when your fans are going mad, the other team are 1-0 up or it’s 1-1 and they’re hanging on for dear life. Again, you can’t build any of those moments of momentum in the game, so the game becomes almost like a pre-season tournament but with a bit more on it.”

Rowett is right about improved away records, although the difference is not as marked as some might imagine. There was a big hike after the restart last season, when the percentage of Championship away wins climbed from 29.7 per cent pre-lockdown to 38 per cent by the end of the season. Before Bournemouth’s win at Barnsley, the figure stood at 31.3 per cent, which is still higher than any season other than the last one but not a huge increase.

In truth, there are far more questions than answers around all of the issues relating to football and the pandemic. “I think the broader situation is having an impact. But it is difficult to explain,” Chris Hughton, the Nottingham Forest manager, says. “There will absolutely be players who are having less of an impact because there is no crowd. The opposite is true as well. There are players who might get a bit nervous in front of big crowds; who might be inhibited by an intense atmosphere. They might be coming into their own without a crowd being there. Does the situation affect games? Yes. I think it impacts on some individuals more than others. But in terms of determining who and by how much, I think that is impossible.”

Rowett’s theory prior to the restart was that empty stadiums would help the more technical players in the Championship and also those managers with a possession-based game plan — something he stands by now. “You can be even more adventurous in terms of playing out from the back, whereas normally if that doesn’t work two or three times, your fans are on you and you have to then change the way you play a little bit for periods of the game,” Rowett says.

“Now there’s no pressure. So I think it helps those type of teams and I think it works against the teams that are all about… let’s take someone like a Wycombe, or a Rotherham, I’m pretty sure you’d be going to those grounds, even though they’ve just come up, and thinking, ‘We could be in for an incredibly tough afternoon because of the atmosphere.’ And those teams haven’t got that either.”

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“I just think it’s completely new territory,” another Championship manager, who asks to remain anonymous, tells The Athletic. “No crowd is one thing, the schedule is another. You’re not training.

“We’ve got a player who signed on deadline day and he has done one training session where the whole group have been there and you’ve been training normally. You are literally play, recover, play. The players who train are the half a dozen who don’t play and a few kids to make the numbers up.”

The later start to this season because of the pandemic means that the Championship is playing catch up and essentially a month behind where it should be now. Fifteen games have been crammed in already compared to 10 in the Premier League, despite both divisions starting on the same weekend. That means there is no time to work on pattern of play or team shape, or to try to address where things can be improved — at least not on the grass.

“Normally, if we were Saturday to Saturday, we’d have our physical idea of what we’d want each day, and like a curriculum that you’d be following to go into the game — you’d be looking to get returns from training. There’s none of that going on. None of it,” continues the manager.

“There’s loads more meetings, loads more coaching in the classroom. You have to get you detail out in conversations and meetings as well as your normal game-plan stuff, while trying not to overload the players.”

With 14 midweek games crowbarred into a schedule that was always seen as unforgiving in a standard Championship season, the biggest concern for managers is that players will be overstretched physically. Norwich’s injury crisis is a case in point.

The introduction of the new substitute rule last month — teams can name nine and use five — has helped in one way but there is a price to pay. How can teams be expected to play with any consistency and fluency when the starting XI is rarely the same and there are players constantly coming on and off? “You keep the team fresh by changing it,” adds the manager. “But when you’re changing it, it’s hard to get rhythm in the team and to build-up connections and relationships on the pitch.”

There were 40 substitutes made across the six Championship games on Wednesday night, including nine during the last 17 minutes at Ewood Park, where Blackburn beat Millwall 2-1 with an injury-time winner. On other occasions, managers are withdrawing players as soon as a game is deemed to be out of their team’s reach or beyond the opposition.

“We played against Brentford and had three lads on the edge of not being fit, but to be honest they had to play,” Warne, the Rotherham manager, adds. “I always knew if the game got too far out of our way or in our favour, I would take them straight off. It made our team weaker and we ended up losing 2-0 but I think there is a lot more of that. In previous seasons, would Brentford have taken off (Ivan) Toney against us when they were 2-0 up? As a player, he doesn’t want to come off. It’s like you’re protecting your best assets.”

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The wildly unpredictable nature of the Championship has long been one of its best selling points — that notion that anyone can beat anyone, or mount an unexpected promotion challenge. In a way, that is still true, bearing in mind that Luton put three past Norwich at Kenilworth Road on Wednesday evening and Preston did the same to Bournemouth on the south coast the night before.

“I have sat with my staff and gone through all of the the fixtures in the league — and in so many of the games you look at it and think ‘They could get a result there’,” Hughton says. “But this division is as unpredictable as I can remember it ever being, this season.”

When it comes to the league positions at the top, however, it all feels a little bland. The three clubs that came down from the Premier League are not supposed to be leading the way at this stage. Indeed, there has been only one occasion since the turn of the century when all three relegated clubs have been in the top six after 15 matches, never mind setting the pace.

How much that says about the quality of those three teams and the relative strength of the rest of the league is a matter of debate, but there is certainly an argument that Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford are far better equipped to challenge for promotion than many clubs that have been relegated in the recent past.

Although Bournemouth lost key players in the summer in Aaron Ramsdale, Nathan Ake, Callum Wilson, and Ryan Fraser, there was no firesale. David Brooks and Josh King are still at the club, Asmir Begovic has taken over in goal and eight of Bournemouth’s other nine starters against Preston on Tuesday (King did not feature) were previously regulars in the Premier League, playing more than 200 games between them for the club last season.

As for Norwich, it is a measure of how well they are run as a club that Stuart Webber, the sporting director, had a remit to buy before he needed to sell in the wake of relegation. In what feels like a sign of the times, Norwich anticipated they would lose three players but ended up selling only two (Ben Godfrey and Jamal Lewis, for a combined total of £40 million), leaving Todd Cantwell, Max Aarons and Emi Buendia at the club.

There is a school of thought among some Championship managers that in a normal summer transfer market, where many of the clubs in the bottom half of the Premier League were spending freely rather than tightening their belts because of the impact of COVID-19, Bournemouth and Norwich would have lost a few more key players.

The same goes for Watford, who endured a turbulent summer — six signings, 17 outgoings as well as appointing a new manager — but retained a number of experienced and proven Premier League players, including Troy Deeney, Etienne Capoue and Ismaila Sarr. With Andre Gray, Will Hughes, and Nathaniel Chalobah also still at the club, along with the experience of Ben Foster, Christian Kabasele and Craig Cathcart, Watford’s squad looks strong.

“It’s outstanding that all three clubs are in the top three positions, especially regarding what has happened in the last two decades — it was never this way,” Farke, the Norwich manager, says. “I think it’s also due to the profile of the clubs who were relegated. Let’s be honest, no-one would have expected Bournemouth to be relegated last season.

“When you judge their starting lineup, they always start at Championship level with a starting lineup that has more than 1,000 Premier League appearances (across all seasons), and some really top-class players are sitting on the bench. Watford is quite similar, they have also spent several years in the top level and they were able to keep many players. I think for us it’s credit to the players for what we’ve done, some good decisions also in the transition after relegation, but it’s still too early to judge our season.”

Elsewhere near the top, it is no real surprise that Brentford and Swansea, who finished third and sixth last season, are around the play-off positions early on. Swansea are playing without a recognised striker, which partly explains their struggles in front of goal. Brentford, on the other hand, wisely invested a chunk of the money that they received for Ollie Watkins in the summer. Toney, who joined from Peterborough, has scored 13 goals for Brentford already, which puts him one behind Armstrong and two ahead of Birmingham among others.

With Bristol City renowned for beginning seasons brightly, arguably the only surprise at the top end of the table so far is Reading, who started off like a house on fire. The last six or seven games have been more of a slow burn, leaving them in fourth place and, on the face of it, looking like the most likely team to fall away.

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As much as the history books provide some pointers as to what can happen after 15 matches, no two seasons are the same. Indeed, going back over the years serves as a reminder of just how much things can change at times.

Last season at this point Brentford and Cardiff were 13th and 14th respectively but both went onto reach the play-offs. West Brom and Leeds, who were first and third after 15 matches, won automatic promotion, while Preston, who were second, missed out on the top six altogether. As for Fulham, they were eighth at this stage and ending up going up via the play-offs — the only team to bounce straight back from relegation since Newcastle in 2017.

Clubs can come from nowhere in the Championship. Villa won a club-record 10 matches on the spin en route to winning promotion via the play-offs in 2019, and Reading enjoyed an extraordinary run in 2012, when Brian McDermott’s side were crowned champions after taking 46 points from a possible 51 in the second half of the season.

Equally, there are examples of clubs dropping like a stone. Watford were top and unbeaten in 2000-01 after 15 games, with 39 points on the board. They picked up less than a point per game over the next 31 matches and finished ninth. Blackpool went from chasing promotion to fighting relegation in 2013-14.

The Championship has long been viewed as that sort of league — chaotic and full of drama — yet everything feels a little different this season. Managers who know the division inside out sound baffled by so much of what is going and, at times, drained by the impact of the global pandemic.

Although the sight of a small number of supporters coming back into some Championship grounds this week was a welcome one, nobody is expecting things to return to normal anytime soon. In the short-term, the best that we can all hope for is a few more goals.

[Vesper 28,864]

Slogans, no fines and the Portuguese hairdryer: What’s it like to play for Nuno?

https://theathletic.com/2236514/2020/12/04/wolves-nuno/

He’s the most successful Wolves head coach/manager for decades. A man adored by thousands for overseeing a stunning three years at Molineux.

But in terms of his personality, of opening up to the world, Nuno isn’t exactly forthcoming. A private man who sees little benefit in explaining his decisions or his philosophies in detail, Nuno only cares about his players and his Wolf pack.

So what’s it like to play for him? The Athletic breaks down Nuno’s key managerial areas to find out what makes him tick, what he hates and what makes him so successful.

Man management

“You can’t aspire to be loved because that isn’t going to happen,” Sir Alex Ferguson once said. “Nor do you want people to be frightened of you. Stay somewhere in the middle and have them respect and trust and see you as fair.”

Ask pretty much any Wolves player of the last three years if Nuno has their respect and their trust – and they see him as fair – almost all will say yes. Even those who have left the club, or didn’t see eye to eye with him, will recognise his man-management skills.

Sir Alex says he didn’t want players to be frightened of him, but they undoubtedly were and there is a fear factor with Nuno too. Players know when to crack a joke in training…or to keep things serious.

One former Wolves man, who played under Nuno, says: “You can have a relationship with him but you won’t be best mates, he’s the boss.

“There is that line between respect and fear. You can have a laugh but some days you pick up a sense he’s not happy, so the jokes won’t come. That can last for a training session, a day or a week.”

The “respect and fear” approach has been referenced before by Wolves players. He quickly earned their respect when his rigorous pre-season schedule and incessant work on the team’s shape upon arrival in 2017 immediately yielded results at the start of Wolves’ Championship title-winning season.

The fear comes from his unpredictable temperament. Nuno can veer from ear-to-ear grinning and enthusiastic bear-hugging (he loves a hug) to short-tempered snapping. And glaring. The glare is to be feared.

“You don’t want to cross him but he’s got your back,” ex-midfielder Dave Edwards told The Athletic. “He has that perfect blend between respect and fear.

“He has that aura of being a disciplinarian but he’s actually very approachable. He really impressed me from the off. I only really had that same blend with (his Wales manager) Chris Coleman — you don’t want to get on the wrong side of him but you want to play for him, too.

“Even at that early stage with Nuno, you could see he had that. And you could see the logic in his ideas. With every new manager, you’ll get people questioning his methods, but you could see the direction he was going in. He united everyone. If you build that ‘us against the world’ philosophy, like Jose Mourinho did at Chelsea in particular, it galvanises the squad and gives you a real togetherness.

“Nuno makes the player think they’re all that matters, regardless of any noise from outside.”

He’s a motivator too, but more in the simplistic messages he conveys rather than being akin to addressing a political rally. He likes slogans (many are plastered around Wolves’ training ground) and repetition. He makes the players believe that with the system and the tactics he’s put in place, they will beat the opposition.

“We leave meetings before games thinking, ‘There’s no way we can’t win this’,” Matt Doherty said late last year. “You leave and you think, ‘Wow, we know how to beat them, we know they can’t get through us’.

“You’re friends with him at times but he knows how to grill you. We’ve all been on the end of one of them but the next day, he’ll give you a hug and he’ll talk to you. He’s got the blend perfect.”

At times he can be approachable…but in general the players tend to leave him alone for fear of not knowing what his reaction will be.

If they’re let out the team, they don’t go knocking on his door asking why. That would just make things worse.

“He doesn’t specifically explain to an individual player why he’s left them out,” an ex-Wolves player tells The Athletic.

“The culture he’s come from at Valencia or Porto, they’ve got squads of 30 or 40 players, not being selected isn’t a major deal, rotation is common. In England it feels like the end of the world to players if they’re left out and there’s a culture of asking the manager why.

“With Nuno, when he selects you it’s for a certain reason, he gives you specific tasks for that match, the team needs something from you.

“No one goes into his office…if you did that you’d probably come out in a worse position than before you went in. A conflict or difference of opinion is only going to harm your chances.

“He’s probably left you out because you’re not suited for that particular game. If you’re not in his plans for the future then you’re just not in the squad anyway, to be honest…he’s got 17 or 18 players and they’re in the plans, so if you’re not in the squad you know where you stand.”

Despite being sacked at Valencia in 2016, he was popular with the players there, where he adopted similar approaches.

A source close to players he coached at Valencia says: “He does not tell them they are dropped, he tells him the things they are doing well, and what they need to work on, and that their opportunity will come.

“When he needs to tell a player he is not playing, that is a bad moment for a player, so he focuses the message in another way.

“He has known to surround himself with people who he knows well, very similar to him, signed many Portuguese players, and creates a dressing room where he can be very close to everyone.

“He wins respect with results, or he did at Valencia. It was the first big project of his career, and he had them high in the table. I don’t think that the players here were afraid of him, or could not go to talk to him if they wanted to. There was a good mood in the dressing room.

“He is very close to them and tries to be like their father and look after them. So the players tend to be very happy with him. At Valencia, when they sacked him, there was a drama in the dressing room, nobody understood why.

“Nuno has a good team around him and does some things which are intelligent – a bit like Simeone – he does not burn his relationship with the players.”

Training and tactics

Nuno’s favourite time generally is on the training pitch – this is where he devotes his energy and his passion.

He’s very much a head coach rather than a manager of the club, but a more accurate description would be a player’s manager. Sure, he’s the main man around the whole club, he carries an aura whenever he walks into the room and everybody is well aware he’s the boss (even his closest staff tread lightly around him and know when not to disturb him), but in terms of decision making and management, he deals almost solely with the playing side.

You won’t see him at under-23 or youth games, or attending another Premier League to scout the opposition in person, or even slaving away until 11pm at Compton Park. He delegates specific duties to others – systems and staff have been put in place to oversee jobs that some managers would pick up, like aspects of recruitment, or scouting, or youth development – so that he can focus purely on his first-team squad, their next match and their evolution.

Given that he devotes such energy to that, particularly in terms of training, or of preparation for matches, he demands and expects exactly the same energy and level of commitment from his players.

Of training sessions, Edwards said: “He would speak as we were playing. Being in midfield, I’d hear a lot! If something went wrong in the build-up or the shape, he would stop us, then we’d repeat the move again and again.

“He was relentless in the details. It was often moving a player a yard here or there, to be in exactly the right position. He drilled it in every single day.”

Training is repetitive, with few variations from day to day, in order to create the familiarity and second-nature positioning we see during matches. Players are expected to know exactly where they should be on the field, both with and without the ball.

Ex-Wolves winger Jordan Graham told The Athletic: “They work very hard on formation, where they are positionally during the game in training, it’s very repetitive. There isn’t too much in training that you’d stand there and think: ‘Oh wow this is different’.

“It’s the same thing, same drills. That’s why I think the players are really comfortable in their positions because they know exactly what they want to do and how they play. They rarely change it up.

“They’re a really well-drilled team, first and foremost. That’s hard to come by, it’s not as easy as fans might think. It’s one of the hardest things in football to become a solid side and Wolves are really, really solid.”

Communication

The above phrases have been repeated hundreds, nay thousands, of times during Nuno’s press conferences in the past three and a half years. A journalist could ask Nuno how he feels about Wolves’ upcoming Champions League final against Barcelona and he’d reply: “Tough opponent, we want to compete.”

There’s one game left in the season, Wolves are top of the Premier League by one point against Manchester City, who they play on the final day. Nuno: “We do not look at the league table.”

It’s become monotonous to the point of humour in the Wolves press pack, but this is how Nuno communicates and it’s the same with his players too.

That game-by-game mantra, in particular, is one he hammers home at every opportunity, as is the idea of constant self-improvement, striving for the perfection that doesn’t exist. His psychology is of being positive, not negative. No problems, only solutions.

And competing. Always competing. Conor Coady told The Athletic earlier this year: “When we compete and compete well, that’s a big thing. Obviously, we’re all happy when we win, but I think he’s happy when we compete and we put across onto the pitch how he wants us to play. That’s a big thing for him.

“He always mentions competing and making sure we’re competing in games to give us the best chance of winning. When we compete, he’s happy, even if you get beat 1-0, 2-1, no one’s happy when you get beat but if you have the feeling of you’ve done what’s been told of us and what’s been asked of us, you’ve listened to what he’s trying to say and we’ve gone into the game and competed, that’s what’s made him happy.”

Another regular mantra? The next game is the most important one and no opponent is underestimated.

“Some managers try and reinvent the wheel but Nuno keeps it simple for his players,” an ex-Wolves player says.

“Pre-match, he’s got his set-up, it works for Wolves, there are a few tweaks here and there but it’s generally the same most weeks.

“He doesn’t go too in-depth on the opposition and the most important thing is he doesn’t overload the players with information. Often that can have a negative impact because you’ve got too much to remember, or there are so many messages that you zone out.”

With a multi-national squad being bilingual helps too; Nuno speaks English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Russian and French.

Team talks or team meetings are always in English, but he will dip into Portuguese or Spanish when speaking to individual players to better convey his specific instructions to them.

He’ll occasionally drop into the squad’s WhatsApp group too, as he did during the first lockdown back in March to send the players encouraging and philosophical messages of hope and positivity.

Generally, he’ll keep it short and simple.

“He makes us feel we can’t lose a game,” Doherty said. “Nuno instils that belief in us. The way he plans games for us tactically…when we have the meeting we’ll walk onto the pitch thinking that we’re going to win the game.”

Half-time

Wolves’ first half/second half differences — in terms of goals, results and often intensity, attacking intent and, ultimately, results — are stark.

As we’ve particularly seen in the past few months, perhaps accentuated by the absence of supporters and therefore an atmosphere to feed off, Wolves have tended to start games in a manner you’d call methodical and tactical with a glass half-full, or laboured and uninspiring with a glass half-empty.

Second halves generally offer more attacking play, more excitement and more goals.

Since promotion in 2018, Wolves have played 86 Premier League games. They’ve scored 37 goals in first halves – and 72 goals in second halves. They also concede more in the first 45 minutes (53) than in the second (44). It’s gone on too long for it to be a coincidence.

Half-time is where Nuno’s management style comes into its own. Rousing Churchillian speeches or Malcolm Tucker-esque bollockings aren’t really his thing.

Instead his mantra of short, simple messages to point out where the team can improve are what can make that five per cent difference in the second half.

As one former Wolves player told The Athletic: “What he says at half-time always seems to work.

“I’ve always found him to be concise in his messages. He doesn’t watch the game, he watches the bigger picture. It’s a bit of a cliche but he sees it like chess, with moving parts and tactics, the way the pieces are moving, how many problems you’re causing your opponent and how many problems they’re causing you.

“So he makes subtle changes. He may change the personnel, but more likely he’ll just hold a midfielder 10 yards deeper, or tell you to focus down a certain side of the pitch. They’re basic messages that make perfect sense when he says them.

“There are so many times at full time when you think what he said at half time was absolutely correct and won us the game.

“That’s got a lot to do with the second half improvements Wolves make.”

It’s said that he generally doesn’t lay into people, although the Wolves dressing room definitely isn’t a bollocking-free zone. If he unleashes a tirade it’s probably because a player either isn’t working hard enough, or isn’t following out the instructions he was given pre-match.

If he singles out a Portuguese player for criticism, he’ll switch to Portuguese for the full hairdryer effect.

Worse than shouting, though, is the silent treatment. That’s when he’s not angry, he’s just really, really disappointed.

“He’s quite chilled,” ex-Wolves winger Jordan Graham told The Athletic last month. “I’ve never seen him really lose it, he’s quite composed and calm and believes in what he says, what he practices. He always believes it will prevail in the end.

“He’s very relaxed and that’s him to a tee. He’s a calm guy and believes in the way he sets up the team.”

Discipline

As you’d expect for someone who demands such high levels of professionalism from his players, Nuno is a stickler for discipline and regimentation.

Lunch is at 12.30pm every day without fail and the players always eat together, which was one of the first changes he introduced in 2017. He also insisted the players stay overnight at a hotel before every game, home or away, with the squad staying in Wolverhampton city centre before they play at Molineux, all part of creating and maintaining team cohesion.

Despite that schedule, Nuno doesn’t manage the players’ lives or routines away from the training ground. There is trust placed in them that they won’t slip into bad habits, or go out partying until 2am, or eat or drink unhealthily. The standards set by his backroom team in terms of fitness and nutrition have been fully embraced by the players who see the benefits of the lifestyle they’re encouraged to lead.

Fines are rare. Morgan Gibbs-White broke lockdown rules earlier this year but wasn’t fined (punishment could have had a negative impact on his mindset, it was felt). Players aren’t fined for being late for training either.

“It’s a psychology thing,” a former Wolves player says. “You have to be at the training ground by a specific time anyway so the chances of being late are slim, but a couple of times lads were rushing to get back from abroad, seeing their families, and turned up late. But there wasn’t a big bollocking, he just wouldn’t start the session without them. We’d all be stood on the pitch waiting. So it was a case of, if you’re late, you’re letting your team-mates and everyone down.”

Nuno explained earlier this year: “We don’t use fines here, it doesn’t make sense. Money, for a football player, is not an issue.

“You have a big star. He comes five minutes late and I say, ‘OK, I’m going to fine you £5,000’ and he goes, ‘Tomorrow, I come 10 (minutes late). The day after I come 15. Are you going to fine me?’

“I remember we did it: we didn’t start the session before the player came. And when the player comes he feels so bad. He was expecting everybody running already so he’s, ‘Sorry, gaffer…’ No, no.

“So everybody was waiting, fucking freezing, waiting, waiting. When the guy comes, nobody claps. ‘OK, are you ready? We start now you’re here.’ It works. No argue, no conflict.”

Nothing makes him happy more than his team giving 100 per cent and doing the jobs asked of them.

Just don’t put your hands on your hips, as Coady explained: “When we’re on the training pitch, he’s speaking in the middle, it gets to him a bit when your hands are on your hips, because you’re not ready.

“He’ll say; ‘You’re not ready, get your hands off your hips’. You could be in set-up, in formation, he could be in the middle of the pitch talking to you…I’ve been done for it when he first came in: you’re stood with your hands on your hips listening, and it’s ‘take your hands off your hips, you’re not ready.’ When he first came in it shocked us a little bit, but now everybody realises we understand what he’s saying.

“You’re thinking about everything. You’re concentrating on what he’s saying, you’re always thinking about what he’s saying.”

Don’t put your hands on your hips, don’t knock on his door asking why you’re not playing and don’t look at the league table. Simple.

 

[Milan 17,854]

MOTD had some nice technology regarding the first Man United goal. And the ball was just waaaay out of play. That is yet another illegal goal for them. Yet another advantage going their way.

[Jase 43,479]

Chris Wilder has really rattled Klopp.  

 

[chelsea_4_eva 1,159]

Chris Wilder living rent free 😄

[NikkiCFC 7,955]

Conor my precious baby 💖💖❤️

[Laylabelle 9,359]

Palace 5..1..West Brom..though were down to 10

[Atomiswave 6,072]

How many fucking goals and wins will these cunts be allowed? How many illigel goals already? What an absolute joke of a league, when will people start to question these decisions that constantly go to 2-3 clubs?

 

[NikkiCFC 7,955]

 

[different level 1,056]

Remember when Klopp was in charge of Borussia Dortmund and was actually a likeable guy? Looking at this whiny cunt now those days seem like a lifetime ago.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

32 minutes ago, different level said:

Remember when Klopp was in charge of Borussia Dortmund and was actually a likeable guy? Looking at this whiny cunt now those days seem like a lifetime ago.

Been infected by the pool mantra long ago

On another note, go kick ass Arsenal, give them spurs cunts nothing.