FA Cup 5th round

Given most football managers post match comments are along the same lines and full of cliches, I’m not sure why you are all over Nuno about his.

Coopers were equally mundane and I rarely bother listening to them.

Not a lot in there:

• proud of team
• Good performance
• better than last game at Villa
• didn't see replay of goal can't comment but we've had a lot go against us recently, let's focus on game
• turner is working hard on closing his thigh gap with interval weight training to reduce number of nutmegged goals, it's getting smaller and he's proud of that, but sadly it couldn't prevent the ball squeezing through tonight*

Didn't notice him say anything about fans.

• that one is a joke I made up but the rest is true

If that had been Turner's debut, it would have been regarded as pretty promising. He was fine with his feet, even threw a dummy at one point in front of the Trent End and saved everything he was expected to. There was an early slice into the BC with his left but anyone could do that.

Prutts was amusing in the half time on pitch thing. You aren't supposed to actually say what you think of the game and slag them off for being shit against Villa, David. You can tell he's a media professional - lightly amusing, charming and can talk easily.

What I saw on both. Turner has unfairly been lumped in with the Greek water butt, he's better than him.

Always liked Prutts.

We needed a change earlier if we were serious about winning. It was clearly after the excellent 10 minutes at the start of the second half we needed some fresh energy and a disruption but it came too late. Decent enough game which we were in, disapointed not to have a shot at the semi final.

It was an interesting game - both sides had spells of dominance, but United created much the better chances when they were on top and should have been out of sight by half-time, but for Turner and the crossbar.

Thought Danilo had his best game yet in the deep-lying midfielder role, but we miss his goal threat (which is way more than MGW's) when he plays further forward.
Felipe was excellent.

You could also clearly see some of the "work on the training ground" coming to fruition - Yates gave away hardly any fouls, even against Fernandes (although may also a bit more of a ref not buying Bruno's theatrical falls, compared with Anthony Taylor when Guimaraes fell over a few weeks ago) and Turner's distribution was much improved. Only played one what I'd call 'risky' pass straight down the middle into Danilo, and went long a lot more often than previously. (I'm not sold on Sels yet, only thing he gives is more confidence to the defence in front, but his shot-stopping has been questionable and his distribution to the full-backs a bit wayward).

Elanga at his frustrating best. His pace is such a threat, but so much poor decision-making when he has the ball and a really stupid free-kick to give away for the goal (why is @chicago not raging at him like he still is at Wozza over that goal v Derby all those years ago?).
A game we could have won, but didn't deserve to.

Owner stormed out when the goal went in. I preferred it when he hardly ever came tbh, without his silly walk on the pitch beforehand and everyone hero-worshipping him.
Nice to see Howard Webb and Mark Clattenburg sat next to each other in the directors' box too.
(From t'Athletic... Clattenburg also fell out with Webb after one game at Euro 2012 when the man who refereed the 2010 World Cup final went to a post-match party without letting his colleague know. Clattenburg had spent the night, alone, at his hotel, wondering why Webb had not returned his calls. He didn’t ever forgive Webb for blanking him. “When Howard doesn’t need you, he doesn’t speak. He’s very unique in this. Everyone sees Howard as a nice guy, and he is. I would never really criticise him as a person, he’s just someone I won’t engage with in the future because I don’t need Howard, the same as he doesn’t need me. Which is fine.”)

Thought you could see why Nuno prefers Tavares to Toff. Offered very little going forward and lacks the physical presence and pace defending. Honest trier, worthy backup and I'd keep him if we're relegated but not at the level.

I still think Turner's kicking is poor. He still looked nervous, players looked nervous to give him anything too difficult to deal with. He doesn't get the distance you'd expect and they are never near any of our players. It's better than giving it straight to their players but it's no where near the realms of good.

I thought last night we struggled with Amrabat going into midfield from left back and overloading us, it was very evident in the second half.

Overall we look much more like we belong at this level now

Felipe was very lucky but I can't say I can blame him, he was just doing what most of the country would like to do. I thought Fernandes could have picked up a couple of yellows if he was someone else by that point as well.

Taiwo looked dead on his feet before the end of the first half and could barely run by 65/70th minute. Am amazed he completed the match and that might be detrimental when Saturday comes.
Ditto MGW but to a slightly lesser extent. If we were ever going to get a proper look at Reyna it should’ve been last night in the 10 role.

You can’t blame the goalie for the goal. You can blame the marking if you want but sometimes teams do set pieces well. Casemiro’s scored that goal a few times in the last couple of years.

Think that was the dummy I was talking about. Without his history, I think everyone would have thought it was a neat piece of distribution. Cut out the forward and found the best passing midfielder in space.

I thought we were in large part decent. Couldnt really blame Turner for the goal. Would have liked to see Elanga switch sides to run at Amrabat. And perhaps swapping out MGW for Reyna to see if we could create some cleaner chances. We were breaking at pace but didn't get the bodies into the box or the far post to make the most of the opportunities. Toffolo was fine and out a couple of decent crosses in. Would have liked to see him on set pieces as MGW was ineffective.
I was in a Manc pub for it and they were worried, relived at the end which is a good sign.
Also, the ref is a friend of a friend. Thought he was decent and let the game run. And yes, Felipe should have had a red.

It was quite telling that when CHO came on and Elanga swapped sides that Dalot went with him, they weren't going to risk the Amrabat vs Elanga match up if they could help it

When I asked my Wolves supporting mate about Nuno one of the things he said was his press conferences and media work were terrible and it was a big criticism the Wolves fans had of him.

He was never going to be Cooper on the media front and I'm not sure he's going to change much going forward

Why don't you try doing an interview in Portugese?

Are we sure that was a dummy rather than him not just missing the ball?

He sliced it to Toffolo a couple of times very dubiously too but I think the main problem is the players in front of him don't trust him and that can impact the way we play adversely overall. Last night is not a good example of that though as he was a lot better than he has been.

I thought Toffolo was pretty good last night, incidentally.

If Turner's was a miscontrol, he recovered and made a decent pass, rather than panicking and letting them in. I'll take it.

Agree Toffolo had a decent game but that's as good as he can be.