Wolves: The Renaissance- The Wolf Pack

Todays update which follows on from Wolves: The Renaissance Introduction will mainly focus how I have gone about finding my feet at Wolverhampton Wanderers. First and foremost I wanted to link two podcasts which have helped me to firmly embed myself as an armchair Wolves fan, Wolves Weekly & the tactical analysis conducted by Gully (@MolineuxMusings) from Wolves Fancast have been staple consumptions, helping me to get an improved feel for club, and tactical nuances.

THE WOLF PACK IS A MULTITUDE THAT UNITES TO PROTECT EACH MEMBER. EACH WOLF ACCEPTS ITS UNIQUE POSITION IN THE PACK, JUST LIKE A FAMILY MEMBER DOES.

STRUCTIRE AND LEADERSHIP OF THE WOLF PACK

A pack of wolves usually comprises a dominant (alpha) pair; an individual or couple following in importance, and most likely to replace the current alphas (referred to as the beta pair); next in line, are individuals in the middle ranks and lower ranks of the wolf pack.

Football Manager also visualise the team dynamics in a similar way, this becomes evident when exploring the hierarchy page.

THE ALPHA’s -There are three individuals acting as the alpha’s within the playing squad, and it should come as no surprise that both our Captain Max Kilman, and Vice-Captain Craig Dawson find themselves in this group. They are accompanied by Nelson Semedo, who has been at Wolverhampton for a long period of time (2020/21), and has a good understanding of the culture within the club. Dawson, aged 33, is approaching the end of his playing career, he is the oldest member of our playing staff.

THE BETA’s – the role of the beta pair is to direct the middle ranks of the wolf pack, it is re-assuring to see that four of the five players from within this group stem from either the experienced (Matt Doherty, and Pablo Sarabia), or the Peak category (José Sá, and Hwang Hee-Chan) from within the squad matrix. The anomaly being Pedro Neto who finds himself in the emerging category, this is due to the Portuguese players age (23).

DNA

After re-reading the comprehensive post ‘The Art of Counter Attacking’ written by our very own Cleon. I wanted to explore how Wolves stacked up attribute wise, with regards to those which I think are essential for the style of play which I am looking to adopt in this series.

Projection style footballing DNA – Dribbling, First Touch, Technique, Aggression, Anticipation, Bravery, Determination, Teamwork, Work Rate, Acceleration, Pace, Stamina, and Strength.

Whilst I will not be implementing a DNA approach to this save, as my focus in Wolves: The Renaissance is going to be on data driven recruitment. I still wanted to explore how the lads stack up?

Surprisingly it is Nélson Semedo who leads the way, closely followed by João Gomes, it is also re-assuring to not fin any names high up on that list, of players that I am not already aware of. Although, that is king of hard, given the fact that the Wolverhampton Wanderers squad is a little thin on the ground.

Toti is the worst aligned out of my strongest XI, the defender lacks a strong technical profile, which arguably I should find a little concerning given I will be deploying him as a wide centre back. The role is hard-coded to make overlapping and underlapping runs to create 2 vs 1 situations.

For more on positional play in Football Manager, make sure you check on the latest article on The Byline called ‘Mastering Positional Play in Football Manager 24’.

SQUAD DEPTH

As with any new save, there is an importance placed upon understanding the players at your disposal, both immediately, and in the long-term.

After conducting a thorough analysis on the playing staff across all squads (First Team, U21, and U18) I have a better understanding of who I am looking to promote from within, and areas which I need to prioritise recruitment.

Defence – In my opinion, there is a need to bring in additional left-footed defender into the squad. Currently there are only four at the club (Toti, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Hugo Bueno, and Max Kilman), and with Kilman deployed as the right sided ball-playing defender, that leaves three players to cover the two left-sided slots.

Midfield – The central midfield certainly requires some investment, especially when taking into consideration the fact that Tommy Doyle is only at the club on loan from Manchester City. The 22 year-old does have an optional future fee locked into his contract for £5 million. We will need to assess if this fee is value for money as the season develops, along with exploring other potential options.

Attack – Finally, I would like to bring in another advanced playmaker to provide competition for Pablo Sarabia. Yes I know I have Jean-Ricner Bellegarde as his deputy within the squad visualisation. However, I am in two minds as to what position will suit him best. The 25 year-old is operating close to his ceiling, whilst he is technically adept, and has the ability to pick out a team mate with the ball, making him a good candidate to play as the advanced playmaker. However, he also is quick off the mark, and can keep close control of the ball when dribbling, making him a potential shadow striker reserve for Pedro Neto.

SCOUTING

Given that Football Managers most recent update (24.3) contains fixes and improvements to the scouting hub, specifically on how players are scouted, ensuring more ‘Recommendations’ and ‘Near Matches’ are generated in ‘Recruitment Focuses’.

I wanted to share with you my scouting team, highlighting how they are assigned, and later what traffic of scouted players pass through the hub. FYI, no signing will be pursued on this save if they haven’t been identified through recruitment focuses.

As you can see from the above, Wolverhampton Wanderers have an extensive scouting team (12 members) from the get go. However, only John Suppers remains from the original group, as I wanted to ensure our recruitment team were both competent, and had a breadth of extensive world knowledge, as highlighted below.

Below is a list of the individual assignments which I have rolling over on an on-going basis. Most have a minimum current ability of 3.5 silver stars, and a minimum potential of 3 stars, your team average.

The only differentiator is the ‘Europe First-Team’ assignment which is set to 3 stars for both, which should be self-explanatory. However, just t make sure, I have set this to three as these individuals need to be first team ready. Anyone with less than three stars current ability, in my humble opinion, shouldn’t be drawing down significant volumes of minutes, if you ae looking to both maximise their development, and weaken the team.

Given that I set up my recruitment team similarly in my last save with Ajax, I would already say the tweaks made within the recent update have increased the volumes of hits occurring within each recruitment focus.

THE FIRST FIVE MATHCES

Five wins, and four clean sheets, from out first competitive matches. Not too shabby if I say so myself. Whilst you can argue that the opening fixtures have been against those that initially would have been predicted to finish in and around Wolves, I am really impressed by how the replication is playing out.

Below are some headline stats from the small sample of matches.

• 56% possession (6th)
• 4 games without conceding (1st) only side
• 7 goals scored (7th), Man City lead the way, having doubled our tally. (14)
• 82 dribbles per game (1st)
• Final third Passes 85 (7th) – fingers crossed this will decrease when we play some of the big boys. Remember I am looking to build a brand of football which sees us have less than average touches in the final third.
• xG against 3.49 (16th), again Manchester City lead the way with 2.08.
• Finally, tackles won 85 (8th), Everton lead the way (111)

I will look to provide a deeper analysis of the numbers in my next update, which is likely to come at the mid-way point in the season.

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Wolves marked World Wildlife Day on Sunday 3rd March by joining WWF and some of the world’s biggest sports clubs in removing the iconic wolf from the club’s crest for one day.

The WWF campaign highlighted the dramatic loss of biodiversity globally and the social and economic risks it posed.

Earth was home to countless species of fauna and flora, and the rich diversity was what had made our planet inhabitable for all living creatures, including humans.

However, unsustainable human activities and overexploitation of species and natural resources were imperilling the world’s biodiversity – nearly a quarter of all species were presently at risk of going extinct in the coming decades.

“The wolf continues to be an endangered animal in many parts of the world, so it is an opportunity to raise awareness for what the world might look like without animals – something that is a sad possibility if action isn’t taken.

In anticipation of World Wildlife Day 2024, WWF has initiated a petition urging readers to actively participate in halting the destruction of nature by signing and supporting the cause. Take a stand, sign the petition, and contribute to bringing our world back to life. Your signature can make a meaningful impact – click here to sign and help now.