Liam and Nathan discuss what's lacking in Agbadou's recent performance following a concerning pre-season and Wolves' loss to Man City. From the August 19 2025 edition of The Keen & Judah Show.
00:00We have said, Liam, we were covering pre-season, we've been there, we've been there in Portugal, we've been there in Spain, we've seen the games at home against Stoke, against Launze, against Celta Vigo in this country, and time and time again we have said that Emmanuel Agpadu was just not himself, he was not, whether he was too casual, whether it was lack of concentration, whether it's fitness, I'm not too sure, but Emmanuel Agpadu does not seem himself, and we kind of gave him a pass, because pre-season is pre-season, and sometimes I can understand people not going 100%, you don't want your players to go to 100%, you want to build them up,
00:29ready for that Manchester City game, so we didn't think of it as too concerning, but I think it was important for us to mention, and then you go into Manchester City, and yes, when you've got Erling Haaland that you're marking, it's going to be a difficult game, but I would say that three of those four goals that Wolves conceded on that afternoon have something to do with Emmanuel Agpadu, or he will be disappointed with his role in there, especially the one he gave away with a terrible pass to João Gomes, which led to Manchester City scoring, I believe it was the second goal, but the first goal, the second goal,
00:59and I believe the fourth goal as well, not great news for him, he doesn't seem to be himself at this moment in time, I hope he can snap out of it, and look, we could quite easily see a great Emmanuel Agpadu in the man-mountain that we know that he is against Bournemouth on Saturday, and we'll need to see that,
01:14but you talk about that spine of the team, Liam, you talk about Jose Saar, Emmanuel Agpadu, you know, your two central midfielders, Jorgen Stran Larsson, if one of your spine has got a kink in it, if there's a little bit of a weak vertebrae in there,
01:24you are bang in trouble, and at this moment in time, Agpadu is way below the standards that he set himself last season.
01:31Yeah, spot on, the Man City performance from Agpadu would be less of a concern if he had a brilliant pre-season, because
01:39it's Man City, you know, you're going to concede a lot of chances, you're playing against probably the best striker in the world, and certainly one of the most physical strikers in the league,
01:49who's going to be really difficult to play against, he's got fantastic movement, big, strong, fast, and fantastic finisher, so
01:56of course it's going to be difficult, of course you're going to have, you know, bad moments in a game like that as a defender,
02:01but the moments that we've spotted, and the performance that we've seen, is so similar to the poor performances,
02:10and very casual performances that we saw in pre-season, that you have to put it all together and think that that's a major concern,
02:18and particularly with that second goal, as you mentioned, the pass out to João Gomes, which is a very simple pass,
02:24a pass he probably shouldn't make in the first place anyway, with the players that are around João Gomes,
02:28and he makes such a mess of it, and it's so similar to a lot of the passes we saw from him in pre-season,
02:36that there's something that's just not quite right at the moment, I still have confidence they'll come
02:41back and be, you know, the kind of player that we've seen before, because he was so good last season.
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