Without doubt this has been my favourite week of our tumultuous season so far.
I’ve even enjoyed the numerous conversations with non-Wolves fans that usually go something like, “Yow’m safe” with the obvious reply from me that, “not yet we ay”.
Remember when we all counted our chickens in March 2002? Eight years ago we were all looking upwards at our first crack of Premiership football when we held that 11 point lead over Albion.
Those chickens stayed unhatched and we all had to lick our wounds, watching our Baggie brethren get to the promised land before us.
And now it’s difficult not to feel the same excitement that we are as good as safe from the drop. After all, there is now a seven point gap between ourselves and Burnley in 18th, which given our superior goal difference is more like eight points.
And surely with a point a game average so far, it’s improbable that we could still be caught. But I don’t think we should start the party just yet.
I’ve tried to avoid the subject of relegation in my Friday blogs; always looking for other subjects to talk about.
But now there is that bit of breathing space and the team are finally getting some recognition for playing decent football, I feel I can finally lie on the blogging couch and broach the subject of staying up.
I don’t see myself as a prognosticator in the Mystic Meg mould, but a quick scant over the respective games left for Hull and Burnley makes for some happy reading.
The bookmakers have Burnley 1/10 on to go down and when you look at their remaining fixtures it’s easy to see why. Although four of their remaining seven games are at Turf Moor, which was a fortress for the first half of this season, three of those four visitors are Man City, Liverpool and Spurs.
Hull are 1/2 on by the bookies to fall into the fizzy-pop league and their run-in is arguably a tad easier, but their crucial game is when they face Burnley at home in a couple of weeks. The loser of that game will almost certainly be doomed.
I think the bottom three as it is now of Burnley, Hull and Pompey are almost set in stone. See? See just how easy it is to count those chickens?
For me, the hammering of West Ham just pips our White Hart Lane victory as our best showing this season and quite rightly earned Mick and his men their first LMA performance of the week award in the Premiership.
Eight of the fourteen Wolves players who played so magnificently on Tuesday night at the Boleyn Ground actually featured in the league game at Old Trafford when Mick supposedly played the reserves.
We all know about the unmerited slap on the wrist the Premier League handed Wolves after that game. And the same hypocritical Premier League has deemed this week that it’s apparently perfectly acceptable for Pompey to sell players outside of the transfer window.
The recent January transfer market was flatter than the Netherlands, so I can’t imagine clubs will be clamouring over themselves to join in the fire sale at Pompey.
But by the time they play Wolves on the penultimate weekend of the season, it may well be that Pompey have the tea-lady up front, with the groundsman in goal, who will probably be an improvement on calamity James between the sticks anyway!
However, there are a lot of games between now and our visit to Fratton Park and I haven’t looked forward to a Premiership game more all season than the visit of Everton this weekend.
Both teams are in great form and the Toffees, who were in the relegation mire themselves at the beginning of the season, are now unbelievably in with an outside shot at fourth place and Champions League football.
I remember the corresponding fixture back in May 2004 when only a miracle could have saved us from relegation.
That season, the Man Utd victory may have been our biggest scalp and the Leicester comeback akin to a Hollywood blockbuster, but I think Wolves saved their best football for the visit of Everton.
I think we all knew that day that Championship football was just over the horizon, but this relaxed atmosphere seemed to rub-off on the players and gave them the ability to play with the shackles off and they put in a terrific performance.
We saw Rooney, still a teenage and developing into the World beater he is today, lucky not to get sent off when he slid in and cut Paul Jones on the noggin.
And when Wolves came back from a goal down to win 2-1, I left the game confident we would bounce straight back into the Premiership.
It took a while longer than I anticipated getting back up here, but this time around Wolves have made a much better fist of not just making up the numbers.
Mick has so far proved his doubters wrong, and yes I was one of those before you all give me a pasting. Whether you’re for or against Mick McCarthy, we are all pro-Wolves and that’s all that really matters.
We love the club and we all crave success. But I stand by what I said a couple of weeks ago that we shouldn’t just see the Premiership as the beginning and the end of football in this country.
However, the thought of seeing Scunthorpe visit Molineux on a cold Tuesday evening next season, doesn’t exactly fill me with trepidation.
So, I’ll keep sitting on those eggs and keep them warm for a few more weeks. And when those chickens do hatch, maybe Mick will have that cup of tea with me and we can both laugh at the stick I’ve given him for 3 seasons.
That’s probably as likely as me winning the haircut of the year award!
Have a bostin weekend and enjoy what should be a scintillating game.
UTW!
@Wolvesblogger 