It would be amiss of me if I didn’t start this week’s blog by paying tribute to the great Bobby Thomson, who has gone to have a kick around with the rest of the fallen Wanderers in the golden palace in the sky.
Back in a blog in 2007, I painstakingly researched and deliberated about the players to place in my all time Wolves XI. There was never any doubt that Bobby was going to make the team – see for yourself.
Bobby was one of life’s true gents, a bona-fide Wolves legend and someone who will be sorely missed.In our one and only previous attempt of competing in the Premier League, I think our best ever placing during that season was fourth from bottom, unless a statistician wants to correct me.
After our first ever Premier away win on Tuesday, we sit mid-table and this should do wonders for the team’s confidence.
Wolves’ fans accounted for nearly a third of the entire crowd at the DW stadium on Tuesday night, vocally creating all the noise and passion.
As John Lalley commented on Wednesday in our new Fans Forum section in the printed version of the Express & Star, the stadium may reverberate with noise from the home crowd when the Wigan Warriors play their rugby there, but they make so little racket when their football club are on the pitch, you wonder if they are really bothered about the beautiful game at all.
What a victory though. An injury-savaged Wolves could have put the game to bed in the first half with numerous chances and then in the second-half some resolute defending secured the victory.
Now, I would be lying if I’d have stated that I have always been a staunch zealot of Andy Keogh’s abilities to turn his obvious potential into being a player that could really hurt the opposition.
But against West Ham he was only beaten by Nenad Milijas as Wolves best player and fully deserved his Man of the Match champagne against Wigan.
And it was only quite right that the cries of “you’re not fit to referee” from the Wolves masses behind the goal at Wigan started after Keogh was unjustly booked after outfoxing Titus Bramble.
In both games so far, there have been some good performances from the likes of Stephen Ward, Greg Halford, Richard Stearman, with certainly a big improvement from Matt Jarvis in the Wigan game.
For me, along with Keogh, the real stars over the two games so far have been Michael Mancienne, Karl Henry and Nenad Milijas.
With 11 days left of the transfer window, the likelihood is that there will be more players following Elliott Bennett out of Molineux and a few new faces coming in. I’m slightly on the fence about the link with Stoke midfielder Amdy Faye.
I think Mick should look at getting in real competition for the central midfield places and not just players like Faye, who for me would probably just be coming in to bolster the squad.
Tomorrow it’s back to the North West to face Man City, probably at the right time of the season before they bring in Joleon Lescott and whoever else they feel they can pinch with their ridiculous wealth and greed.
If we hadn’t of got something at Wigan then I, and probably I suspect quite of few you reading this, would have probably thought it would have been as likely as Kerry Katona presenting Blue Peter that Wolves could get within a sniff of some points at Eastlands.
However, I think because we now have some points on the board, Wolves can go to the City of Manchester stadium and play with more confidence and freedom. It will be a tall order to come back down the M6 with even a point, but with Doyle back and with a real belief in the camp then who knows what is possible.
I’m sure our manager Mick will probably stick to the 4-5-1 that will probably be deployed in the majority of our away trips this season. Lets just hope that, if Kevin Doyle does play a part, Keogh isn’t shoved out to the wing and that Mick instead plays him as the support striker, which is when we see the best from him.
Let’s also hope we get more than a couple of minutes on Match of the Day on Saturday and because we are playing a northern side, they might find it tricky to show any London bias this week!
Have a great weekend and up the Wolves!
@Wolvesblogger 