As spectacles go, it wasn’t pretty. Two teams effectively parking the bus was never going to make for a classic encounter.
But Wolves don’t need swashbuckling attacking performances, they need points and this was a welcome one against a faltering Liverpool side.
I’ve been uber-critical of our manager’s tactics of late, but I think he got it spot on last night. Sacrificing a forward for an extra midfielder allowed us to compete in the middle of the park and with Kevin Doyle doing the work of two strikers, we still offered legitimate menace in attack.
Kevin Doyle - Best performance for Wolves?
There’s very little point in highlighting the fact we were solider defensively in this game, as the shape of the side was always going to have that effect. But every player did their job and when mistakes were made, someone was always on hand to sweep up the mess.
Craddock and Berra were particularly impressive; repelling everything that came their way. When fit, they’re still the best center half pairing we have at the club. Zubar and Ward both looked comfortable too, so that back four should be maintained at all costs in my opinion.
With both sides plonking three men in the center of midfield, time on the ball was always going to be at a premium, but Wolves gave as good as they got in there. Mancienne seemed to be sitting deepest, which allowed Milijas and even Karl Henry to surge forward in support of the lone striker. But it was the Chelsea man who stood out for me, stifling the influence of Steven Gerrard and using the ball well in tight areas of the pitch.
Foley was again neat and tidy, even getting himself into the penalty area a few times to connect with crosses from the left. But I still feel we’d be a better side with a natural winger out there, particularly in this system where attacking from wide areas is crucial.
On the other flank, we do have a natural winger and Matty Jarvis caused Liverpool headaches all night long. His pace and trickery will give Jamie Carragher nightmares for a long time to come and it was just a shame that nobody profited from his good work.
But the man of the match champagne belongs to Kevin Doyle. His ability to hold the ball up under heavy pressure and find passes in tight spaces is amazing. My old man pointed out that we’d be lucky to keep the Irish international, even if we manage to stay up. On last night’s evidence, I’m inclined to agree. He not only looked a class above anything we had, but he outshone all of the seasoned internationals in the Liverpool side too.
We move on to a crucial match against Hull on Saturday and a similar committed performance shouldn’t steer us too far wrong. The only question is whether Mick will maintain this 4-5-1 or return to a more attacking 4-4-2 system.
Your guess is as good as mine on that one.
Enjoy that one Daz?
What a great performance. The defence was rock solid, all of them including Mancienne were top class.
I agree Thomas, we do need a proper right midfielder. Foley’s great, but he aint the best attacker.
Doyle stood out for us as much as Gerrard for Liverpool. If i was Rafa Benitez i’d be thinking about taking him.
What do we do next though? Stick with it? Or change back? We need to beat Hull really, so we need to score. I don’t think we should be defensive minded against Hull.
But it worked well. Tough one for Mick
I would have taken a point before the match sat in the horrible trafffic on the Penn road a sell out crowd brings to the molineux!
First half we had six defenders on the field again, at half time my thoughts were that nil nil was the only result we could hope for. Second half we actually had a go and deserved our point. Liverpool were poor, Carragher looks past it, Gerrard didn’t look 100% fit and the rest seem to be there to make up the numbers.
As for Wolves, Craddock, Doyle, Zubar were star performers. For me Millijas and Foley were poor (MM took the former off and replaced him with Jones rather than one of the new boys).
The point keeps us out of the relegation which is massive for the team physiologically – massive game away at Hull on saturday. Can anyone recommend a dodgy website that might show the game live?
I think MM should definitely keep the 4-5-1. Milijas was destined to have a quiet match as he needs time on the ball for his deliveries and he was not going to get that in a packed midfield. Hull on the other hand… I have no idea what their usual formation is but if they play a 4-4-2 I’m sure our midfield will be able to control and distribute the ball even cleaner than what they did against liverpool, and having a workhorse like Doyle up front gives that extra leeway for another midfielder.
I was really happy with henry getting into the fray!!! Not your usual sight
Stourbridge wolf this is where i get my games from… http://www.iraqgoals.net . There are a few links, but if they say “veetle required”or something like that… dont download it cause I’ve heard bad reports about that program. But other than that, a straightforward dodgy website like you requested!!!
If that fails there is also http://www.justin.tv but you have to sign up for that… no biggie
.
type ‘myp2p’ into google or go here http://www.myp2p.eu/. They host all the links on the net in one place. I can often find a website that streams it or a media player option. If not you can download sopcast to use as a player but this site is generally good!
Has everyone read this:
http://www.wolves.co.uk/page/MatchdayMagazineDetail/0,,10307~1945806,00.html
Very interesting indeed and at the risk of getting my head bitten off, Jez talks a lot of sense.
He points out that we’ve made a number of multi-million pound bids and have even been in discussion about a deal that would break our transfer record (that must be Adam Johnson). But the fact is, nobody wants to sell.
It’s also noted that we’re preparing a fourth bid for a player (must be Hunt), with the hope of hammering out a deal.
Now I’m as frustrated as anyone at the lack of big name arrivals this month, but this article puts things into sharp perspective and at the very least provides hope that the people behind the scenes are doing the best they can.
a battling performance indeed. but isn’t anyone concerned that the objective, with 5 midfield players on show, was just to get a point ?
however exceptional he is ( and he is !) Doyle isnt likely to break down such a defence on his own.
and have we not forgotten that Liverpool are hardly the most confident outfit to play at home?
i hope we’re making a concerted effort to get Stephen Hunt, and, if its not too late, James Beattie.
Stourbridge – do you not think Jones deserved to come on? I do, he’s like a new signing himself
It’s a funny one. If we’d have gone toe to toe, end to end with Liverpool 4-4-2 then we might’ve lost. And would SEB, Iwelumo, Vokes stuck any chances away? I doubt it.
Let’s give Mick a bit of credit for a change ay? A good performance and a confidence booster ahead of saturday
Jez is right, we don’t want to end up like Leeds, Southampton et al but on the flip side we don’t want to be a yo yo club like WBA. We need to find the balance like Blues seem to have.
Also slightly frustratingly, West Ham have managed to sign Eidur Gudjohnsen and Benni McCarthy. I imagine that’ll be enough to keep them up.
Thanks Sam – I will try that website for the game on Saturday (only ever had success with the tranmere game online so far!). Mates have recommended a few sites but I never get it to work. I think blogging is about the limit of my technical ability!
Rich – Thought Jones did on when he came on (better than Millijas – but he’s our quarterback, you have to keep him on for his quality on free kicks and corners). Though Jones was a weird choice against Wigan, only just returning from injury but last night he looked like he had something to prove. Wish he had taken a direct shot on the free kick in the second half though (although someone by my reckoned it was indirect?)
Thomas – I agree this is an interesting article from Jez. I wonder how much of it relates to the wages on offer too? Interesting that the article deflects away from Morgans comments a few weeks ago about it not being a disaster if we go down.
It must be hard to get good players at this stage – teams are either pushing for promotion or fighting relegation and dont want to let people go. The reality is we should have signed more quality in the summer.
Dont care who plays on Saturday as long as we get a result!
I don’t think we can truthfully say that Birmingham aren’t a yo yo side yet can we?
Well dboy, they’re going to stay up by the looks of it. They’ve got the right idea. So they’re not going to go straight back dow. They’ll have cash to spend in the summer too. Time will tell whether they do an Ipswich or Reading second season though
I normally agree with you boys eg. Thomas & Rich, however I don’t quite see that Moxey article the same way.
How can we effectively say, ”yeah we offered £7m for a player but he won’t come.. its difficult”, and see this as an excuse for possibly signing nobody?!
I would understand it more if it WAS a financial decision that we aren’t prepared to spend more than X amount.. to say we would spend it but we can’t get the blokes who we want to come play for us doesn’t really say much for the in-depth scouting does it? Surely there are other players than Adam Johnson?
I’m honestly not proposing buying players for the sake of it.. but I’m afraid if we went down we would surely be the first club in modern times to go down with £20m in the bank and the boys in the boardroom sitting around shrugging going ”we just couldn’t find a bargain”..
Blues are not afraid of paying out the money in wages – unlike wolves.
Interesting fact on the Express and Star website today in that Wolves have spent £16million in transfers after Jez saying we wouldn’t do an Albion – the last year they spent in the Prem WBA actually spent £24million!
Maybe I am just getting old but I get sick of all the ‘spin’ surrounding wolves and football in general. I bet in the summer we’ll all be told that it’s the best England team since 66 – and it will be our best chance to win the world cup blah, blah, blah!
What does make me laugh is I found a copy of the Mirror from August last year that stated SEB was one to watch and had an ‘outside chance of making the world squad’ – ha,ha,ha he couldn’t even make our 18 last night! Probably written by someone who had never ventured further north than Watford Gap!
The wages structure is massively overplayed..
Greg Halford was how much? 3.5m with 15k a week for 4 years? Thats a 6.5m obligation.. and the very reason that clubs get themselves in trouble – a guy like Halford sat in the reserves for years (which if what I’ve heard about him and MM’s relationship is true, is exactly where he’ll be) and clogging up the wage bill.
That 6.5m even over 4 years is over 30k a week for a free transfer.. but it wouldnt need to be – the first year is absolutely key – it could have bought 2 players on 60k a week for a season.
And don’t tell me it would cause problems in the dressing room (more than Halford?!).. I imagine Nicky Hunt knew exactly why Okocha and Djorkaeff got the big bucks, just like Ian Bennett didn’t expect equal pay with Christophe Dugarry! And believe me, the players were out there.. big-name agents just didn’t want to know when we set a Championship wage cap.
Stourbridge Wolf – makes a change to hear a Wolves fan moaning that the southern press were talking UP our top goalscorer?! Bull and Richards didn’t quite receive the same treatment did they?
Stourbridge 2 things.
Firstly if your broadband is slow you’ll struggle to get a good stream as the picture will keep buffering but posting on here is more difficult than getting a stream going. Good luck with that
Secondly i think a lot of Wolves fans would’ve thought SEB was a dark horse for the WC. I think this is a strange case of both the media AND fans being wrong. 99% of media criticism is perfectly valid, I don’t think that is though. I’m still (foolishly) hoping he’ll be in South Africa!!!!!!
Regarding Moxey i’m amazed Thomas appears to have been sucked in by Moxey’s appalling spin. Adam appears to have is spot on regarding the way we’ve dealt with transfers. Setting a wage cap is simply moronic at virtually all levels. Wayne Rooney apparently wants a new deal that’ll smash through all the other top earners at United. Should they pay it? Ab-so-fucking-lutely. Just like we should be able to pay someone 50-60k on a short term deal to keep us up.
Gold/Sullivan offered RVN 100k a week for a 6 month deal. Why? Because he’d probably keep them up single-handedly and they’ve said as much on the radio/tv.
I’m not suggesting we need to stretch that far but the lack of imagination at the top of your club increasingly puzzles me.
Hypothetical situation- Imagine we go down and Andrew Surman plays really well next season. We then sell him for £2-3mil more than we payed for him. Moxey’s smugness would probably cause a shift in time and space. Yeah, great business but ultimately pointless as cash in the bank counts for nothing.
Outrageuos lending/borrowing has pretty much fucked this country up. However a certain amount of debt and risk is healthy and absolutely necessary. Wolves being in the Premiership is also absolutely necessary.
UTW.
T’om… not exactly enjoyable mate, more like the insomoniacs companion. I just don;t get how people are going over the top by dropping 2 points at home, because, that’s exactly what we did. What happens when the other side score? we never look like scoring, and, talking of which…when was the last time we scored in the PL ? Instead of signing cheap unkowns, Doyle deserves another forward to play off. Liverpool were there for the taking, they were dire, and you can see why their fans are up in arms. We shoudl have beaten Liverpool, and then a point on Saturday would be just fine and dandy.As it is, we now have to go to Hull and go for a win, playing right into HUll’s tactics. Lose there, and we are stuffed, and yes, we battled against Liverpool, we battled against Sunderland, Villa, Everton, Man Citye tc… ultimately we failed to beat any of them, because of lack of quality in teh squad. I still say the lack of firepower will lead to relegation, but, no problem, I’m sure we will bounce right back up… that seems to be our Plan A at the moment.
Daz – my reference was the fact that it was a dull game, and unlike some who get to watch it in “normal waking hours”, we are stuck with 3 and 5am.
The rant, however, was welcome even if I don’t entirely agree.
T’om…i bet neutral fans shudder when they have to watch us on TV…do you think McCarthy has turned us into Boredom City?
We have no style , other than hoof and chase..it’s embarrassing. At least WBA played lots of good football and made friends on their journey back to the CCC… even the mice must throw themselves on the traps back in the UK when they see us
I have no idea why my post was “awaiting moderation” and didnt end up getting posted, it was no different from anyone else’s post?
PS stourbridge wolf go to iraqgoals.net it usually works. shows different league games too like the bundesliga and la liga etc.
I take that back, it is still awaiting moderation… I must have missed it as i was scrolling down!
Jub, the reason your comment had to be moderated was because it contained two links. I’ve got a filter setup so that any comment containing more than 1 link doesn’t go live straightaway. It’s to prevent spam.
Sorry about that mate, it’s live now.
Kwolf and Jub thanks for the tips on internet for the Wolves game for Saturday lads – much appreciated. One of our local pubs in Oldswinford shows the games via dodgy satelite too, so if all else fails!
Kwolf – I’m keeping a couple of weeks annual leave open for the summer as I’m still foolishly hoping to get the call from Fabio! Probably as much chance as SEB to be honest ha,ha,ha! I know what you mean though – the fact he has done nothing this season is a complete mystery (and bitter disappointment) to me. I even taught my wife his chants prior to the televised games – she recently told me it was ‘a waste of time!’ – what could I say? I’d love him to get a goal and get some confidence back.
I get the feeling SEB might be back in the team on saturday. Maybe he was just giving him a rest, I hope so. If they play like that with two up front we will start beating the team around us.
Was really annoyed that he had taken Milijas off and put Jones on! Not anything against Jones, but shouldn’t Milijas be able to last ninety minutes? And taking Jarvis off was also stupid. Jarvis and Doyle were really positive. When Jarvis is confident and runs at the defender, not many can stop him, unless they foul him.
Can’t wait for Kites to get back, then we will not be so one dimensional.
fingers crossed kites will be like a new player for us if he can find any of his best form! seems ages since i last saw him play
Bring back Andy Keogh (when he’s fit of course!)
im not sure if thats sarcasm or not but i’d give him a try. let him to all the work and running and leave doyle to provide the quality finish!
Not the love child please! how quickly we forget! saying that though he has the same amount of league goals as SEB – and I seem to remember him hitting the bar too!
Louie – SEB wasn’t even in the 18, dunno if he picked up a knock or had a row with mick. Let’s face it he shouldn’t really need a rest with the little running he does. And i think Jones deserved his chance, Milijas wasn’t particularly great, though he can change the game in a instant. Jarvo was knackered too.
Kwolf – say we spend big and still go down. What then? The point is, we have been trying but teams won’t sell. We’re not going to offer 20 mill for Hunt are we when he’s worth 3/4. We need to spend within our means and not just throw money down the swanny
Called the ticket office today to get a ticket for the Spurs game. Has it been going on for a while or is it new that the calls cost 10p per min?
I cant believe that they are now even squeezing 10p per min out of me while I have to listen to ‘Hi ho silver f’king lining’ on a loop for quarter of an hour! At least the liquidator would lift my spirits every thirty seconds or so!
Hope they club all those 10p’s together to buy a decent striker over the next four days (please God not Jason Roberts)
Watching Sky Sports News, Mick did an interview about Hunt which was really funny. He just refuses to tell them anything.
It doesn’t look like we will get Hunt. Maybe a three nil win will make him put in a transfer request?