Relief: Wolves 2 Bolton 1
Posted by Ben on 6th December , 2009The walk to Molineux was the same, the pre-match coffee was as bland as ever, and the fumble to find the ticket stub was as awkward as last week.
But for some reason, I just had a feeling that things were going to be different against Bolton on Saturday. And thank God they were!
Milijas - potential realised
Gone was that excruciating, painful rendition of ‘Those Were the Days’ before kick-off, which seemed to set us all off in the wrong mood for our local derby. And back came Stephen Ward and Nenad Milijas to our starting line-up.
Those pair, as much as any other players in an Old Gold shirt, deserve all the praise going for changing the scene around WV1 come 4.55pm. Even the ball boys looked lively, which made a pleasant change.
Let’s hope that our vital 2-1 win over Bolton will banish all those other familiar sights and feelings that we’ve all suffered for the past few weeks and months. I don’t know about you all, but I am still glowing after Chris Foy blowed up for full-time.
I barely remember a win feeling so good! If the same players manage to put in the same kind of performances over the coming weeks until January, then there’s no reason why we won’t all be feeling happy again and looking forward to Match of the Day once or twice. Even if they do put us on at the end!
Our precious three points were earned on the back of something that we haven’t seen at Molineux for ages – an early goal from the home team. If ever a team needed a quick strike to calm nerves and settle the players down, then it was us.
Doyle’s selfless, relentless work won us a free kick, which allowed Milijas to begin an afternoon of torment on the Trotters. His wicked delivery was nodded on by Berra for Craddock to smash home, to the delight of everyone. The fact that the goal was 2 yards offside made it even more joyous.
From then on we hussled and harried Bolton all over the pitch as usual (Brmingham apart). Only this time, we had Milijas to sprinkle some genuine, Premier-class quality on things. How fitting then, that the Serb won us the game with such a memorable goal.
We’ve been banging on about shooting on sight for God knows how long. In Nenad, we surely have the player who will oblige without hesitation. His goal was an absolute joy to behold and I’d have loved to have been a North Banker sat behind it as it swerved and arrowed its way into the top corner.
Nobody can overlook the return of Stephen Ward either. Not only did he bring us balance and intelligence to the left hand side, but he gave us an infectious ethic and enthusiasm, as seen in a brilliant last-gasp interception to keep Bolton at bay. I’m certainly eating my words, and long may that continue.
Dave Edwards also looked far more effective on the right side of midfield than in the centre and fully deserved his ovation when substituted.
Now we just need Mick to stick with this team until the New Year. No tinkering please! It might suffer one or two defeats between now and then, but it will stand a damned sight more chance of picking up one or two other results as well.
Then once January arrives, who knows? If it’s two or three quality players, then we’d all have a feeling that things might be different.
Ahh Match of the Day – It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that, thanks Thomas!
S Ward was absolute class.
Good stuff Ben and spot on for me.
Keeping a settled side is very important for us at the moment.
The only possible change might eventually be at right-back, as I think Zubar or Foley would give us something extra. That’s no discredit to Stearman, but for me he’s a center-half playing at right-back.
Milijas was brilliant. His overall play was outstanding but it’s moments of brilliance like his goal, which could prove the difference this season. He really can be our main man, so I just hope he can find consistency now.
Spot on T’om…Wardy was MOM in my opinion. Closely followed by Milijas. I am still concerned that Blake, Jarvis and Henry are passengers, and we can’t afford to carry then at WHL on Saturday.Blake has to be dropped, play Castillo instead of Henry, abd Keogh instead of Jarvis… at least they all give 100%..and thats all you can ask.
shame they didnt talk a bit about milijas’s strike but a lot better analysis than normal.
great win really. a lot more desire and effort showed although we always look nervous holding a lead. i loved how everyone celebrated milijas strike. i can imagine he’s scored a few of those in training so doing it in a match must be a big relief. tricky 5 games coming up though. just need to keep positive and not let defeats to top of the table teams get us down and keep battling.
did anyone watch motd 2 last night and the little piece they did on wolves. nice to see that the fans they interviewed weren’t complete knobheads, saying that mick is still a bit unsure of our best 11 but still believing we can do it.
Milijas also turned the Bolton defence on its heels a couple of times, switching, drifitng and guiding the ball from the centre of the park in to the corners which were sublime.
Not sure of the criticism of Matt Jarvis, Dazza, who I thought looked pretty lively. He and Wardy broke a couple of times on the counter – something I’d like to see some more of.
Much better! Actually looking forward to the Burnley game now! Agree with Tom and Ben, time to keep an unchanged side for a while, with the possible exception of Foley back in for Stearman.
Sam – didn’t see the MOTD2 feature, can’t stand to watch anything with Adrian Chiles presenting it. Do you know if its available on line anywhere?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oxe4q3HObg&feature=sub
heres a link to the mini feature. they cut out the goals though before everyone left the stadium, not sure why, copyright issue im assuming.
type footytube into google if anyone wants to watch the highlights!
Great result and boy did we need it! The boys have taken some flak on here this past week and rightly so, so it’s only right we commend the good performance.
Good to see Mulijas havin a good game and what a strike too. Ward played great too
Wolves being Wolves we had to endure the nervy last 15 minutes and almost threw it away after being comfortable at 2-0. But apart from that a great performance
Tough two games coming up, hopefully we can nick a point from somewhere
It was a fantastic game, and at last a win and against Notlob to boot! It made my weekend. Watching Wolves hold onto a lead reminds me of watching Dr. Who as a kid – pillow in front of face, daring not to watch but watching all the same, heart beating so fast I think it’s escaping from my chest! If this continues I may not get to see my next birthday!
I echo the thoughts of others and hope Mick sticks with a settled team as I think they are our best chance of earning points, although again I was particularly unimpressed by SEB and wonder if the loyalty shown to him over the past few weeks should come to an abrupt halt, although other than Doyle, he is probably the best of a decidedly poor bunch of strikers available!
It’s a bout time we rolled one of the big teams over and hopefully Spurs can be that team!
Notlob? Is that a common term or just from MPFC?
Anyway, if Milijas can do that, at least against those teams we are fighting against, we should be OK.
Problem is, he had a good first game of the year and then went into hiding.
Vote for Milijas’ goal on SkySports.com!
http://www.skysports.com/poll/results/0,19911,12782_93087,00.html
Jed – Took ur advice & voted… The latest is Milijas 14% & guess who @ 41% Darren Gibson… Now I might be biase, Gibsons was a good strike.. but Milijas was Goal of the SEASON… what a strike… If Gerrard or Lampard or Arshevin Or Rooney had scored NM’s goal, can you imagine Lineker, Chiles & the other goons falling over themselves to acclaim the greatest goal ever !!! MOTD, RTE (Irish TV) are only interested in the “top” 4 & I’m sick of it… Wolves get 30/90 seconds of highlights at the end of every show, while we sit through 10 mins of Bburn 0-0 Pool !!!….. Anyway, great win on Saturday & by all accounts a good fighting performace, even the last ditch defending showed fight… Have we found Hoff’s best position !!!!!! Dazza I agree, Henry has had his chance, time to replace him… Hopefully we can nick something in London on Saturday… We owe those bastards from 1972 !!!!! (Thanks for the welcome, Thomas)
@ Daz, Leinster – I’m gonna stick up for Henry. He does a good job off the ball and covering (eg when MOTM S Ward tears up the flank). If Henry isn’t there, we are exposed on the counter. His delivery with the ball isn’t great, but it doesn’t need to be, his job is to get it to the creative players. I don’t think Castillo is any better at that.
I would love to see the Hoff start against Spurs in place of SEB. D Edwards is much stronger on the right as in the middle. USA in goals was amazing. Can only really fault one scuffed kick in his 2 games. I also think that Jarvis would be more effective with a target man to hit with his crosses (eg Hoff/Lumes).
@Tim – I have this argument most weeks, Notlob is not a palindrome of Bolton, despite what the upstanding Mr Cleese would say.
thank you dazza and leinster, im also with the fact that henry should have a good decent look at and weigh up whether castillo should start in place of him. Although having said that, Im going to keep my mouth shut for this weeks game and see whether milijas can be sufficient in moving the ball past the midfield to the strikers, as like t’om said henry does have his pluses
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And for everything else, Im with you t’om, SEB needs out the Hoff needs in. We have great crosses from milijas, jarvis and it will be a lot more beneficial to have a big man like the Hoff in the middle… even if he doesn’t get the ball, its going to tie up a couple of defenders who will be trying to contain him and give us a chance to possibly poke a goal in.
I’m still very worried about our backline though… I like ward, foley (for the future), stearman and even berra… but the combination still seems so fragile, especially the centre halves
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Great article Ben
Cheers for the link Sam!
Yeah Sam, I echo Andrew’s gratitude. I missed that one on Sunday.
What an absolute legend that guy is and a top bloke too by the looks of it. Would love to have a chat with him, bet he’s got some great stories to share. I wonder if we can track him down? If anyone happens to know him or see him around Molineux, mention the blog to him and maybe he’ll get in touch.
Regarding this Karl Henry debate, my thoughts are that he’s still doing well. He struggled against Arsenal and Chelsea (as many did), but I can’t fault him in the other games I’ve seen him in. A definite starter for me.
On the other hand, I was having this chat with my dad on Saturday and one thing that was said was that when you’re a great team, full of creative players you can afford to have a midfielder who just sits in there and makes the simple passes (Makalele at Chelsea for example), but when you’re not so good, perhaps you do need two midfielders who can do a bit of everything. Got me thinking for sure.
But I’d still back Henry. One of our best players this season.
Henry’s our version of Carrick or Mascherano, you might not see a lot of him on the ball because he usually chooses a good pass sraight away and breaks it up. I like Henry, he’s done well this year, always gets stuck in too.
As for the hoff, what about that chance in front of goal to seal it? Didn’t even make contact, imagine if that had been Keogh.
I’d rather see Vokes or Iwelumo as the big man up front
Rich: Agree 100%. Was going to eulogise over him in the blog but thought I’d focus on Milijas and Ward. Henry was tremendous on Saturday. I just love watching him. He wins more tackles, loses less balls and is one of the most consistent performers I have seen.
For all who lambast him, I just want to know what part of his game you don’t rate. It’s all about opinions and I’m not trying to be confrontational, just genuinely intrigued.
Apart from the old: “He’s a crab” or “He only ever passes sideways or back” I’d love some plausible, genuine reasons instead.
t’OM: So pleased it wasn’t just me who noticed him track back 70 yards to cover for our full back. He does it about 4 times every game. He then gets slagged off for passing it back to the keeper!!!
I think he’s our most important, most consistent player by a country mile.
But all comments are welcome as always!
As for Vokes Rich. One of my best mates is a Leeds fan and he says he is really struggling up there. To put into context, he said that Tresor Kandoul (ex-Barnet) does a better job than Vokes and said he isn’t suited to them at all.
I’m not for one minute saying he is now not up to it, but just saying he’s hardly setting league one alight at the moment.
My mate says he just looks shot on his feet, knackered. Bit weird as he should be up to speed, having started the last 8 games or so.
@Rich-
I don’t always see it on the tele, but I see it once or so a game and assume he does it all the time. As a keeper you learn to watch for who is covering where (which has been frustrating at times this year, due to the lack thereof). I’ve only seen the mighty Wolves in the league once (Crystal Palace last year at Molineux) and twice in pre-season here in Perth.
i like henry. so what if he is a little crab like. in general his game has increased noticably, he tackles and works hard, only seems to have a bad game when the whole squad are having one. We all wanted a slightly more holding midfielder, so if he can do that and milijas can keep his game at the standard of saturday with jarvis and edwards creating trouble on the wings its a system that could really work.
fair play to the guy in the link i posted, although he must me minted to keep doing that trip. i work full time and i seem perpetually skint!
looks like I’m well thumped on my anti-Henry comments !!! (being Irish, can i say i meant Thierry Henry) !!!!!
In my defence I’ll explain where i’m coming from… as part of the overseas brigade i’ve seen the lads in the flesh 6 times & 2/3 live TV in the last year… given that we dont get too much coverage on the box other than the odd snippet at the end of MOTD etc.. most of my info on Wolves come from this excellent blog (which ive read for months but didn’t realise was so easy to contribute to) !!! & ALOB…So… when i heard allthese great reports on KH i looked forward to see what everyone was raving about…. except it didn’t happen… OK he is a defensive midfielder, but to me in all the games ive seen him (CCC & premier) he has been a passenger (one exception H toPompey where he tried his heart out-he was the best of a bad bunch that day) The Chelsea game his first touch was after 12 minutes… we were 2nil down at that stage… OK we were very poor that day… playing 3 at the back against the quickest front line in the premier didn’t help.. To be fair most of you guys are seeing matches week in-week out which gives a better overall picture… Mick has been loyal, too loyal to the CCC team, have we talent like Milijas on the bench, we dont know, because we havn’t seen them.. We all knew coming uplast season that last years team would not keep us up, but yet they nearly all feature every week… I think we need to mix things upa bit to get the players on their toes.. Anyway, good to hear all the opinions…. Wait till i get started on Jodi & Yogi at the back !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I never thought I would live to see the day when Henry was compared to Carrick and Mascherano.Utter tripe. Henry is a one dimensional, one paced , no trick pony who is an out and out passenger,He creates nothing for the team, chases shadows, and is first reaction is to pass backwards, and the second is sideways. I must be watching a different team. I would say he is more like a latter day version of Mark Atkins… not Carrick!! Get Castillo in, drop Blake , get Vokes back, and play a sweeper on Saturday ( Mancienne) for goodness sake.
Leinster, I couldn’t agree more… Berra is an absolute liability, he got away with a blatant pull back on Saturday against Bolton. He is so slow to turn, and Lord help at WHL
Hey T’om… stop being a tight arse and get Foxtel IQ2
Dazza – What’s the difference between IQ and IQ2?
I have Fox (basic + sport) with IQ. If I get a full time job next year I’ll invest in Setanta too. I meant that I don’t always see Henry covering on the tele – I watch the match but the camera tends to follow the action, rather than give a perspective of the whole pitch.
Dazza – I never said Henry was as good as Carrick or Mascherano, i said he does that job in our team. That’s like saying Kevin Doyle is Fernando Torres. How about a change of record from the utter negativity
Leinster – i agree to a certain extent that mick was to loyal to last year’s team but then there is a case for saying that they earned the right to play there. I think they just need to be helped out by a bit more quality in january