So, three victories and three defeats from our December program. Could have been better, but definitely could have been a lot worse.
It’s a shame that after good wins over Bolton, Spurs and Burnley, we end the year with back-to-back defeats. Unfortunately though, that’s the cruel nature of the Premier League.
Last night’s match was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I was encouraged by how well we competed with City for long periods, but for all our huff and puff, we never really looked like blowing their house down.
Tevez - Opened the scoring via a deflection
I was disappointed with McCarthy’s team selection, which seemed overly negative and starved us of any real cutting edge in the final third. We sent in a lot of crosses from set pieces and occasionally gave City some uncomfortable moments, but clear cut chances were few and far between. In fact, I can only recall Kevin Doyle’s individual moment of magic forcing Shay Given into any kind of save. Other than that, he was largely untroubled.
Most of Wolves’ best football came in the middle of the park with Surman, Mancienne, Henry and Foley all showing neat touches but never really penetrating the City rearguard with their passes. I’ve got to believe the pace and trickery of Jarvis or the creativity and vision of Milijas would have served us far better last night.
At the back, I thought we did OK, despite shipping three goals. The Garrido free-kick and that late Tevez strike unfairly distorted the final scoreline in my opinion, but if you don’t make the most of your possession, which Wolves didn’t, the top teams will punish you.
We were undoubtedly on the end of some dodgy decisions too of course; none clearer than Bellamy being offside in the lead-up to the free-kick for their second goal. But when the decision went against us, the wall wasn’t setup correctly, and the ball sailed in far, far too easily. Hahnemann has to take some blame for that one.
Some plusses from the match included another impressive display from our record signing. For all the tip-tap passing going on in midfield, Kevin Doyle was the only player who looked like making something happen for Wolves. It’s becoming a familiar tale and I pray that he remains injury free for the lion-share of the season as we’d struggle badly without him.
I also thought Zubar did quite well, but let himself down a few times by simply not concentrating. He’s strong, athletic and decent on the ball for a defender, so has all the attributes to be a great player for Wolves. I just hope that potential is fully realised, because he could end up being very important this season in our bid for survival.
We get a week off from the Premiership adventure now, with the FA Cup match at Tranmere next up. I expect a lot of changes for that match, so we should be recharged and ready to go for crunch back-to-back games against West Ham and Wigan.
The last two matches have been disappointing, but I’ve seen enough to believe we can stay up.
Roll on 2010 I say.
Happy New Year to everyone on Wolves Blog!
If we could have used our first 30minutes of dominance and created a goal we would have been flying but we lacked that creative spark or individual piece of skill. This is where City beat us.
They didn’t out play us or use the ball better until it came to the final 3rd and with people like bellamy and tevez they will win you games. Yes the officials were awful and if that offside had been given, who knows what we could have created.
A bit dissappointing but I think we can do enough to stay up. I definitely think we’ve got enough to win our next two matches. Let’s see what the January sales bring as well.
I am amazed by how many matches in the Premier League are affected by bad refereeing decisions, it’s time they sorted themselves out, this is supposed to be a professional sport with professional officials, sadly the officials failed to meet the required standard again!
I see Steve Morgan (our anonymous Chairman) has been quoted over the weekend saying he “wouldn’t be happy” with mere survival!
Great Mr Morgan does that mean you will be digging deep over January so that MM can bring in some quality? Look what happens when you spend £6million on a player – you get Doyle, rather than messing around at £2 million for Halford, the Hoff etc
When the team sheet was announced yesterday I thought our midfield looked very weak – but to be fair they coped better than i expected. We started with 6 defenders on the field and for all our possession didn’t really look like breaking through.
Another poor display from a Ref, but I dont think ruling out the second goal would have changed the result on the night. The next two league games are far more important
We had no width, no creativity, no one who could cross the ball and Elokobi.
And despite all this, for a lot of the game we competed with Man City.
What would have been had Milijas and Jarvis started…
Hallam, I wasn’t going to mention Elokobi because I was worried I would crucify the guy, but as you mentioned him I’ll make just one comment – Elokobi is dogshit and should not be any where near a premiership team!
Elokobi was very poor last night, particularly in possession.
There were some promising signs from him in early performances this season, particularly when he came on away at Man City.
But he’s looked out of his depth for a long time now and shouldn’t really be making the bench, let alone the first team.
Thank god Ward is only suspended for one game. Get him back in there pronto.
Disappointing to see Jarvis and Milijas out of the team. I assumed in going off early at Anfield, Milijas would be starting, and with the cup game coming up why not play a full strength team? Surman has nothing on Jarvis and our only width seemed to come from Doyle, so there was just Iwelumo in the box.
In what was a very defensive set up, it was always going to be difficult to come from a goal behind. So at half time, why not Milijas for Mancienne and Jarvis for Foley/Surman, are they incapable of playing 45 minutes now?
Sam…good use of the “if” word. As I said on another blog, we just ain’t good enough. We huff and puff without any threat on the opposition goal. We take Doyle off (our only real chance of scoring) and bring on a Championship striker (Blake) to accompnay another Championship striker(Iwelumo). mancini must have been laughinga ll over his face. Our only midfield spark stayed sat on the bench, whilst the lumbering Elokobi was a total embarrassment. This Manager has lost the plot, he tries to be too clever for his own good, and Morgan will now not release the necessary fundingt o keep us up. I wouldn;t give him another penny. Surman, Hoff, and Halford bear testament to that. What an absolute waste of money. We could have bought one decent quality player for what we paid for these 3 donkeys, and that quality may have paid dividends. But no, w epay 3 lots of wages , to 3 total spae wasters. mccarthy out !!
Hallam’s on the money about the width. For the most, through the middle we’re pretty decent. However, from back to front our wide-play is pretty poor.
It appears that those Mick McCarthy being sacked rumours are unfounded…
theres no consolation in dominating the early stages of matches (Arsenal, Man City etc) if we can’t score. unless the club invest in a proven striker of quality, to partner Doyle, we’re in for a gloomy time. ( if Maierhoffer isn’t good enough, why buy him in the first place?)
also, why change an effective, and developing team when we have begun to show promise? Both Stearman and Milijas have improved immensely in recent games, yet neither featured in monday’s starting line-up.
hate to mention it, but Birmingham have played an unchanged team for the last 10 games, i believe. and look where they are.
Totally agree with you Jed, Elokobi is dogshit and should not be any where near a premiership team. With Ward out he is the weakest link so lets see someone come in during the transfer window.
Feel every time I write on here it’s to criticise someone, but seeing the other posts lets consider some of MM decisions…
Dazza I agree with you too – MM taking Doyle off is becoming a nasty habit now. Leading scorer and most lively player, keep him on and then don’t play him in the FA cup this weekend if fatigue is an issue.
We started with 6 defenders on the field against Man City – they coped better than I expected – after I saw the team sheet I feared the worst.
Dropping Milijas and Jarvis can only be attributed to tiredness, but again rest them in the cup. How many dead balls/corners did we waste in the first half? I admit that I wasn’t Milijas’ biggest fan – but fair play to the bloke in the last month he has started to tackle back and look like a decent signing.
Getting points from the next two league games away at West Ham and home to Wigan is far more realistic – so lets hope we can get it right!
I see Halford is now being linked with a loan move to Sheff Utd – another £2.5million wasted!
Still at least we are being linked with a £1.5m move for Kris Commons from Derby eh? – I’m sure he will make a massive difference in the Prem! Just got to hope it’s newspaper b*llocks!
mdwright – good to see you commenting mate and agree with you about Birmingham’s settled side. They haven’t got particularly great players, but they’ve got a very well organised side and because of that, they can grind teams down and get results. They give very little away.
I’m absolutely astounded by the negativity of some fans though. While I agree that McCarthy has definitely made some errors with his team selections thus far (including Man City), we’re not really doing that bad.
A repeat performance of our results in the first half of the season should see us survive, which was and remains the main objective no?
It’s definitely been a mixed bag so far, with some horrendous lows and some massive highs, but I think it’s harsh to be mega-critical at this moment in time, because we’re in decent shape.
A couple of good signings in January and keep our best players injury-free and I believe we will stay in the Premier League. That will certainly do for me.
No Thomas – our club has bigger ambitions as Steve Morgan was quoted over the weekend saying he “wouldn’t be happy” with mere survival!
I’m sure the rest of us would be happy with that though – like you I know I would!
The ‘experts’ reckon you might need 42 points for survival this year – take out the games in hand and we would be in the bottom three. It’s so close down there one win can make a massive difference in terms of league position – I was never caught up in the romance of being twelfth as we were only three points from the bottom three.
Thomas
I agree that there is a bit too much negativity surrounding the team given that the odds probably remain in our favour regarding staying up.
However, I think part of the explanation, as has often been the case with McCarthy, is simply team selection. It is virtually impossible to argue with (a) MM’s ability to get the team to work hard, (b) In the main, MM’s record in the transfer market. However, team selection continues to confuse. Hadn’t Milijas and Jarvis proven in recent weeks that they are key to survival? Milijas has played about 2 hours of our last 6 hours of football! Didnt SEB finally look like he was getting his confidence back against Burnley? Then he gets little over 1 hour of our next 3 hours football. Surely Foley is our best right-back? etc.
Even specific to Man City game:
a) If we are resting Stearman why not put Foley back to right-back?
b) When Berra is injured and we are 1-0 down why not put Mancienne back to counter Bellamy’s pace and bring Milijas on?
c) When Man City are playing without a natural right-winger and leaving our left-back as our main outlet, please don’t have our worst passer there! Move Surman back there and bring Jarvis on.
I am not after regime change but I just think he continues to get things wrong with selection. Moreover, the way he is talking up Mancienne in midfield, are we to understand Milijas might not start against West Ham or Wigan? That could be too much for me to take.
Totally agree Thomas – it’s hard enough for championship plsyers to make a go of it in the Prem – so why make it even harder by playing people out of position.
OOpps! Totally agree Adam! – it’s hard enough for championship plsyers to make a go of it in the Prem – so why make it even harder by playing people out of position.
Its all very frustrating and especially so when that crappy little Small Heath outfit are doing so well.
Alan Hanson summed up my angst perfectly on M-O-D when I got home after the match.
He was the latest in a long line of pundits eulogising over Scott Dann and Roger Jonstone who he said McLeish signed for ‘two and sixpence’! But it was two and six more than we were prepared tp pay and at a time when Bham didnt even have a friggin chairman!!
McCarthy wanted both of them and we all know Dann had undergone a medical with us before McCleish gazumped us for the sake of £5k/week.
So, although Mick has driven me nuts over tactics and selections at times, Morgan and the Fat Controller didnt back him by funding these two signings.
And if we’re not prepared to fork out ‘two and sixpence’ for players the manager wants, what hope is there of beginning to bridge the obvious chasm in class between the CCC and Prem?
Stourbridge – 42 points seems excessive to me as a benchmark for staying up.
West Ham are in 17th position at the moment with 18 points, having played 20 games (1 more than halfway). A repeat second half of the season would see them around the 36 point mark.
If Wolves got 40 points and went down, I’d be pretty disappointed.
If I had to stick my neck out now, I’d predict Pompey, Hull and Burnley to go down.
Oh and anyone who says Wolves are only above the bottom three because of games in hand is incorrect (currently). Had everyone played 20 games, the lowest we could possibly be is 17th.
Agree completely with Adam about McCarthy’s team selection. Spot on.
Agree with Scoop that we need to loosen the purse strings a bit in January, if we’re to find players of greater quality. Unfortunately though, I suspect we won’t. Hope I’m wrong.
yep, it was mick who identified blues’ 2 critically acclaimed defenders, morgan and jez who blocked them. its blues who now keep more clean sheets than pope benedict. but its mick who is caned for buying shite players. ha ha! and its jez who is on 400k a year basic. it will be mick who gets the sack before we know it, despite being the most dignified, honest, and statistically best manager since john barnwell. how can morgan not back a manager who won us the championship,when a blues manager,who all of their fans hated,got backed with no chairman to santion the deals?! i honestly thought mick would be supported in the premier league by a bloke who still thinks 17th to be a failure. what parallel universe is morgan on? if the faceless idiot opened his gob once a year,perhaps we’d know.
I bet Blues ain;t concerned about getting 42 points for survival. How come , they finish below is in the CC, don;t use “squad rotation” and are 13 points clear of us?One reason only….THE MANAGER
West Ham and Pompey should be glad they got wins at our place, in teh big picture, those two victories will probably cost us dear in May
Quick thoughts on the last 2 games…. Good battling for the first 60mins & ref bows to enevitable pressure from messrs Gerard & Torres… The Refs decision is final, my arse… We were good & looked very comfortable on the ball, so why then did MM drop Jarvo, Stears & Milijas for the City game… what was that about ??? MJ & NM have been our most dangerous players going forward… As it happened we had a good few chances with balls breaking at the edge of the box but unfortunately our lads put them in row Z…. If they’d fallen to MJ or NM who knows !!! After all City hadn’t won away since September, we handed it to them on a plate…. Hanneman was poor for 2nd & 3rd goals,,,
Good battling unfortunately doesn’t put 3 points of the board. As well as we played we never really trheatened to score and Blake, Iwelumo and Hoff are totally out of their depth at this level.We need more quality in the SPINE of the team
42 points to stay up? That’ll probably get you top half the way this season’s going. 38 should definitely be enough.
Sure there’s been a few dodgy team selections of late but Dazza please, who would you replace Mick with because you are crazy to say he should be sacked. Who would do better?
And why does everyone keep banging on about bloody Scott Dann? Another championship player, like Halford, Surman et al, who everyone’s moaning about. Anyway i don’t hear many complaints about Craddock and Berra
Totally agree Dazza – with the exception of Doyle we look poor in attack.
I think SEB had his best game against Burnley – no surprise there as they are a championship team! Bet Everton and all the other clubs linked with him breath a sigh of relief that they didn’t come in with a bid when he was scoring freely in the Championship!
Big Chris isn’t the answer and the Hof looks like Bambi on ice to me (which is why he is now no where near the first team).
All promoted teams seem to struggle to score, but it’s no surprise our best player is the one we paid £6miollion for. I would rather have had three sighnings of that stature rather than p*ssing about with £2million signings – most of which have not paid off.
Lets hope this portsmouth thing blows up and then we only have to finish above two of our rivals
I think we are only a couple of players away from being a good side. That is what January is for. If we were cast adrift by now – fine, have a dip – but lets look at the squad and ladder position come Jan 31/Feb 1 before we really get upset.
Paul Merson was saying on sky that when he was walsall manager he send Scott Dann out on loan to Redditch and they sent him back because he was rubbish!
Merson had probably ‘been on the sauce’ the night before tho!
Portsmouth are not only in trouble with Revenue and Customs but they also have a massive solicitors bill to settle to keep their brothel creeping manager out of the newspapers!
I’d just like to add we’ve moved up a place last night despite not even playing thanks to Man United’s demolition of Wigan
Maybe a really good taret man might be a good idea. But then where would that leave BCI, Hof and Vokes? I would rather have Vokes than the other tw to be honest. I think if Mick gets a target man, he is gonna have to spend a lot.
I think we might need a winger who can play on both sides. Johnson is doing well in the CCC, he miht be a good buy?
Louie – i’m a big fan of Vokes and would like to see him back. Like the look of adam johnson too, quality player. By the way, was that you who sent the letter to four four two?
Haha yes Rich! Couldn’t believe it got in. Bought it on tuesday morning praying \and there it was!
11 changes for the Tranmere match?
I hope Hennessey gets his chance too if that happens. Anyone see Joe Hart have a dig at McCarthy? He said something about making a mistake and becominbg the young goalie replaced by an experienced one. Hennessey was at City as well as a youngster.