Six points off the top four with 13 Premier Leagues games remaining, and a Europa League round of 32 tie versus La Liga strugglers Espanyol; the business end of the season has arrived.
As the lads enjoy some much-needed Vitamin D in Marbs during the winter break – a new addition to English football that you suspect is much more to Nuno’s liking than VAR – a favourable fixture list before the last international break beckons on their return.
14 February – Leicester (H)
The Ryan Bennett Derby on Valentine’s Day presents the toughest challenge during this run.
Leicester boast smart and ambitious owners, a top-class manager and designs on gate-crashing the establishment – much like ourselves.
This could easily end in a low-scoring draw but I’ll back Wolves to edge it. It won’t be 4-3 however…
Prediction: Wolves win
20 (first leg, H) and 27 February (second leg, A) – Espanyol
Whilst no round of 32 European tie is a gimme, you’d fancy us to overcome bottom-of-the-table Espanyol, who are already onto their third manager of the campaign.
Positive first leg results will be crucial to our hopes of reaching the final in Gdansk. Nuno will relish teams chasing the game in the second leg while the Molineux men absorb the pressure and pounce on the counter.
Prediction: One step closer to Gdansk
23 February – Norwich (H)
Norwich’s fate back to the Championship has almost been sealed.
The Canaries are a team we normally struggle against; dominating possession coupled with pressing the midfield out of the game. It worked a treat at Carrow Road until they spurned a series of chances to go 2-0 up, which we clinically punished.
Good to be at home three days after the Espanyol first leg.
Prediction: Wolves win
1 March – Spurs (A)
Depending on our exertions in Barcelona, I fancy us for at least a point from our first outing to Spurs’ new stadium.
Despite moving up to fifth, Tottenham have yet to ignite under Jose Mourinho. Moura and Son’s excellence aside on the break, Spurs resembled a limited hit-and-hope Championship side at the Molineux.
This game is tailor-made for Neves and Moutinho’s crisp passing to get Wolves on the front foot.
Prediction: Draw (could be more)
7 March – Brighton (H)
The little I’ve seen of Brighton this season, I’ve been impressed by their attractive passing style under Graham Potter.
Still, they’re just two points off the drop and without a win in five leagues games.
Brighton won’t sit back like they did under Hughton in April which could play into our hands.
Prediction: Wolves win
14 March – West Ham (A)
West Ham are a shambles on and off the field.
Unfulfilled promises from the Dildo brothers and Lord Sugar’s best mate, Dinosaur Moyes back for a second spell (how does he still get jobs at the top level?) and a spot in the relegation zone.
Need I say more?
Prediction: Wolves win
21 March – Bournemouth (H)
A presentable fixture going into the international break.
Bournemouth have picked up two vital wins in as many games to move out of the bottom three, but the Cherries are starting to regress under Howe.
A similar showing to the first half on the south coast in November would be very welcome.
Prediction: Wolves win
Purely looking at the above fixtures on paper, 16 points is achievable, and would leave us in a fantastic position to fight for that fourth spot down the final straight.
We, of course, have Europe (round of 16 ties to be played on 12 and 19 March) to contend with but, if anything, the same XI thrived on that Thursday-Sunday cycle as Group K wore on.
An exciting few months ahead.
I wish I had your confidence buddy.
You’re right though – on paper we should do the business in this run of games and properly put ourselves in the top 4 picture – but it rarely works out as expected.
I also still don’t feel we’ve got the knack of slapping away the weaker teams and all the games end up being close by virtue of how Wolves operate. Could have easily lost at Norwich or thrown it away at Bournemouth but found a way to win. Should have beaten Newcastle and had a point at Liverpool, but couldn’t quite get over the line. It’s all small margins.
I reckon we’ll account for Espanyol over two legs and take about 10-11 points in the league, which would still be a decent return.
Agreed mate. Not totally confident my prediction of 16 points will be achieved as football isn’t played on paper! But you can’t ask for a much better sequence of fixtures in this league. I can see us going unbeaten in the next 6 but perhaps 3 draws/3 wins.
What’s encouraging about Norwich, Brighton and Bournemouth at home is that they’re unlikely to sit in, especially the first two.
Not overly worried about Espanyol. If we progress to the next round then the above three fixtures will be after those EL ties. Hopefully we can get into a nice rhythm like we did as Group K wore on.
Paddy – how very dare you suggest we will only draw against the vile Spuds! Our boys are light years ahead of Mourinho’s rag bag collection of divers and cheats. Just like last season we will batter them at their place and gain overdue revenge for the travesty of losing to them at Molineux.
OODCL
P.S. have I ever mentioned how much I detest the second best team in North London?
I hope you’re right Dave! I knew my prediction of a draw might rile you! Like I say, I don’t rate Mourinho’s anti-football ethos at all – they look way off being a top side. If we play like we did in December but just be a bit more clinical, then I can see us winning.
Beating both Leicester and Spurs would be fantastic but those two fixtures are hard to call.
The optimistic part of me agrees with all you say Paddy but we still have an innate ability to turn the seemingly weaker teams and games into massive banana skins.
However, I can see a tidy haul of points in these upcoming matches and if we can put pressure on a faltering Chelsea, a top four place come season’s end is very achievable.
I get the feeling that Fosun and Nuno see the Europa as their top priority during the run in and I would be surprised and disappointed if we didn’t progress at Espanyol’s expense. After that, we’ll see who we get but one thing is for sure. None of those left in it will relish pulling our name out of the hat.
Great days indeed.
Agreed Wolfstroker. A 16 point haul means everything would have to go our way, but we’re capable of it. Like I said to Thomas, Norwich, Brighton and Bournemouth won’t sit in, so hopefully there’s the space for Moutinho/Neves to dictate and play Traore in.
You feel the chase for the top 4 may suffer if we progress further in the Europa League, but we saw how much a settled starting XI got to grips with the Thursday-Sunday cycle in November/December.
Anyhow, a very few exciting few months ahead!
Very unlucky against the new champions
Six points off last season’s champions
Not beaten by “mighty” United
What is to be remotely afraid of?
I look forward to winning every game, otherwise there is no point to playing it.
Why can’t we shoot for 39 points from our remaining games and victory in Gdansk?
Fuck ‘em all, Wimm Wolves ay we?
And Tim, you really are a twat.
No need to bully our Tim. Don’t drink the IPA if you can’t handle it.
Don’t worry. I don’t really care and it makes him look like a fool in front of everybody else.
there’s no cure for some ailments, Tim
Totally off topic, but have y’all seen that a Fosun company has developed a quick detection test for Coronavirus?
Great if its true.
Remaining off pist,
Did you get the WhatsApp from Stu re used face mask in taxi?
Prevention is better than cure.
FWAW
This looks over optimistic to be honest .
However if we can still be in contention after Leicester and Spurs we have a chance of at least top 6 this year .
Be fantastic to go further in the Europa and I expect us to do so .
Got a good feeling about this Campana guy who may be a surprise package in the run in .
We will probably lose or draw one or two of the so called easier games as their desperation for points grow but then turn spurs over away so around 12-13 points would do me
Get to the last game of the season with a chance of top four with a result at Stamford bridge , now that would be a great end of season
The best way to hold on to all are best players and attract more talent is to get the champions league
Imagine arsenal and spurs etel enquiring about our players and offering them a mid table opportunity when we are in the champions league
Eeeerm. No thanks
Utw
Got to go along with all that Paddy says and the rest of you echo, even if you are not quite as optimistic.
Good as it would be to get a clean sweep in the next few weeks, football rarely works like that. Indeed the great thing about football is its unpredictability. For instance who would have expected Wolves to come back when they were 2-0 down to Manchester City.
Like Nick I have a good feeling about Campana and expect Podence will prove to be an asset.
All in all I very hopeful about the next few weeks. Looking for at least a top six finish and a trip to Gdansk.
Spot on Marney. Champions league qualification would be a game changer on so many fronts – retaining players, attracting players, keeping our manager, more revenue from global exposure to name but a few of the benefits but I think it will take a Herculean effort for us to do that. I think if we can qualify for europa league again that would be a tremendous achievement too. The Leicester game could really shape our season. Win convincingly and we head into Europe and the rest of the season with real momentum behind us.
Off tack a bit but did anyone notice that Vallejo this week played the full game as Granada overcame Valencia to reach the semifinals of the Spanish cup. Makes you scratch your head in confusion doesn’t it?
Different style of football over there, I guess. More of a leisurely pace without the hurly burly of the Prem. You don’t get time to think much in our league whereas in Spain it’s more of a ‘slow slow quick quick slow’ sort of thing.
Some can adapt. Some can’t.
Down here in Lanzagrotty warm weather training like the lads, getting our vitamin D(you do get it from Spanish plonk don’t you?) and building strength for our run in till the end of the season.
One thing I have noticed here is the absence of Man U and City shirts, but an upturn in Liverpool shirts….wonder why?
Next year they will all be replaced by Wolves Shirts, bloody glory hunters!
I like it Lowves …… how long you there for?
Only 10 days Mike, to fit in with the fixtures coz we have a game on Friday night.
I’ll bring you a stick of rock back!
That’ll be volcanic rock then. Watch out, the locals don’t like it!
No it doesn’t taste quite the same as Blackpool rock!?
Needs some pineapple rings!!
I’ll try that later!!
Mint flavour … with Lanzarote written in it…. will do nicely…
Since we beat West Ham utd in mid December (also the last time we took the lead in a match) we have taken 12 points from 10 games. I think the top 4 is out of reach. If we get there it will probably mean winning 9 of the last 13. The top six is there for the taking but an upturn in points haul is needed compared to the previous 10 games. Those last 13 fixtures do contain games that look ‘winnable’ . Apart from Brighton of course who we hardly ever beat. The sunshine break might do us some good. I think the first two thirds of the season have not seen us generally have the run of the ball. On the wrong end of debateable VAR decisions.A bootlace here.A fingernail there. Handballs against us. Other teams getting away with it. Maybe we are due a bit of fortune in the run in and things go our way. My prediction is to finish somewhere between 55 and 60 points. Which could mean a finish between 8th and 5th.
Wow Mr Day, you’re not one for hedging your bets! I think Spurs are there for the taking but Leicester look like a pending banana skin. I can see a surprise poor result against either West Ham or Brighton… so I’d be pleased with ten points from the schedule shown and a shot at top six finish. But if I had to select between winning Europa Cup and top six I know which I’d want. It’s so great to even think we have that sort of choice.
Leicester seem to be cooling off. Only 7 points in their last 5 games.
They were getting more points than their play seemed to indicate that they should according to the xG and xGA. Hopefully those things will even out, at least defensively.
I really hope we spank someone. We rarely score more than 2 goals it seems. If that was against Bournemouth it would be extra delightful. If not I can wait for the Villa.
Try this new game!
Pick any famous movie line, and add the phrase “ you piece of shit” to the end.
I’ll start.
You’re gonna need a bigger boat, you piece of shit!
Need to get a life.
For any job that must be done there is an element of fun, find the fun and the job’s a game, you piece of shit.
Seems to work.
frankly my dear i dont give a damn…..you piece of shit
play it again sam …. you piece of shit
When I worked at an Ad Agency in Bristol we had a slightly less obscene game.
Normally played in a Berni Inn, after a liquid lunch and just before we went back to a hard hour’s work before opening time.
It involved inserting the word ‘trouser’ or ‘trousers’ into the name of a well known film.
Oh what fun!
The Sound of trousers
2001 a Trouser Odyssey
Trousers are forever
Trouserfight at the OK Corral
Indiana Jones and the trousers of Doom
Or how about the Clint Eastwood classic…
Dirty trousers.
There wasn’t a dry eye (sorry, trouser) in the house.
But we were VERY drunk.
What of Quentin Stanton’s classic – Jackie’s Brown trousers.
Or of course What’s eating Gilbert Grape’s trousers?
Stanton? – Tarantini
You may remember a well-known film actually called The Wrong Trousers.
I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore Toto , you piece of shit
I think you mean The Trousers trousers.
‘I can still smell your perfume on my clothes.’ You little shit.
So going completely off-track and talking about football.
I wonder if we will see at some point Podence playing in the number ten role behind a front two? I do think we have some more options now to deal with the teams that come to park the bus.
Conor Ronan man of the match for Blackpool, only started a few games.
Getting good loan experience with Simon Grayson.
Hope Nuno keeps him mind,
Our Rochdale link is working well.
There seems to be lots of discussion about trousers on here tonight. Excellent. Nothing can distract from a trouser discussion. Many pop stars are known to adorn spectacular trousers. Like Noddy Holder off Slade who was known to wear a tartan style trouser. Or Johnny Rotten out of The Sex Pistols who also wore tartan trousers with lots of safety pins in them.There was a chap who used to frequent my local pub who was not known for his cleanliness and often presented at the bar in trousers which were well known for odd looking stains in or around the nether regions. The Bay City Rollers were unique advocates of silly trousers. I could go on but it’s Sunday night and no one gives a shite.
And Jim Morrison and OK Proby split theirs
So manc utd want neves and traore and liverpool want traore and barcelona want traore and real madrid want traore…. why oh why are the tabloids so obsessed with our players being stolen by other TOP clubs .
They still wont have it that we are quickly becoming one of those top clubs and the said players they continuously reckon are going to leave want to be with wolves and love nuno and his staff and the whole project.
Its as if they are willing traore and neves and even nuno to leave so we will fall apart what is the matter with these morons and their fascination with us .
Are they bored as its the winter break? is it simply lazy journalism? or is there some truth in it all ?
It does worry me a tad because a footballers life expectancy is short ( playing wise) and the pressure to make a shed load in the shortest possible time is very tempting especially if your flavour of the month and in the spotlight.
Look at the ones who have filled their pension pot in a few micro seconds of being popular and then faded away like a snowman on a sunny day.
I suppose we have to pray that nuno has instilled some of his immense integrity into them as before he took them under his wing they were not exactly setting the football world on fire.
Nuno IS the wolves project and fosun have to do everything in their power to keep him happy i just worry that where we are going could take a bit too long and the big fish are snapping away at us the tastier we look.
Yes rome wasnt built in a day and our ground extensions wont be either. Its those sort of things that can tempt your best people away along with huge wage increases and the draw of the champions league being the norm.
Walking straight into a massive ready built club would be tempting to any one and players will come and go thats a given and we will have to get used to that .
The big question is where would we find another nuno? Men like him dont come along too often.
The success we have had in such a short time has left us all a little dizzy after so much dissapointment over the years and we dont want it to stop now so a bit of trepidation is expected i suppose
I hope and pray that the “project” keeps up to the pace and expectations of the men that matter and we frighten off the circling sharks and the journalists once and for all.
Time will tell but so far so good.
I think all of us have the same frustrations with national journalists. Why do they do it? Well a few reasons I suppose.
Firstly, a headline of Traore is happy at Wolves doesn’t sell many papers.
Secondly (just like MotD and Soccer Saturday and most other football related media), they assume the majority of their audience are concerned with a handful of clubs. So internet click-bait like United to make a move on Raul pulls the audience in.
The other night I watched the Debate on Sky sports (really don’t know why). They spent over ten minutes discussing West Ham. That’s more than I have ever heard them talking about Wolves.
We know the media are ridiculously focused on clubs in the capital – but really who gives a monkeys about West Ham.
Not sure we will ever change that completely, but those pundits with half a brain are at least starting to realise the revolution that is occurring at the Mol.
The media obsession with West Ham is tedious. There seems to be a belief they are a big club. This is partially explained by their being a London team and also the myth of “the West Ham way” .
The truth is for years they were a yoyo club who had some decent players in the sixties and have a deluded fan base.
All very true Spikey and if it was me, I’d rather be part of creating a real lasting legacy at Wolves than head off to the bright lights and end up at best, just another ‘star’ and at worst a bit part player. Money is a motivation, of course, but they’re hardly on the breadline at Molineux.
Call it my paranoia though, if you wish, but is it coincidence that our two biggest signings of the January window, Messrs Campana and Podence, could be seen as direct replacements for Raul and Adama.
Nah, it can’t be so.
Hopefully it won’t be so for a few seasons Wolfstroker. But the words my old dad used to bend my ear with seem relevant.
“In times of plenty prepare for adversity”.
what a superb saying.
I will tell that one to the wife when she comes out of selfridges !
I didn’t know your wife sold fridges Spikey.
Ours is on the blink, perhaps you could send her round to quote on a new one.
Before Real Madrid snap them all up.
I think I need a sit down.
tell you what doog facemasks is what you want my mate is in screwfix and a chinese woman has just purchased £120 worth they have now run out so i went to our supplier and they are sold out .
i think you should keep your old fridge you may want to hide in it !
It’s always made me wonder why a refrigerator when abbreviated becomes a fridge with a ‘d’ where does that come from? ….but then I’ve never wondered about really important things like the meaning of life or whether Villa will ever get another point.
They can also be seen as necessary backup for the two.
Adama has to prove himself a little more. I think Raul seems settled.
I hope you’re right in your predictions Paddy Day. (By the way, you weren’t born on 17th March by any chance?) .
I think top four may be unrealistic but we have to go for it. Mind you, the Europa League will give us an extra crack at the CL, so we have to go for that too. I think we have a better chance of winning the EL than making top four.
I can see Chelsea slipping up. They haven’t strengthened in the window, and home form is erratic. Fourth place looks like a fight between us, Everton and in-form Sheffield U. Man U and Spurs look off the pace but could pick up speed. That’s six teams battling for fourth place. We’re capable of it but but we’re not the only ones.
There hasn’t been a season like this for outsiders since Leicester won the title.
And, we have to play all of the above, except Utd, plus Leicester, so lots of points they won’t get!!
Trousers
We have such an opportunity to get to fourth that might not occur again, we have to go for it. Teams around us will feel the same. Everton are on a run, Sheff U are hanging in there, Spurs and Man U are poor this year but won’t be as bad next season. Need to win on Friday night just to keep in the mix. Need to get European games again next year to keep our best players and recruit quality in the summer, need to keep Nuno happy.
Anyone know what has happened with the Espanyol away tickets ?
100 tickets left this morning Matt.
Get on the wolves site quick buddy.
3 sales levels today so get in quick.
According to the official website, they go on sale tomorrow, or today in your case, unless you are in New Zealand in which case its half past four, daylight savings time
Spare a thought for Jackie McNamara who served us well in 2005-7 despite incurring a cruciate ligament injury.
Best wishes for a solid and speedy recovery to the original Jackie Mac
A little light entertainment…
Cue the dislikes. 🙂 🙂 🙂
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/brilliant-wolves-songs-dont-expect-17729205
Stu, in the words of Janice Nichols…”Oil give it foive”
From Twitter:
Sorry. Someone was just mocking someone else.
All too easy to say we will win these games but look at Watford away, Newcastle at home and many other examples. When was the last comfortable home win? Feels like an age ago.
We’ve rightly won plaudits for our heroics against the elite but until the draw at Old Trafford we’d conceded the first goal eight games running, which is scandalous if we’re being honest.
Not to be downbeat at all about what has been another magnificent season overall, but maybe a slight reality check. Everton are in better form than us, so nothing to say we will finish above them, Sheff Utd showing how to beat the lesser sides, exactly what we need to do.
We could finish anywhere between 6th and 12th – it’s up to us to make it the former.