Adam Bate

So suddenly we are all Phil Collins fans.

The howls of the Wolves unfaithful have been loud and not so proud. An Express and Star poll recently showed that Kenny Jackett could not even garner five per cent of the popular vote to become the next Wolves boss. One suspects Kenny Hibbitt would have fared better.

It will undoubtedly add to the feeling that once again supporters have been reduced to helpless bystanders to the latest Waterloo Road car crash. But let’s not pretend this appointment is the latest affront to reason.

They do say even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. Admittedly, the saying does not document the harvesting habits of malevolent weasels. And, against the backdrop of assumed incompetence, any appointment would – and arguably should – be met with scepticism.

A bit like Groucho Marx and his membership habits, a manager who survives several interviews with Messrs Morgan and Moxey is one instinctively to be avoided. It is certainly the opposite of reassuring.

But Jackett deserves our support. At the very least, he doesn’t deserve animosity. While Stale Solbakken was an ambitious appointment with obvious pitfalls and the decisions to turn to Terry Connor and Dean Saunders were clear signs of a football club hell-bent on self-destruction, this doesn’t wreak of recklessness.

Other options may have offered more glamour. Perhaps there was a miracle cure from abroad or a bright young thing in the lower leagues. Clearly there was an arch self-publicist in Owen Coyle ready to sell dreams of passing football if only you’d be willing to overlook events in the Bolton area in recent years.

In contrast, Jackett appears an unassuming fellow who has built his reputation on quiet competence. While headline-grabbing highs have not been his forte, nothing in his CV suggests disaster imminent. And make no mistake, two seasons too late, Wolves are now in the crisis-aversion business.

For the gambler who is willing to stake ever more outlandish bets in the forlorn hope of clawing back his winnings, the appointment of Jackett might feel like an admission of defeat. In truth, it’s the first sign indication in a long time of this football club facing up to reality.

Wolves fans may have been through too much too soon to be anything other than pessimistic. But this is a baby step back towards normality after a maddening 18 months.

Perhaps the No Jacket Required fans among us would be better served listening to track three of that album: Long Long Way To Go.

This is a chronological look at Wolves’ season, exploring the tactical issues and themes that came up along the way.

Summer Plans

Mick McCarthy’s summer spending appeared to be designed to re-establish a 4-4-2 formation. The decision to spend £7m on Steven Fletcher would not have been made if he was intended to be Kevin Doyle’s deputy – this was a clear statement that a return to two up front was planned.

McCarthy also signed Stephen Hunt, a player he had long admired having named him as one of the best players in the Championship back in 2008-09. Given that Wolves had used Kevin Foley, Adlene Guedioura and David Edwards all out of position on the wing during their first season in the Premier League this could also be regarded as a positive step.

Curiously, Wolves’ defence had been regarded by the national media as a strength in 2009-10, with many citing a lack of ability to score goals as the club’s chief concern. This overlooked the fact that McCarthy had regularly used a 4-5-1 with Karl Henry, Michael Mancienne and Foley in midfield. Put bluntly, Wolves were often attacking with just Doyle and Matt Jarvis and the defensive solidity was due to the protection afforded the back-line rather than the ability of it.

As such, the signings of Steven Mouyokolo and Jelle Van Damme – even without the benefit of hindsight – felt a slightly half-hearted attempt to address the club’s defensive weaknesses.

Ambitions Scaled Back

A positive start against Stoke City at home seemed to vindicate McCarthy’s decision to revert back to 4-4-2. But the fragility of this more expansive approach was soon exposed. Wolves scored in the first eight games of the season – but conceded in all of them. By the middle of October, the Stoke win remained a one-off and failure to beat West Ham at Molineux left Wolves in 19th place and in need of a change of approach.

The result was a switch to 4-5-1 as McCarthy identified the need to keep the ball. It saw the return of Nenad Milijas to the midfield and the Serbian achieved the desired effect as Wolves outpassed Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Incredibly, there followed a run of games in which McCarthy’s men outpassed a number of the biggest clubs in the country.

McCarthy is perceived to be a coach who favours a direct approach and so this increased emphasis on short passing appeared to be something of an epiphany for the manager. It didn’t last. The results were not really improving and late goals were starting to undermine Wolves’ season.

Late Goals

By this point, late goals were becoming a theme of the season – and not in a good way. Fulham, Spurs, Villa and Man Utd (twice) had grabbed late winners against Wolves and it was happening too often to be a coincidence. At the end of the season, Wolves finished 11th in the half-time league table – six places above where they ended up after 90 minutes.

There are various reasons for this. The players themselves have admitted they have struggled to keep up the intense play of the first half. Karl Henry said: “We usually run so hard in the first half that you can’t do that for 90 minutes, especially against the top-quality sides. Sometimes you might be drawing 1-1 away from home and you say, ‘OK we’re not getting as close to them anymore, we’ve run out of steam, let’s sit back and soak it up a bit and approach it in a different way.”

McCarthy himself has also contributed with negative substitutions at key points. For example, against Newcastle at Molineux, he elected to withdraw Van Damme from the right-wing and bring on Ronald Zubar, pushing Foley forward into midfield. Zubar promptly conceded the free-kick from which Andy Carroll equalised. Against Fulham at the opposite end of the season, McCarthy removed Milijas and brought on Mancienne to shore things up – instead he barely got a kick and the visitors soon got a deserved equaliser. They are minor examples but indicative of a negative approach and a desire to merely ‘hang on’ to a lead.

Return to 4-4-2

As the poor results continued, it was Sylvan Ebanks-Blake’s dramatic late winner off the bench against Sunderland in late November that seemed to once again convince McCarthy that 4-4-2 was the way to go. Gone were the ambitions to outpass sides and it instead became a typical Mick McCarthy approach.

The plan was to win the ball high up the pitch and play from there. With Doyle and now Stephen Ward as attacking options, they certainly had the players willing to battle for the ball and run after lost causes down in the channels.

There were 1-0 wins against Birmingham and Liverpool with Ward and Ebanks-Blake up front and in January this became three 1-0 wins from five games when champions Chelsea were beaten at Molineux. This time it was Fletcher and Doyle as the front two and McCarthy was now revelling in 4-4-2 a la Mike Bassett.

Such was his commitment to the system he even asked Milijas to play up front for the last seven minutes against Chelsea when fellow substitute Ebanks-Blake was injured. As McCarthy said: “To go 4-4-2 I asked a lot of the players because it was against the favoured 4-3-3 everybody plays, but they just bought into it.”

Indicative of defensive weakness

The statistics above probably give a good indication of how weak Wolves were defensively this season. They were high on the passing table and had the ball in the opposition half more than every team other than Everton. They also had overall possession stats of 50% – placing them 10th in the table. And yet, they still conceded more than every team except Blackpool, West Ham and West Brom. This is surely a damning indictment of the side’s defensive capabilities. In truth, one only has to look back at the plethora of howlers that marred the season – Zubar at Bolton; Mancienne at Birmingham; Richard Stearman and Ward at Tottenham; Berra at Wigan; Foley against West Ham; Elokobi versus Everton. The list is long and less than distinguished and none of the defenders are exempt from criticism.

Back to 4-5-1

Despite some successes, a 3-0 home defeat to Liverpool proved the final straw for McCarthy. He’d taken enough blows and decided it was time to ‘cover up’ and switch to the 4-5-1 with Doyle ploughing a lone furrow up top once again. This was the tactic that served him so well the previous season.

It encouraged Jarvis to get up in support of Doyle as Wolves relied on their width to get behind the opposition – usually utilising the left-flank for their attacks. The return to this tactic brought victory over Manchester United and earned Jarvis his England debut.

Fletcher and Ebanks-Blake

Of course, this 4-5-1 meant that both Fletcher and Ebanks-Blake could not be accommodated in the side. Fletcher’s late run of goals meant that he finished the season with 10 Premier League goals and just 15 starts. Ebanks-Blake’s record was nearly as good with 7 goals and 11 starts. It says much for the imbalance in the squad that these two strikers could finish the season with such impressive goal returns and still remain out the side – while some of the defenders could retain their place despite numerous errors.

Over-reliant on Doyle & Jarvis

Meanwhile, the problem with Wolves’ 4-5-1 was perhaps that they became something of a one-trick pony. After his England debut, teams identified Jarvis as the key threat and he struggled to deal with the increased attention. You could almost sense the mantra of opposition coaches – stop Jarvis and you stop Wolves.

When this was coupled with the loss of Doyle, the two most important cogs in the 4-5-1 were loose and McCarthy lost faith in the system – abandoning it when 1-0 down at St James Park just 30 minutes into the game.

He perhaps felt pressured by the fact that Fletcher and Ebanks-Blake had both been scoring goals but not getting a chance and eventually felt compelled to play them both. A disastrous run of results followed as Wolves picked up just two points from five winnable games.

Last throw of the dice – Hunt and Fletcher

It was ironic that after chopping and changing his line-up and formation so many times in the campaign, McCarthy eventually found salvation in turning to the two men he had identified to improve his side the previous summer. In an incredibly gutsy move, the manager bit the bullet against West Bromwich Albion and dropped Jarvis for Hunt. In recalling the shaggy haired winger, McCarthy was pairing him and Fletcher in the starting XI for only the fourth time all season. They were both pivotal at the death – producing goals and assists galore in the final three matches to see Wolves over the line. It was vindication of sorts for the club’s summer transfer policy.

Conclusions

This was a season in which Wolves never really settled upon a favoured system and were constantly fighting to cope with the defensive problems that were not addressed in the summer. Many of the statistics suggest that Wolves’ playing style befits that of a midtable side and McCarthy will feel he has the attacking threats at the club to achieve this goal. To use a footballing cliché – at the end of the day – it was these attacking strengths that proved to be just about enough for survival.

“He’s a complete f***ing embarrassment and I can’t wait to see the back of him … absolute piece of sh*t of the highest order … a complete joke … I was gutted when we signed him as every club he’s played for thinks he’s a clown … the worst player to ever play for the club.”

These are just a sample of quotes that can be discovered within a couple of minutes of trying to find out how Neill Collins is faring at Sheffield United. The Blades currently lie bottom of the Championship and are set to drop into the third tier for the first time since the days when Brian Deane and Tony Agana were trading goals with Steve Bull and Andy Mutch all those years ago.

And yes, our Neill has certainly made an impression.

It’s also proving to be a difficult time for another darling of the Molineux terraces, Andy Keogh. The somewhat meek Irish forward has endured a torrid time this season lurching from one disaster to the next. If things had gone to plan he’d still be at Cardiff – the club arranged a season-long loan move with a view to a permanent deal – but a string of insipid displays saw Dave Jones bring the curtain down on his time there.

Next came Bristol City but, after just a solitary goal in his time at Ashton Gate, the club has now decided they don’t fancy going ahead with the arrangement either. Maybe the deal-breaker was this horrendous miss for the Republic of Ireland in a rare international start last month.

So what’s the point of all this? Surely there’s no need to put the boot in on players who tried their best for the club and have now moved on? Well you’re right. But something still jars at the back of the throat. It’s all the times Mick McCarthy made me feel like an idiot for questioning these players. There’s no need to go down the road of ‘Numptygate’ but why not just check out these comments from McCarthy after our opening away win of last season:

“Keogh has been the stand-out player in pre-season and as soon as the season started he has been terrific. From coming back on day one he has been great. I’m thrilled for him. It is all right playing well in the Premier League but as a striker the key is scoring goals in it and Keogh has done that. He is perfect for that role. He has just got the lungs of a racehorse and just keeps going and going. But his football and his set-up play was good as well. Andy has proved he can score in the Premier League.”

Needless to say, that goal will almost certainly remain the only goal Andrew Keogh ever scores in the Premier League.

This is not a rant about Mick McCarthy. One of the most important factors in the club’s success over the past five years has been the manager’s ability to get everyone at Molineux pulling in the same direction with a fantastic work ethic. Sticking up for your players is a big part of that.

But, as we see the careers of Neill Collins and Andy Keogh slide inexorably towards League One, all those words of praise take on air of foreboding. Those two men played over 200 games for Wolves. Keogh may yet reappear in the old gold and black. So next time you hear about how amazing it is that George Elokobi has made the step up; How wonderful it is that Stephen Ward can play anywhere; Or we are told how Karl Henry has taken the Premier League by storm; Maybe it’s worth taking a step back and remembering that we’ve been here before.

Mick no doubt has faith in his boys. The £40m question right now is – should we?

Make sure you check out Adam’s rather brilliant football blog at Ghostgoal.co.uk.

As a Wolves Blog regular, I thought some of you may be interested to know I’m serving a two year term on the Wolves Fans Parliament starting this month. I’ve never done it before so maybe it will prove a complete waste of time but if any of you have any issues that you would like to raise with Jez Moxey & co then I’ve been told to submit an agenda for the first meeting by September 8th.

A few things spring to mind – I will certainly be looking for more clarity on the Stadium expansion plans because it would seem to me that we have had limited information on this thus far – especially given that, all being well, the North Bank will be knocked down as soon as May next year. How will all this affect capacity / season ticket holders / pricing going forward?

Again, if you guys have any other concerns that you would like me to raise then just let me know and I’ll try and get the points across.

UTW