Craig

Thomas: At the end of last week Craig asked if he could send me a guest post in defence of Steve Morgan. Suffice to say I was curious. Having read it myself and offered Craig my feedback (which I’ll paste below in a comment), I deemed it only fair to share his alternative opinion. Over to Craig…

I’m going to initially touch on the manager appointments and dismissals over the last 18 or so months.

The dismissal of Mick

There’s been a lot of talk that Morgan fired the bullet too late, however, if you look at the facts there is a very valid reason why he kept him after the Blackburn game and also why we only made the signings of Roger Johnson and Jamie O’Hara.

Jamie O’Hara was signed on loan on the 30th January 2011, from that point until the end of the season we played 15 games and in that period we amassed 19 points, which was the 12 th best in the league for the same period. In that 15 game period the only teams to concede more goals than Wolves were West Ham, Blackpool and Birmingham, the three teams that got relegated from the Premier League.

So, we move on to the summer, we have a team that theoretically can accumulate 48 points over the season, however, we add to this team a player that was widely recognised as a very good defender and was previously tipped to earn an England cap, which should mean that the 4th worst defence in the league should now become a lot stronger.

If you had that information sitting in front of you would you have got rid of Mick after the Blackburn game? And would you have brought in anymore players?

Now we get to the point when he was finally dismissed, maybe in hindsight (or not), it was too late and the time that he should have been dismissed was after the Swansea game, however, at this point we were still sitting outside of the relegation zone with a manager that over the past two seasons had managed to turn our fortunes around, so you can understand why Morgan kept faith in him.

At the point of the West Brom game a lot of people have said it was too late to get rid of him, which I agree, however, on that disastrous day I was in the sponsors lounge where the seats are situated next to the directors box and although Steve Morgan wasn’t present on that day, the vile that was aimed directly at Jez, whilst present with his daughter and wife, a change needed to be made for the good of the club.

The search for a new manager and the appointment of Terry Connor

Within a few days we all knew that there were three candidates for the vacant manager’s job at the club, Alan Curbishley, Steve Bruce and Neil Warnock. The decision had been made that the job was going to be offered to Curbishley, which was also the favourite choice of the majority of Wolves fans. Morgan then made an offer to Curbishley, who shook hands on the deal and went away with contract in hand. After having a night to browse over the offer, he decided the job wasn’t for him, so turned the job down.

The only person then that was left on the shortlist was Steve Bruce, as Warnock had already accepted the manager’s job at Leeds United. So, Wolves invited Bruce to have a further interview, however, the message boards and social media sites exploded, Bruce wasn’t the man that Wolves fans wanted to see as manager of the club, and the management took note and decided it wouldn’t be in the best interests of the club to appoint Bruce as the manager

With the shortlist now exhausted, the list of managers that would be available being very poor and the chances of us going down to the Championship being almost close to certainty, the decision was made to put TC in charge for the rest of the season and begin the search again when the season has come to an end, and in my opinion, the only answer that was left to them.

Ståle Solbakken

For most of the time that Wolves had applied their trade in the top flight of the English leagues most of the talk by the fans was about them wanting to see attractive football, the days had now passed when all the fans wanted to see was players that ‘put a shift in’. So, the board took the brave decision to appoint a guy from the continent, who was highly recommended by Roy Hodgson, can you have a higher endorsement than from a man who ahs the top job in English football?

This was an appointment that got the majority of Wolves fans very excited – the lift that a relegated team needed.

So, with a team that had just been applying their trade in the top flight, minus Jarvis, Fletcher and Kightly, and with 6 additions totaling more in fees than any other Championship club had spent on players, why would a chairman think it would fail?

The dismissal of Ståle and the appointment of Dean Saunders

Following the cup exit to the hands of Luton Town, a non league side, the board made the decision to relieve Ståle of his employment, which in my opinion, was too early, however with all that went on before it you can understand why the board already had a replacement lined up and acted quickly. Did they want the fans complaining that we had held on to our manager too long again? Did they want the fans and the press going on about another new appointment shambles?

I’m certainly a long way from thinking that Dean Saunders is the right man for the job, but I can certainly understand why the club took the decision to have someone appointed virtually before we had removed the old guard.

So, why wasn’t the new man backed in January? History tells us that January is always a poor time to purchase new players. The player that are available are no longer wanted by clubs because, generally, they are not good enough, or you have to pay an over inflated price to be able to pries them away from their current club.

When I’ve mentioned this to people previously they’ve come back with “What about Ebanks-Blake?” Well, Ebanks- Blake was a different ball game because he had a release clause in his contract, which meant that Plymouth had no choice but to sell him.

The other point to note is that we are now in the Championship and we have a loan window open until March that will allow us to bring in far better players than we would have had the chance to purchase in January.

So, what has Steve brought to the club?

Firstly – The Academy – if we forget what we want today and look to 5 -10 years in the future, we should, by rights, be seeing a future generation of Wolves players starting to appear in the first team, theses won’t just be players that are in a 60 mile catchment area, but players from all around the world. I know that people have moaned about the Academy being done, but don’t just think of today think of 5 years time.

Secondly – The North Bank – Forget where we are right now and think of when we get promoted back up to the PL, we will be in a position to fill the 30k plus ground on a weekly basis, which will allow us to bring in better players due to the extra income that is coming into the club.

Thirdly – Hierarchy – There has been a lot of people moaning over the years about Jez being clueless about football, which is understandable, but one thing no-one can argue with is Jez is a good finance man. This appears to be something that Steve has also noticed as he has now brought in a man to plug the footballing gap in Kevin Thelwall, whether he is the right man is another question, but only time will tell us that.

Taking everything above into account I struggle to understand why so many of our fans are against Steve Morgan, I personally think most of what he has done to date is for the best of the club and not just to fill his own pockets, however, I do expect us to spend big in the summer to get rid of Mick’s old and trusted players and bring in a new looking team to start next season.