What a signing Kevin Foley has turned out to be for Wolves. I’m not sure the exact figure we paid Luton to secure his services, but whatever it was, he was worth it.
In my 20 or so years as a Wolves fan there’s only been one other full-back I can remember having as much faith in and that was a 38 year-old Dennis Irwin, which says it all really.
Whatever you want from a right-back, this lad’s got it. Positional sense, ability on the ball to play out of defence and get forward in attack and enough pace not to get shown up by any sprightly wingers.
It will be very interesting to see how he copes with the tests that await him in the Premiership. Along with flying wide-men like Lennon, Arshavin and Young, he’ll also have to contend with those strikers that like to drift out to the left like Rooney and Anelka tend to do. It will certainly be a stern examination of his credentials, particularly if he’s playing in a back-line that’s far from being rock-solid, as he was for much of last season.
Speaking of last season, how highly does it speak of Foley that he walked away with the Player of the Season award? We won the Championship through scoring a bag load of goals, not by keeping them out. Yet as fans, we all recognised how many more we would have shipped had our flying right-back not played 99% of the games.
Of course he’s now forced himself into the Ireland squad and World Cup contention, so this year becomes even bigger for him. I just hope he can do himself justice because if he does, there’s no way that his national side have a better full-back.
This time last year, there was small murmur that he might be subject to a bid from a Premiership side, with Blackburn named as potential suitors. The figures banded around then were at the £2 million mark. So if that was what he was worth a year ago, what’s he worth now? Double and then some, I’d say.
At this moment in time though, he’s priceless to us.
Here’s a question then…Foley or Thommo in your all time XI. Nostalgia says Thommo, but Foley is a more rounded, assured defender IMO. Both players are two of the biggest bargains we’ve picked up.
Muscat was a bit tasty and when fully fit in those first two or three seasons, an absolute animal. And I was a huge fan of Mark Venus. Shame he went to WBA, as I could never pick him in an all time team.
Speaking of which, would be interesting to get people’s all time XI sometime, seeing as I went to great lengths to pick a worst ever team recently!
Ben, I liked Thommo, because he was a trier and Wolves through and through. For all the years he gave to the club, he’s still my number one right-back. However, in the cold light of day, he was nowhere near as good as Foley in terms of quality.
Muscat was solid (brutally solid) but I’ll never forgive him for getting sent-off in that game against Grimsby when we capitulated in 2001, which proved to be his last match in a gold shirt.
Here’s an idea for best XI’s. How about every week I’ll post a poll for each position and the players that get the most votes become the Wolves Blog best XI of all time. That could end up being very interesting.
Thomas….get on to that poll, that would be quality!!!!
Yeah but Muscat almost crippled Craig Belamy!! That surely has to get him a couple of extra votes!! Just wish he’d done a proper job on him
Oh as well, I have just been sent a picture of our new midfield enforcer!!!
Mike Tyson in our strip, appently genuine photo too, he was spotted at the Scunthorpe game……..LEGEND!!!
pete post that up, definitely interested to see that. we just need him, zubar and elokobi to stand on the goal line and then, what defensive worries!?
Thomas, how would I do that??
Ed Milson was telling that he had Keogh’s name and number on the back. Bet you’ll all think twice before slagigng him off again LOL
Pete email it to me: tom(@)thomasbaughmedia.com and I’ll stick it up.
Mr Consistent himself.
He only missed what, 2 games last season?
Thomas – Interesting that you mention Dennis Irwin, when Foley got called up to the Ireland squad there were still alot of Ireland fans who didn’t know all that much about him. The way he was described in the media to them was as a Dennis Irwin type full back, always dependable, does his job and never gave less than an 8 out of 10 performance. Thought it summed him up perfectly!!
Great player, thoroughly deserves his Ireland call-up.
And talking of Wolves players in the Ireland squad, anybody see who was captain AND scored against Scunthorpe?? His performance even got singled out by MM for praise in the post-match interview on the Wolves website.
So, keogh and SEB to start against West Ham then?
Where did we sign him from? Was it Luton town? What a bargain. Up there with the Kightly as one of MM’s greatest signings. This is one of the reasons we need to have faith in MM in the transfer period.
Keogh’s goal last night was quite a tidy finish to be fair to him. Halfords second from the free kick wasn’t bad either
t’OM – yeah, it was Luton I think. Maybe add SEB and Jarvis to that list as well. Definitely agree with your point about having faith during this transfer window…+1!!
Foley has been quality, and, a great bargain. If this guy gets injured, we are in real trouble as we are already so weak on the left hand side! Muscat still plays for Melbourne Victory in the Aussie A-League. I will be watching (lucky me) Brisbane Roar playing the newly formed Gold Coast Utd at Suncorp on Saturday night, and they are expecting a crowd of 30,000 + !!! Strange that we will have around 28,000 for our first PL game in yonks, yet , these two no hopers can pull in more than that , for what is, basically Blue Square standard.
It’s all about the admission fee !!!
Don’t want this to turn into a pissing contest. But Perth Glory have recruited well and will be up there with Gold Coast, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne this season. I love my $11AUD (about 5 pound) student tickets to the A-League. Unluckily Perth don’t play at home for 3 weeks, but I anticipate eagerly as well (lucky me), however we don’t have a local derby, no-where is near to Perth, so we wont see numbers like 30k.
Another name (along with Muscat) which should be familiar to you guys is Steve Corica, who plays for Sydney FC.
Tom From Perth
T’om , I was in the Northgate Hotel before the Glory/Wolves friendly.
I used to love watching Wellington Phoenix when they played the Roar, just to remind me of just how bad Neil Emblen and Darren Bazeley were!!