What a difference a win makes hey?
Out of the murky, dark cloud that’s lingered overhead for the last two months suddenly we’re staring into the sunlight wondering if a similar performance at Old Trafford could reap further rewards.
Talk about riding the roller coaster.
Anyway, whilst basking in the warm after-glow of victory, I took a sneaky look at our fixtures leading up to Christmas. On Boxing Day, we entertain Wigan at Molineux and when the final whistle blows in that game, we’ll have completed precisely half of our fixtures.
Obviously, survival is the minimum requirement and 40 points is usually the benchmark for achieving that, so using an impressive looking scientific calculator, I cleverly deducted that we need at least 20 points by the time we reach half-way.
We have 9 points already on the board, meaning we require at least 11 to remain on course.
Will we get them? This is what I’ve come up with.
Man United (Away) – 0pts
Arsenal (Home) – 0pts
Bolton (Home) – 3pts
Blackpool (Away) – 1pt
Sunderland (Home) – 1pt
Blackburn (Away) – 0pt
Birmingham (Home) – 3pts
A***** (Away) – 1pt
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 12pts = 21pts
—————————————-
Obviously, this is nothing more than guess-work, particularly over such an extended stretch of fixtures and my thoughts on each game as they come around will likely change.
However, what is does demonstrate, is that if Wolves can maintain some decent form for the next two months, there are plenty of points up for grabs and there’s no reason we can’t be well clear of the bottom three by New Year.
Feel free to copy and paste the fixtures and leave your own tally in the comments.
Just for a bit of fun like.
Man United (Away) – 0pts
Arsenal (Home) – 0pts
Bolton (Home) – 1pts
Blackpool (Away) – 3pt
Sunderland (Home) – 3pt
Blackburn (Away) – 1pt
Birmingham (Home) – 1pts
A***** (Away) – 1pt
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 13pts = 22pts
—————————————-
Durr, don’t know how to copy and paste. Luckily Jed’s predictions are exactly the same as mine so ‘ditto’.
Man United (Away) – 3pts
Arsenal (Home) – 3pts
Bolton (Home) – 3pts
Blackpool (Away) – 3pts
Sunderland (Home) – 3pts
Blackburn (Away) – 3pts
Birmingham (Home) – 3pts
A***** (Away) – 6pts
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 31pts) = Champions League
Your sums is off.
Because of the way the fixtures fall, that halfway point does involve playing Wigan twice and not playing Liverpool.
Good or bad thing? Hard to say!
Exciting to what moves MM does on the transfer market in january.
The more points we take, the less money we’ll splash out in january?
Or is it more money set aside to transfers anyway?
Well, now to make a signing someone has to be sold or dropped from the 25 man roster once January comes.
LB has to be addressed, I feel, and van Damme will likely be sent back to Belgium. You have to assume Kightly gets swapped for Halford or Guedioura (only if his injury leads MM to think he can’t help). Then Bent is off of loan and will likely not return which could lead a spot open but I figure MM will list Keogh as the 4th ST but keep him on loan to continue playing while Maierhofer could finally be sold permanently to help with the LB funding. Outside of that, I am not sure what signings could take place, as well as, not sure if anybody else is worth replacing from the 25 man unless a team comes up with an offer MM and Co. can’t turn down.
I remember reading that Sam Vokes would come back in January to replace Bent.
Interesting that we have not been linked with signing anyone for ages – I wouldn’t hold my breath for any big signings in January but I hope I’m wrong!
Man United (Away) – 1pt
Arsenal (Home) – 0pts
Bolton (Home) – 1pt
Blackpool (Away) – 3pts
Sunderland (Home) – 3pts
Blackburn (Away) – 0pts
Birmingham (Home) – 1pts
A***** (Away) – 0pts
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 12pts = 21pts
—————————————-
Man United (Away) – 0pts
Arsenal (Home) – 1pt
Bolton (Home) – 3pts
Blackpool (Away) – 1pt
Sunderland (Home) – 1pt
Blackburn (Away) – 0pt
Birmingham (Home) – 1pt
A***** (Away) – 1pt
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 11pts = 20pts
—————————————-
And I’m not even being that generous!
Man United (Away) – 0pts
Arsenal (Home) – 0pts
Bolton (Home) – 3pts
Blackpool (Away) – 3pts
Sunderland (Home) – 3pts
Blackburn (Away) – 0pts
Birmingham (Home) – 1pt
A***** (Away) – 1pt
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 14pts = 23pts
Usually 40 pts is enough, but if there are only one or two dominant teams at the top (as opposed to the “big four” of the past few years) it tends to mean that the bottom-feeders can get more points. This has happened in the following seasons, when Man U and/or Arsenal were streets ahead of the other 18 clubs:
Sunderland went down in 96-97 with 40 points.
Bolton went down in 97-98 with 40 points.
West Ham went down in 02-03 with 42 points.
With Liverpool stuttering, and Arsenal also dropping points (like at home to you-know-who), it means more points for the proletariat; i.e. this could be one of those years.
Just sayin’ …
Very interesting Kowloon, i think you’re right, we may well need more points this time. Man city dropping points too. On another point, watched A***** game last night and they played frighteningly good football even after the ref gave Blackpool a huge advantage follwing the penalty. Can’t seee them being in the bottom three unfortunately.
I think you are right, I dont think 40 points will be enough this season.
The points seem to be spread out more evenly at this point (one win could lift us from relegation into the top half!!!)
Man United (Away) – 1pt
Arsenal (Home) – 3pts
Bolton (Home) – 1pts
Blackpool (Away) – 1pt
Sunderland (Home) – 3pt
Blackburn (Away) – 1pt
Birmingham (Home) – 1pts
A***** (Away) – 1pt
Wigan (Home) – 1pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 13pts = 22pts
—————————————-
A nice little unbeaten run to get us up the league as the Sh*t go the other direction, Dirty B******S!!!!!!
If your Arsenal prediction proves correct Rob(personally i think we will need to play at our very best to get a point) then i reckon we’ll get a lot more than 13pts. Hope your right!
I honestly think we have a better chance of getting something from Arsenal than from United. they have a tendency to struggle away against sides that get stuck into them (Stoke/Burnley). Looking at my predictions and total points it just sums up how much losing doesn’t matter that much its getting the odd win that gets you big points.
Man United (Away) – 0pt
Arsenal (Home) – 0pts
Bolton (Home) – 3pts
Blackpool (Away) – 1pt
Sunderland (Home) – 3pt
Blackburn (Away) – 1pt
Birmingham (Home) – 1pts
A***** (Away) – 0pt
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 12pts = 21pts)
—————————————-
Man United (Away) – 0pt
Arsenal (Home) – 1pts
Bolton (Home) – 1pts
Blackpool (Away) – 3pt
Sunderland (Home) – 0pt
Blackburn (Away) – 1pt
Birmingham (Home) – 0pts
A***** (Away) – 3pt
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
—————————————-
Total (9pts + 12pts = 21pts)
Manure – o pts
Arse – o pts
Bolton – 1
Blackpool – 1
Sunderland – 1
Blackburn – 0
Birmingham – 1
Al*****- 0pts
Wigan – 3 pts
———————-
Total (9 pts +7 pts ) = 16 points and not enough 🙁
Come on Dazza, surely you’d back us to beat one of Bolton, Sunderland or Blues at home. The first two are notoriously poor on the road and we’re long overdue a win against Birmingham.
The weekend must have topped up your glass a little, no?
It’ll be a solemn Christmas if those predictions prove accurate.
We are useless in local derbies, an wouldn;t be surprised if we lose them all. We just never seem to be “up for it” . Bolton are a better side than given credit for , I would tale Elmander over Fletcher any day, and Sunderland are the epitome of Jekyll and Hyde. You know as well as I do that we will be tagged the gallant loser in the next two games, and then the pressure from these two defeat will make us nervy for the so called nervier games. I picked the winner in the Meblourne Cup, but hope I’m wrong this time!
Sorry…meanbt to say “so called easier games”
I saw Elmander against Liverpool on Sunday and he was useless
Here’s a question.
Since Fanny Craddock has not played, we have given probably our 3 best performances of the season, Chelsea, Man U and City.
McCowardly says Craddock should be fit for the Bolton game.
Is there any need to bring him back?
Ward will be in the side until hell freezes over, so we will always start with 10 men, so why bring Craddock back to reduce our effective defense even further?
He’s too slow, too old, past it, and Stearman is doing a great job.
Thoughts?
FOMM and WB
Agree and disagree.
Agree that our last three performances, which were indeed without Jody, were three of our best.
Agree that on current form there’s no need to bring him back and in fact it would be wrong to based on Stearman’s last two performances.
BUT….
I do have reservations about Stearman’s decision making. He’s prone to one completely needless tackle per game and he needs to cut that out.
Jody doesn’t make those kind of mistakes.
And I certainly would never write him off either, given that he was immense last season and to my reckoning, has done very little wrong this season either.
It will be interesting to see what happens between now and Christmas in defence, with Zubar and Mouyokolo both challenging for places too.
Very interesting Clive – IMO Craddock should only ever have been a bit part player for us this season given his age. Could Zubar be the answer as MM will not want to drop Foley from right back (and he was great against Man City).
If we do stay up and have money to spend in the summer I think we need to go and buy a quality defender (£6-7million) to replace him and not p*ss about buying players from Hull for £2m. Probably unfair to judge at the moment, but always had an issue with signing defenders from relegated teams!
Difference between Craddock and Stearman is that Stearman can actually play with the ball at his feet and therefore we start passing movements from the back. Craddock doesn’t do this and prefers to lump the ball upfield and therefore we lose possession – now if we could only get rid of Berra and Ward……………
Finally, someone who agrees with me about Berra, as well as Ward!!!
And yes, you are correct, Craddock is an old fashioned hoof it up the park center half, no room for his ways in our super dooper footballing side now, even if he always puts in a shift.
FOMM and WB
Problem with Berra is that his distribution is god awful and he is too slow.
I’ve lost count of the times he wins headers only for it to fall straight to the feet of the oppositions midfield – so the pressure is straight back on us.
Having said that he did have a good game against Man City!
It says it all when you get dropped out of a very poor Scotland team and get replaced by a 40yr old – Berra is poor, and the sooner we have Mouly whatever his name is and Stearman or Zubar the better!
We could no doubt afford to BUY a £7 mil defender Stourbridge but one of that class would probably not want to come to us and if he did, he’d be well outside our wage structure. We’ve only just arrived at the £7mil striker level and i think it will be some time before we’re paying that sort of money for defenders.
Know what you mean Martin – as I wrote the post I actually asked myself “who would you buy?” and drew a blank!
It’s not easy! And given our wage structure it’s even harder!
I think bringing in Craddock wouldn’t allow us to play as good football. Jody did a great job for us, but he made mistakes (like a lot of players) there were times when he lost us some points.
If Stearman is playing well, then come the Bolton game he will keep his place. It would go against everything Mick is about, surely?
If you look at the last three teams we have played they are the sides that will try and run and pass around you. Stearman is better suited to this as he is more mobile than Jody. However, when it comes to Bolton/Blues/Blackburn and Sunderland they will be more focussed on set plays and balls into the box, thats where Jody is in his element. So this added to the point most have already made about Richard ‘Neill Collins mark 2’ Stearman’s tendency to make at least one major error per game makes it a no brainer for me. Bring back Craddock!!
I think most people recognise that Stearman is a better footballer than Craddock, so is virtually every other member of the squad, but most would be disasters in that position. A centre half really does need to be good in the air and imo Stearman has no timing or power in his headers, generally a weakness of SEB too as a CF. I think it’s a very good point you mention about the last 3 teams passing the ball around and Stearman being the man for the job, likewise the next two. Come the blood and guts of Blackburn and Bolton we could see Craddock and the much maligned Berra together again.
MM was a top CH himself so i trust him on this one.
Man United (Away) – 0pts
Arsenal (Home) – 0pts
Bolton (Home) – 1pts
Blackpool (Away) – 3pt
Sunderland (Home) – 1pt
Blackburn (Away) – 0pt
Birmingham (Home) – 1pts
A***** (Away) – 1pt
Wigan (Home) – 3pts
Total (9 pts +10 pts ) = 19 points – not enough for me either! (But I am the prophet of doom)
Well done Alex Ferguson for defending Mick and Pulis against the stupid comments made by Danny Murphy (who seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet since everyone has told him he’s a nob head!)
Maybe now I can finally forgive Fergie for selling Wolves his absolutely useless son in the early 90’s! I’m convinced that is why he is always nice about our team!!!
Brisbane Roar
3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3 = lots
plus already have lots = champions 🙂
Why is everybody predicting nil points at blackburn away? They arn’t unbeatbable by any strecth of the immagination…
Agreed, we definitely could get something out of that one.
‘Could’ being the crucial word.
Blackburn are notoriously difficult to beat at Ewood Park though and Big Sam has made a living off beating the lesser sides at home.
However, given the way they play, we should be able to compete well and give a far better account of ourselves than last season’s 3-1 defeat, which was widely regarded as one of our worst performances of the season.
For some reason we never seem to get anything from games against Blackburn? I remember them tonking us in our season in the Prem under Dave Jones. And last season they dicked us too.
Thomas is right – Mike Bassett seems to get Blackburn fired up for games against teams in the lower half. They rarely lose there ‘must win’ games – unlike Wolves who do everything the hard way.
Loving the optimism though Netherton – I could learn a lot from you!
Now if only we could get big Sam to learn how to tie a proper knot in his tie!!!
FOWB and MM