After what seems a lifetime (but was actually just two very long weeks) Wolves welcome West Ham to Molineux for an early season six-pointer. The two sides currently occupy 19th and 20th place in the Premier League table respectively so both will be keen to give themselves a much needed boost.
Despite being bottom, the Hammers are undefeated in their last four games (including a League Cup win over Sunderland) and having endured a tricky run of fixtures to date, they’ll be determined to push-on with a positive result on Saturday.
Summer signings Frédéric Piquionne and Victor Obinha seem to be coming good for Avram Grant’s side and their pace is sure to cause the Wolves defence problems. A more familiar threat comes in the shape of Scott Parker, who seems to only get better with age. Whoever is given the job of anchoring our midfield must ensure Parker’s influence is minimal or it could be a long afternoon for everyone in old gold.
Wolves can certainly take heart from West Ham’s woeful away record, the Hammers having not won away in the Premiership since that opening day victory at Molineux over a year ago. They’ll be looking to arrest that torrid run and will see this fixture as an excellent opportunity to do just that.
Mick McCarthy’s team selection will once again come under fierce scrutiny and with a number of key players out, his options are heavily restricted. Karl Henry serves the first of his three match ban, so David Jones and Nenad Milijas are both in contention for a recall to the starting eleven. Kevin Doyle limped out of Ireland’s defeat to Russia and if he fails to prove his fitness, SEB is waiting in the wings to take his place.
It’s a difficult task predicting the starting lineup this weekend, but my best guess is:
Hahnemann
Foley
Craddock
Berra
Ward
Jarvis
Mancienne
Jones
van Damme
Fletcher
SEB
The logic is that Mick will revert to the side that overcame Stoke on the opening day of the season, with Mancienne for Henry the only change from that eleven. I have a sneaky suspicion Doyle won’t make it (nothing has been said as I write this) so SEB will hopefully be granted the opportunity he deserves to get back amongst the goals. Stephen Hunt should also be in contention but I expect he’ll be named amongst the substitutes as he continues his return from injury.
Prediction League
Only Stourbridge Wolf picked up the maximum last time out correctly predicting a 2-0 defeat at Wigan, but Jed, Dazza in Brisbane, Mark Davies and Lawro all said we’d lose so it’s a point a piece for all of those clever chaps.
You’ll all be glad to know that I remain on top of the overall table (it never gets old saying that).
This weekend, I’m going for a 1-1 draw but hoping the footballing gods smile down and bless us with a victory to lift the dark cloud hanging overhead. It’s been a miserable month.
As always, if you want to join in with the Prediction League, simply leave your prediction for each game in the comment section of the official preview (such as this one).
If you’re going to Molineux this weekend, have a great time and get right behind the lads.
Up The Wolves.
2-2
(1-2 to the hammers if SEB starts)
Wolves 3-1 West Ham
Big optimism on this one. Mick will be forced into many changes and inadvertently stumble upon his best line-up (which he will promptly change for the Chelsea game …)
Wolves 0-1 West Ham.
Rock bottom by 5pm. It’s all doom and gloom for me at the moment! We seem to have a knack of ending peoples bad runs too!
Really hope for a repeat of the away game though! Come on me babbiieess….
Wolves 6 – West Ham 0
Even Charlie Nicholas while utter the phrase “its like watching Brazil”
Well i’ve given up my season ticket to go on a stag do in Magaluf. On that basis Wolves 3-0 West Ham. Hopefully another good reason to drink yet more beers in the sun whilst kicking myself for missing our best performance of the season!!
Wolves have a wonderful knack of bringing other teams disappointing runs to an end and with the hapless hammers only winning one away game last season (against us) then all I can see is a repeat of last years opener – and the fact that we are really sh*t and because MM will persist with Foley Craddock Berra and Ward in defence.
Wolves 0 – 2 West Ham
If the back four is as you predict, Thomas, then we are in for a thrashing.
However, look on the bright side.
If we lose, then surely McCowardly will be gone, together with Ward, Berra, Craddock and Foley.
FOBF
1-2 loss. Late winner for them, Berra probably at fault
probably Berra but more likely Ward!
How can it be probably ie >50% berra, and then more likely > than >50% ward. That means there is more than 100% chance we concede this late winner?
Maybe the sum of two parts is greater than the whole?
Yes with them 1+1= Minus 3
Maybe Berra is shit and so is Ward, but Ward is more shit than Berra but then again Berra has the potential to be equally as shit as Ward – so does that make Ward worse than Berra – probably. Do I know wtf I’m talking about – nope!
Ha,ha,ha thanks Danny Murphy, your complete gobsh*te comments have taken the sting out of Karl Henry’s stupid tackle against Wigan.
Playing under Mark Hughes (who was no saint as a player) it’s probably best if you have a coke and a smile and shut the f*ck up!
Now the whole world seems to hate Mr Murphy rather than spouting a load of cr*p about Wolves being a dirty team.
Liverpool reject, big time charley.
1-0 to Wolves with a late winner.
I just can’t see us winning at the moment so i’ll pump for a 1-1. I hope for the sake of our season i’m wrong
Going for 2-1 Wolves, tight game, with us grabbing a scrappy winner late on for a change!
2-1 wolves. Biggest cert since Ben Hur in the chariot race.
Wolves 0 West Ham 1 another dire performance, sit down protest in Waterloo Road
Thomas are you writing the ‘Who will be our next manager’ article yet in preparation for when McCarthy gets the sack at around 5:10pm on Saturday – by mutual consent of course!
2-0 Craddock, Fletcher. Milijas in the starting eleven, please. Thank you.
I detect a few prayers in the above comments!!!!
2-1 Wolves. Time to turn it around, but no clean sheet.
If Ward is selected at left back we will lose. We haven`t scored 2 goals since the Stoke game nearly 8 weeks ago, and haven`t kept a clean sheet all season. That tells a story, either players are not good enough, or the managers tactics are not right, or a mix of both.
If we lose it will be a disaster, because we will be bottom and where the hell do we go from there. So ever the optomist, I`ll go for a 2-0 win, but I`ll be wearing my brown Wolves boxer shorts. Now where is Martin O`Neils mobile number?
every one is doom and gloom seb hatrick easy na na nan na sylvan ebanks blake
SEB first goalscorer is set in stone for me. If he plays 😉
2-1 Wolves.
I’m hoping for a 2-1 Wolves win!!!
But think it will finish 1-1
Joking apart, this is deadly serious , we have to get 3 points, or we are facing a very long winter of discontent. West Ham is realistically our only chance of points in the next 5 weeks or so.
It is crucial to the future of the club that we survive this season, to have to postpone ground re-developing would be such a setback
Please please …3 points…I am sick to death of going to bed grumpy at 2am !
I have a bad feeling I’m afraid. 1-2.
well I gave up my ticket to climb a mountain for a mates b’day and now the mountain climbing has been called off so I’m going with a 2-0 Wolves win…..(PLEASE!!)
Wolves to lose.
McCowardly fired.
Top four teams, our next four league opponents, too bust laffing at us.
12 points from next four games, plus moving into next round of Carling Cup.
Keep the faith?, I’m drowning in it!!!!!
FOMM and SW and WB
one-one here I think.
2-1 wolves, fingers crossed!
I’m looking forward to the next poll- ‘how many points will Wolves get from the next 4 league games?’ answer= NONE! I haven’t seen the game or the highlights yet! But why does he persist with Ward & now Edwards??? Surely we have better players to make the starting 11?
We will lose the next 4 games unless McCarthy mixes it up a little. We are expected to lose those games anyway! So nows the time to gamble and give a few players a chance and put them in from the start!
Surely he has nothing to lose? Other than his job!
Shame. I like Mick, but his selections have left me baffled!
If you didn’t see the game how can you comment on players performances? Edwards actually played ok today, unfortunately ward was his usual self. The most annoying thing is that fletcher is still being played on the wing. If mick wants to stick with 4-5-1 that’s fair enough but don’t play fletcher on the right wing because he’s obviously not comfortable there. The only times I’ve seen fletcher play well is when he’s been playing up front.
I’m a big fan of mick’s for what he’s done for us, but 1 all in a must win game and he takes off a striker for a left back. That’s unbelievable. There was 28,000 odd people in the molineux who knew it was the wrong move so why did mick and clip board think it was the right thing to do. Surely he should have taken jones or edwards off and played 4-4-2. Also, what is the point of bringing SEB on with 5 minutes left, what the fuck does he expect him to do?
Exeter, in the first half everyone (Edwards and Ward included) played out of their skin. Possibly the best 45 mins we’ve had in the Premier League. The only criticism of the first half would be that we did not finish it 3-0 or 4-0 to the good.
The problem is why we don’t get that level of performance over 90 minutes, because the second half was almost the same story in reverse. We looked poor all over the park (and yes, Ward and Edwards looked poor, but no worse than the rest either), and it was West Ham who could have had three or four.
And we had a MASSIVE stroke of luck right at the death, when what looked to me like a perfectly good West Ham goal got ruled out for handball. Oof. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
I disagree Edwards was that good in the first half. Ward was excellent all game. I also think it was handball, and that Stearman was my MOTM for us.
Oh dear…enjoy that one t’OM?
Well it was icing on the cake for a pretty rubbish day. In the morning I found out I’d been knocked back for a scholarship I’d applied for, then played cricket and made 8 out of 350, then scraping a point against West Ham! I dislike West Ham, and I dislike the way Obina got the penalty where it easily could have (and if it were going the other way would have) been waved away. We are very lucky to have Hahnemann in goal. Best signing for the club since Craddock!
Hi matey , sorry to hear about the scholarship :(… but without your 8…. 342 sounds a lot worse than 350 🙂 Would never been given, ( the penno) if it had been up the other end eh?
Point not good enough, should have lost it as it wasn’t a hand ball in the build up to the disallowed goal.
Totally agree that we would never have been awarded a penalty had Foley’s challenge been a west ham player on Doyle. Speaking of which – when is he going to pop up with a goal?
When will we start to turn our possession into goals? we still only scored due to Rob Green’s mistake.
Poor second half display – we will be rock bottom within the next three weeks.
Rock bottom but not too far adrift. All is not lost, yet.
As it stands (40 mins into Everton v Liverpoos) Wolves are ahead of Liverpool. Small graces.
Cheers for the pep talk guys – still feel like we are in big trouble though!