Take one Champions League hangover, add our average league form and Wolves solid start, throw in a few injuries, blend together with last season’s 1-0 losses and Hey Presto!, you’ve got yourself potential for a nasty little mess come 5pm on Saturday.
Bookies are offering odds of around 7/1 on an away victory which seems pretty generous if you ask me. Wolves deserved both wins over us last season; they defended superbly at WHL and we were shit at Molineux.
The away game looked to signal a turning point in Jermaine Jenas’s Spurs career, his ball watching was a major factor in David Jones’ goal and he fell first out of favour and then injured, playing no further part in our season after that game. His apparent redemption has been sudden and unexpected. It’s too early to say definitely but at the moment it looks like the competition for central midfield places has made him realise that he needed to up his game if he was get anywhere near the first team again. It’s a great boon if he has turned a corner, at his best he adds pace to the centre of midfield plus he’s liable to get a few goals. It was his superb volleyed pass to Van der Vaart that led to our second on Tuesday.
And talking of the Dutchman, he’s already injured! There’s a surprise. He and Modric are doubts for Saturday which heaps more pressure on the shoulders of Bale in terms of creating and indeed taking chances. The Welshman terrorised the Germans during the week but Mick McCarthy will have taken note of how Wigan managed to keep him very quiet in our last home game.
Team selection may be interesting. Harry was tetchy when asked if he’d “learnt any lessons†on Tuesday evening but maybe one lesson he’s taken from Wigan is to freshen up the side for the weekend after a CL game. We looked slow and lethargic against against the Latics having looked so vibrant against YB Bern. Injuries may dictate who plays but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bit of swap around with maybe Keane, Kranjcar or Giovani being given a start. We’re all gagging to see Sandro of course, maybe this’ll be his big moment.
Wolves’ll be tigerish (if that’s not an oxymoron) and referee Mike Jones may get the chance to flourish some yellow at some old gold.
Heaping pressure on ourselves by saying that we ‘ought to win’ and ‘must win’ won’t do any good, what will do the trick though is starting at a decent tempo and putting them under pressure from the word go. You never know, we might see our first home goal of the season!
By MF
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