Lies,damn lies and statistics...oh and Ruben Neves.

Statistics seem to be everywhere these days,not just in sport,where they appear to be fan currency on how good or bad a certain player is at doing...oh i don't know,something or other...But in real life too.On any given day some publication or other will tell me that 46.3% of people would say boo to a goose or that 34.2% of folk think going blind with advanced gonorrhea is preferable to being in the same room as Donald Trump for an hour...

Some sports lend themselves naturally to stats.Cricket springs to mind.Quite often an announcement is made during play that Mr so and so has just hit his 3,000th run in test cricket or something and he gets a round of applause,a pat on the back and no doubt a complimentary pint of Old Pullover in the bar at close of play...Imagine such going ons at Molineux against,oh, let's say Cardiff City,as the ever lovable Greg Halford hurls yet another long throw into the opponents box the tannoy crackles into life with "Ladies and gentlemen that was Greg Halford's 500th career long throw of over 50 yards" Would Greg get a smattering of applause from the home fans? Answers on a postcard please...

Football stats come from the advent of fantasy football and FIFA games but have been co-opted into the real thing like it means something...we're now told how many forward passes a player makes,how many tackles,how far he runs like he's Usain Bolt or Mo farrah for God's sake...assists is another.Up until fairly recently the only time "assist" was used in football was when a player was helping police with their enquiries...but now any fan in the world can see if a player is any good or not just by looking up their stats.Or can they?

We have a player at Wolves called Ruben Neves.You may have heard of him...twenty one years old,signed for £15m by Wolves from Porto last summer.The youngest player ever to captain a champions league club(now THAT's a fucking stat!) on the radar of the big hitters in the English game and signed by a club piddling about in the lower half of the second tier of our game.many punters were unbelieving that he'd signed for us willingly.Some sort of nefarious witchcraft going on they said.Or that Neves was using Wolves as a launchpad for a better move(as all players do at 99% of clubs of course) The knives were out...

As the season has worn on other players at the club have garnered the headlines and Ruben was put on the back burner...fine by us and probably him too but over the last few weeks as those that had the knives out originally have the dawning clarity of our position some have been running the rule over Ruben Neves's stats and in black & white they don't make good reading...played 34 goals 4, assists 1 (which came last saturday) Clearly they're saying this lad is a waste of money,done jack shit all season etc etc ad nauseam...but they don't see this player live...we do,

...and what we see is a player of supreme talent,composure,vision & style.A player with so much time on the ball he could re-define physics...a player who can not only spot a team mate make a run 60yards away but find him with a raking pass through a forest of opponents with just enough back spin & side spin that the recipient does'nt need to break stride to collect... a player that also looks like a young Clark Gable too as if God himself said "Here Ruben you can have it all"...a player all Wolves fans have been honoured to see play in our shirt...

He may move on next season.I'd like to think he'd stay at least for our return to the Premiership but the £50m offers will be coming in from the great and the good and those figures will be hard to resist
Whatever happens i will wish him well...

So when the spotty Herberts at Opta sports stats point out that his are not up to much he may easily say "Frankly my dear i don't give a damn..." and neither do i.

The(almost) impossible debate...

It's a rare thing indeed to hear football fans who are happy with their club,it's even rarer to hear those same fans say that the current football their team are producing is the best they have ever witnessed in their life,unless they're twelve years old where that statement can be revised almost weekly,but to hear forty,fifty & sixty year olds say it means there is something extraordinary going down...this is what's happening at Wolves...

I have been watching Wolves on a regular basis since i was a kid in the late sixties.Molineux was my bi-weekly Woodstock if i'd known what the hell Woodstock was.Sometimes it was my Altamont...I was too young to remember the all conquering team of the fifties.The team that fifteen years earlier had been crowned unofficial world champions thereby forcing UEFA to instigate the European Cup giving the world some of the most thrilling games ever and,frankly,some of the dullest too...so next time you hear that god awful cod operatic muzak UEFA insist all competing Champions League clubs play you can thank us.You're welcome...

Looking back that team from 1969 to 1974 was superb.I did'nt appreciate it at the time of course,when you're a fickle freckled yoof you don't.That's the law.But those names trip off the tongue of fans of a certain age(ie old bastards) Richards,Doog,Waggy,Munro,McCalliog,Bailey and my hero Hibbitt.That team were almost a permanent fixture in the top eight.Won the league cup.Lost in the final of the UEFA cup to Spurs(where i learnt that the Seven Sisters road is fucking long especially when being chased by unruly Cock-en-nees) Lost to the rightly hated Leeds in the FA Cup semi final at Maine Road where i'm convinced we would have hammered Sunderland in the final.Even though they were a great team there's a nagging feeling that they under achieved.the club rested on it's laurels and never effectively replaced aging stars...ah well it was good fun.

Football fans love to compare players and teams from the present to those of the past.It's impossible of course but that does'nt stop us.The game has changed totally in the intervening years.Physically the players of today are unrecognisable next to our hero's of the early 70's.Even the most plodding of hairy arsed lower league defenders of today would probably make a fist of playing for a team in the top division from the 70's just by dint of being twice as fit and faster than those long haired lager swilling lothario's of times past...

When i watch games from that era on You Tube they look so slow compared to today's game.The skills are there but would they be able to live with the pace? I doubt it,especially after chowing down on steak & chips two hours before kick off.But that was then and that's what we had.Those players rightly hold a special place in the history and folk law of the club but honestly after watching this young,exciting,skillful,committed,intelligent and pacy team play this season i don't think the 70's team would last the pace.They'd be blowing out of their arse on the hour ready to be picked off at will...

It's not just about the players of course.There's the manager too.Having grown up watching football from the late 60's onwards i have got used to viewing football managers as nailed on tea cup throwing obergruppenfuhrer types.We still have a few of these Jurassic behemoths knocking about of course but thankfully not at Wolves any more.We have a thinker,a philosopher,a half time smoker...he has his players playing his game.Converting his ideas from cranium to the pitch.He may well chide them in private but in public he's nothing but encouraging to his charges.A pat on the arse rather than a clip round the ear,As long as they play the game his way he's happy and so should we be...don't be fooled though,he has passion to burn but it's channeled correctly.To officials and opposing gin swilling directors...

So the big question: Is this the best football i have ever seen a Wolves team produce?  Yes without a doubt but with the caveat of needing to produce it against the best in the land.I think they can and i think they will...


                                                     

The 2017 awards...

Well it's New years eve and about time the end of year awards were dug up from their shallow grave...

The Stephen Hawking complementary battery charger goes to Ruben Neves for re-defining the meaning of time...

The Trump  covefee table wtf award to Steve Cotterill for his " If we did'nt have goal line technology and had we had a shot on target and had that gone in then we would have won...nurse i'm feeling dizzy i need my medication" post match reaction to Wolves winning at St Andrews...again.

The Dallas "It was all a dream" shower curtain & rings to Paul Lambert for giving Wolves fans two cracking days out at Stoke & Liverpool.Otherwise it was all pubic hair in the plug hole...

The "Infamy infamy,they've all got it infamy!" Kenneth Williams memorial starched hankie to all our championship rivals and their fans who love getting their knickers in a twist over Wolves...

The "Ohhh missus" Frankie Howerd satin smoking jacket to all Wolves fans who now profess love for "Big Willy"

The Dali Lama ceremonial robe & hookah pipe to Nuno Espirito Santo for just being the coolest motherflipper around even when going apeshit at Bristol City...

The "Run away!" Jurassic Park dinosaur pewter mug to Warnock,Bruce et al for basically sticking to the same hoary old script both on and off the pitch...

The annual Pardew shaving brush & razor to Alan Pardew.The first sign of stubble and his days are numbered...

The School of Science second hand trackie & baseball cap ensemble to Tony Pulis for...well just being Tony Pulis.

The Nigel Farage man of the people gold plated jockstrap to Jose Mourinho for his constant whinging to anyone who gives him the time of day.Proving that not all Portuguese managers are cool as fuck...

The Jessie J gold plated "Price tag" disc to Fosun...it's not all about the money money money...but it helps.

And finally...

To all Wolves fans who at the moment feel like they're Jimmy Krankie waking up between Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell,Claudia Schieffer & Heidi Klum.

Happy Nuno Year to you all!

Winter is coming...foreign footballers beware!

This seems to be the abiding belief among certain managers and opposing fans in the championship when it comes to Wolves outstanding foreign imports,mainly because they're from warmer parts of the globe and not built like square jawed Nordic gods with names that end in Son..No our boys are from Portugal,Morocco,Brazil and,er,North East France.Clearly places where they don't have weather...

When asked about our blistering start to the season these dinosaurs trot out the "Ah but can they do it on a cold winters night in Stoke?" line( it appears that the only players that can't do it on a cold winter night in Stoke at the moment are Stoke players) This is their level of tactical awareness of what's going on at our club or maybe it's a way to appease their own fans/board...s'pose they're never going to say " This club's miles ahead of us in every department and frankly we're all just hanging onto their coattails " But this line about how our players would cope in our winter shows a lack of respect for them and also a vast overestimation of just how bad winters are in the UK...

British winters can be a little nippy i grant you.Occasionally we get a cold snap that last's,ohhhh, at least a week.That's it.Otherwise it just gets a little bleurgh.A bit dull and wet but hardly on a par with Churchill in Canada where polar bears come marauding in to town scratching through the bins looking for half eaten burgers.Can't remember the last time i saw a polar bear terrorising Bushbury Hill as the mercury hit zero...

These are pro sportsmen for god sake.In the prime of their life and fighting fit.Not starving urchins eighteen months into the siege of Stalingrad catching rats to eat...our mild winter won't phase them,besides three of them have been at Wolves for a season already and yes,they did do it on a cold winter's day in Stoke.

In a way i can understand Neil Warnock (aka Colin Wanker) coming out with this shite.It's his thing.Spitting bile at anything that moves.He's what's politely known as "Old school" Less politely known as a moaning old bastard who gets results by bullying opponents and officials alike.Nobody should take heed of the spiteful words that tumble out of his spittle laced craw...

Steve Bruce however has won league titles playing with a host of foreign players at Man Utd.Were the winter's even milder then? or were the foreign players tougher then?  You know, a bit more manly?  Cos' that's what's really being said here.They're basically saying they're weak.A bunch of fanny merchants.Beach footballers who look good when it's sunny but can't hack it in the real world of real men and real footballers.British footballers who can't pass the ball five yards to a team mate but wear short sleeves in the winter...I have watched our foreign players get kicked from pillar to post all season.They get back up and carry on.Hard as nails the lot of them, whilst also being some of the most skillful players i have ever seen in a Wolves shirt...

There also seems to be a collective amnesia with these comments.The only title winning team in English football over the last twenty odd years which had a majority of UK based players was Leicester City a couple of years ago and even then their two best players were foreign.Every other title winning team had a plentiful foreign contingent in their ranks and they obviously handled our winter ok.Maybe i missed something and they were all Inuits...

So trust me our lads can handle it.No doubt we will lose games and the naysayers will creep out of the woodwork with their "told you" smugness...no problem though cos' Nuno don't lose two on the bounce...bloody foreigners eh?

Nice and easy does it...Wolves stroll past Bolton.

We normally get into Wolverhampton from London just before noon.A good indication of how well the local team's doing is the boozer,if it's empty till about 2pm then Wolves are having their normal crappy season.On Saturday we just about managed to grab some seats at 11-55...When you're a one club town the benefits of that club being successful to the local businesses is vital.The whole place gets a boost,not just economically but also in raising the profile of the town too.There's also the added bonus of the locals being a bit bouncier...granted us Wulfrunians are'nt known for our sunny disposition but it's there...somewhere,deeply hidden in the depths of our souls but there nonetheless...

Wolves V Bolton.Two founder members of the football league.History...blah blah blah.A hatred has built up between the clubs over the years.Many think it stems from the play off game in the mid 90's but us older types know it began in May 77'...Last game of the season at Bolton.We were champions with nothing to play for apart from fucking up somebody else..Bolton needed to win to go up in third place.Needless to say we beat them 1-0 with a Kenny Hibbit goal.Notts Forest went up instead(no play offs in them days)...I can remember riots outside after the game...

Bolton rather childishly insist they're the only Wanderers.I don't know why,maybe that's all they've got to hang onto these days.They don't even have alliteration on their side...Anyway they slounced into town unbeaten in seven games yet still in the relegation spots.Ex Wolves captain Karl Henry was their linchpin in the middle of the park.If it was'nt for the sparkly coloured boots and occasional booing i would'nt have noticed him...in fact i barely noticed Bolton at all.Wolves hardly needed to break sweat to win 5-1...even their consolation goal was as a result of our players arsing about at the back.probably out of boredom...that made it 3-1 and i was expecting them to put up a fight from then on but they seemed to be happy with that...

A routine 5-1 win then...both managers got sent off for something or other.We continue to look like scoring every time we attack.Our opponents continue to look beaten before every game.Pre match quotes such as "We're not just going there to make up the numbers" etc point to desperation...

Of course after every win we get the usual crap written about money spent,FFP,long cold winters and now that January's approaching,can we keep hold of our players/manager...meanwhile we continue to play the type of football not seen by a Wolves team for many a day.I don't even care what other teams behind us in the league do.It's of no concern cos' i firmly believe nobody in this division will catch us.No need for wing mirrors on this well oiled motor...

Wolves V Man City...Plucky losers? Not on your nelly.

It's 1am and i can't sleep.I'm too wound up.Not in the bad aggressive way.I'm too wound up by watching Wolves out think the best team in the country only to lose on penalties after 120 minutes of blood pumping football...knowing i will get a headache later through lack of sleep(this is not an uncommon scenario for me) i have taken two pre-emptive Paracetamol with my coffee and made sure the vape machine is fully charged...

I could'nt get to the game in Manchester and had trouble finding a stream of it to watch on my PC,but BBC Radio 5 had the commentary on 5 Live Extra.It's their sister channel which usually only has some Rugby game on that only twenty people care about.They could'nt find any of that nonsense so put our game on instead...First thing i heard was Trevor Sinclair(a Man City fan) say Aguero needed one goal to break the clubs scoring record and was guaranteed to get it versus Wolves.City would also break their record of wins on the trot against a Wolves team their for the taking according to our sage...

To be fair City had put out a fairly strong team and we had made nine changes so it was an assessment not exactly born out of ignorance.Even so my gander was up...I doubled my efforts to find a stream,got lucky with one from the UAE(i think) Wherever it was from the commentator sounded like a bad 70's sitcom joke of what we thought an Arabic commentator would sound like...i tried watching the game along with BBC commentary but they were about a minute ahead so that was a no no.Luckily the 6,000 Wolves fans who made the trip were singing up a storm so drowned out most of the fella...

City had scored something like a squillion goals this season and started with their top two strikers.As i said we made nine changes but tellingly our centre back partnership of Danny Batth & Connor Coady were retained to organise the defence...For the first half hour we could'nt get a touch and City were camped in and around our area without creating much due to our covering each other at every turn.Then we got a break and youngster Bright Enobakhare out muscled Yaya Toure to get in on goal.I think the thought of scoring against City got to him and he messed it up...Yaya Toure is not as fast as he used to be but he's still as strong as an ox on steroids so for a lad of eighteen to physically over power him(more than once) might see the beginning of the end of his career...

All Wolves fans were relieved to be 0-0 at half time but in truth we never looked in much trouble.The second half began the same as the first but we also started to see more of the ball and looked more dangerous going forward than their high flying opponents.Truth be told we could have been two goals up before Enobakhare raced clear of the City defence in what looked like the remake of "The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner" Everyone sort of knew he would try to come inside instead of just blasting the damn thing.This he duly did...he has skill but is still lacking a football brain.Still at least it saved us another intstagram pic of Costa Helder's dick...

Extra time was pretty much the same.City camped in our half but being corralled down blind ally's by our superb defence whilst we broke with speed and purpose....then penalties.I don't mind penalties to determine a winner.It's probably the fairest way to do it.I don't like the new rules though.What's wrong with "We take one,you take one etc" When Toure stepped up to take City's second i initially wondered why we'd changed our shirts to light blue...anyway it's bollocks and that's all there is to it...

So we lost,but we did'nt really...we gave the best team in the country the hardest game they've had this season despite them basically finishing the game with a full strength eleven.Not only did we wear them down and on another day may have won two, or three, nil we also did it having rested arguably nine of our best players...

Nuno showed he is up to the challenge of Premiership opponents week in week out.I fully expect it to be the case next season.I only hope it's with Wolves...

Depois que os prefeitos do senhor mostrem*

*After the Lord Mayor's Show...

We have a saying in the UK."After the Lord Mayor's show" 'It goes on to say "Comes the shit cart..."

Wolves 3 Preston 2 was'nt quite like that but frankly i can't see many times i'll be able to use that old proverb this season so...after the rapturous win over Villa the previous week it was always going to be difficult to repeat such a high octane performance,after all we're not Man City yet and Preston are what the tv pundits would call "dogged" or what fans would call "dirty Northern bastards" They'd also only lost once this season before yesterday,so yes,a tough game was in store...

There seems to be a common misconception about foreign footballers playing in the UK,especially those from sunnier climbs.They're ok in Aug/Sept and April/May with the sun on their backs but as soon as it gets a bit nippy they disappear.It's bullshit of the highest order of course but still this lazy stereotype exists,The last two Wolves players i saw wearing gloves were from England & Ireland (Leon Clarke & Matt Doherty) Besides our winters are hardly on a par with The Arctic.We get the odd dusting of snow & temps occasionally dip below freezing for a few hours in February...

Another myth is that they can't handle themselves when things get a bit tough and opposing players think leg breaking tackles are a natural part of the game, just a bit of a laugh,just banter innit...this attitude is about as relevant as Dad's Army's corporal Jones shouting "They don't like it up em'!" when faced with the Waffen SS.

In truth though this old school Sunday league thinking is helping Wolves this season.Granted Warnock's Cardiff got away with bully boy tactics at the start of the campaign when they mugged us at Molineux a few games in but our boys learn quickly and anyone else who tries this will get a swift kick in the knackers...what better way to build team spirit?

Preston tried it,we got no protection from a preening peacock of a referee so took matters in our own hands which resulted in a couple of mass brawls on the pitch.Don't believe any sanctimonious tut tutting from commentators & journalists alike when there's a mass punch up between players.Us fans love it...the second brawl showed some cunning from our players too.Preston were getting on top looking to make it 3-3 with a few minutes left,a fight involving twenty two players was just the ticket to stop them in their tracks....the dark arts are alive and well down Molineux way.Nobody wins league titles by espousing the Corinthian spirit...

We did'nt play well but we did'nt have to.If we hit our straps for fifteen/twenty minutes during a game we can usually take a team apart and win the match in that period.Which is what we did yesterday...

Things i noticed yesterday through a beer fueled haze...

Leo Bonatini takes a very good penalty.Has to be first choice taker...

Connor Coady is starting to remind me of Emlyn Hughes.He even runs and passes like him...

Everyone insists on calling Matt Doherty "Doc" I assume we all think he spells his name wrong...

Ivan Cavaleiro has really bulked up.Now looks like a prize fighter...oh and he occasionally gives the ball away...

We need safe standing on the South Bank...

Till next time.Ta ta a bit...