Similar story now as Wolves have been fined £75,000 for having half a dozen bookings in two successive games. Have they now got more bookings than anyone else in the division? Yes. Have the majority of those bookings been deserved? No. Have Wolves set out to rough up the opposition and play a dirty game? No. In fact Saturday was the first time this season that Wolves have conceded more fouls than the opposition. But what it has brought again is an unwanted focus on the club.
I do think the image of the club is important and I don’t think Wolves are one of those clubs – as Leeds, Millwall and Cardiff are sometimes portrayed – as ‘no one likes us and we don’t care’. I think people within the club and it’s supporters do care about how Wolves are seen cause they want to be proud of how it approaches the game and what they achieve. The fact that club officials and supporters have been vociferous in their defence this week is that it is felt Wolves are being unjustly criticised, not because we want to defend being a dirty team.
Hopefully the focus will move on from this after Saturday’s game at Spurs as Wolves look to repeat the unlikely feat of the win they achieved at White Hart Lane last season. They will need to do so without the suspended Christophe Berra so there is a choice to be made on who will play alongside Jody Craddock at the centre of defence. Mancienne, Zubar, Stearman and Mouyokolo will all be contenders. Mancienne is probably favourite although McCarthy might want to repeat the selection of him and Henry to give a solid defensive midfield platform in front of the defence for a difficult away game. If that is the case then Zubar may get the chance. He has been injured recently, and so far this season been kept out of the Right Back position he excelled in for the second half of last season by Kevin Foley. His appearances for Marseille, however, were largely as a centre back before he came to Wolves.
Stearman has been who McCarthy has turned to on a number of occasions when they have been defensive injuries in the last year. While Mouyokolo is yet to make his debut in a competitive game for Wolves as he has been hampered by injury since his summer move from Hull. He came with a glowing reputation and played 90 minutes for the reserves on Tuesday at Liverpool and it would be good to see him get a chance if he is fit and if this is not deemed too testing a game for a young debutant. That reserves game resulted in a 2-0 defeat with outings also for Hennessey, Hill and Milijas and sub appearances for young Irish international Jonny Gorman and Mujangi Bia.
If Mancienne is played in the defence on Saturday that would presumably reopen the door for Jones in midfield. But he was anonymous in the home game against Newcastle and again when he came on as a sub at Fulham. So Guedioura might get an overdue chance either there or on the right of midfield. It was against Spurs at Molineux last season that he made a sensational debut for the club. You also get the feeling that McCarthy can’t wait much longer to give Stephen Fletcher a chance up front. The glimpses we have seen of him have been enough to show that he, like Doyle, could be worth every penny of the £6.5m fee and Wolves are not so big a club that they can afford to leave that kind of talent on the sidelines.
Other than the news that David Edwards has signed a new three year contract thats about it from Molineux this week, so we wait now for another trip to London on Saturday, and at 5 o’clock hopefully the talk from White Hart Lane will be about the football played and even better about a second successive Wolves win at the Lane. Those Spurs will hopefully be all drained out after their first Champions League group game on Tuesday when they drew, after being two goals up, in Bremen.
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