Neves gonna give you up

As it stands at the moment, I’m debating starting a religion where Ruben Neves is the God. You may recall that I slagged off his shooting off a bit against Sunderland as he was looking more like he should have been at Twickenham than Molineux and that was pretty much the only bit of his game that he needed to work on.

The only logical explanation is that he must have read the article because his goal against Sheffield Wednesday was outrageous and completely out of place in what was an otherwise dire game. The ball broke to him after a free kick about twenty-five yards out and instead of smashing it over the bar like he had been doing, he to simply put it, passed it in. Seriously, if you haven’t watched it, please do, it’s a work of art.

Reflection

I started doing a write up on the Wednesday game and apart from waxing lyrical about Neves, there wasn’t enough to write about to warrant an article, in my opinion. Our defence was superb as usual and Ruddy, apart from one first-half save, could have set up a deck chair in the penalty area as he had very little to do, however, that wasn’t to do with Wednesday’s lack of trying. We looked void of ideas going forward as Cavaleiro had a bit of an off day but the mercurial Boly, Coady and Bennett were excellent.

That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter.

The Mick Debate

One of the most contested topics amongst Wolves fans is that of Mick McCarthy and whether he should have been sacked when he was. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the fact that Mick’s time was up at Wolves as he had hit his ceiling, but, many would argue he should have been sacked after he kept us up on the final day against Blackburn and it’s difficult to question that logic.

I’m in the boat that after the horrific defeat to them twats down the road, he had to go. However, if you had told me that when he got sacked we were going to end up with Terry fucking Connor, I would have kept Mick in a heartbeat. It speaks volumes about the complete ineptness of the club and how it was being run that even though we had two weeks from when we lost to Albion to our next game, we still couldn’t get anyone in. I’ve just looked at a BBC article from when he was sacked and it says that Benitez was one of the favourites for the job, yet we somehow ended up with Terry Connor, I still can’t get my head around it.

After Mick left it’s quite well documented that we suffered a double relegation to League One and it took Kenny Jackett to save us and almost get us back to the promised land, but we missed out on the playoffs due to goal difference to Ipswich and guess who was managing them at the time? Yep, Mick McCarthy.

If we had beaten them at Molineux towards the end of the season it would have been us, not them, who would have finished sixth but McCarthy’s side stubbornness, which very much matches his persona, prevented us. In fact, every time we have faced McCarthy’s Ipswich we’ve failed to win and the last five encounters have been draws, three of those 0-0.

Looking forward

Tomorrow’s game is the first of three difficult games for us and if we come out of them with nine points then on new years eve I think I will be cracking open some bubbly as I think in my eyes that will all but confirm that we are going up. Have we ballsed it up before? Of course. Will we this time? Who knows. Am I going to celebrate regardless? You better believe it.

Ipswich are a side who are very difficult to second guess as sometimes they will just shut up shop and defend and other times, they will throw caution to the wind and just go for it, so much so, that they are the second highest scorers, behind us, in the division.

Our eleven home games have yielded 34 goals this season and Ipswich’s eleven away games have resulted in 35 goals, so with an average of three goals a game in both cases, it’s all set up for a cracking game. 0-0 it is then. Nuno has a full squad at his disposal with the exception of the elusive Ofosu-Ayeh who must surely be nearing fitness now, so it is thought that his only change will be Barry Douglas in for Ruben Vinagre. As for Ipswich, who really cares?

The game against Ipswich marks the halfway point of the season and if we can match what we’ve done in the first half of the campaign, we will be playing Premier League football come next year and then the sky is well and truly the limit. I’m greedy though and would like a cup run as well. Imagine that, Europa League and Premier League football in WV1 next season. One can dream.

All things considered, if I was a betting man and luckily I am, I’d be backing us to win to nil @ 5/4.