Vodka Mixers, Sixty Seven Years & Christian Herc: A Week Of Wolves

You were probably wondering where I was yesterday. Ok, well maybe you weren’t! Never mind. Moving swiftly on. Nothing to recap from a Wolves perspective this week in terms of results due it being an international break, nevertheless, due to us being an absolutely massive club, we had eighteen players out on international duty.

International Watch

I’m not going to go into too much detail with each of them, let’s fire away, though.

Andreas Sondergaard played three full games for Denmark U17s | Benik Afobe played 64 minutes for DR Congo | Harry Burgoyne unfortunately didn’t get on the pitch for England U21s | Morgan Gibbs-White played two out of three games for England U18s, featuring for 78 minutes in both | Taylor Perry got 35 minutes for England U17s vs Brazil |

Matt Doherty made his senior Ireland debut as he was on the pitch for 27 minutes | Daniel McKenna played one full game + had 70 minutes in another for Ireland U19s | Ray O’Sullivan was an unused sub for Ireland U17s & Callum Thompson got a total of 90 minutes spread across three games for the same side 

And breathe…

Romain Saiss played 63 minutes for Morocco vs Uzbekistan | Ruben Neves got 76 minutes for Portugal vs Egypt | Pedro Goncalves featured in both games off the bench for Portugal U20s | Ruben Vinagre played every minute of every game for Portugal U19s as they came away from their three games with a record of ten goals scored and none conceded |

Barry Douglas came off the bench to make his Scotland debut | Elliot Watt came off the bench in the first and then played the full ninety minutes in the other two games for Scotland U19s | Terry Taylor had a mixed bag for Scotland U17s as he came off the bench in the first, was an unused sub in the second and started the last | Alfred N’Diaye played one full game out of two for Senegal | Christian Herc also played one full game out of two, his was for Slovakia U21s.

There you have it in all its glory. I must admit, I’m glad it’s over though, it bores the life out of me. I’ve had to make do with the U23s to try and keep me entertained as we progressed through to the next round of the Premier League Cup at Exeter’s expense, so I’m still holding out for Legia Warsaw away in the international version of it next season.

Why Would You Play A Stronger Team In A Friendly?

We saw off Exeter on penalties after fighting back from a goal down to force the game beyond the ninety-minute mark. Anthony Breslin got the winning spot-kick and it was a pleasant surprise to see us actually win on penalties because normally we’re pish at them.

We then undid all that good work against Exeter when we faced Blackburn last night. Yes, Blackburn are top of the league, but even still, to get beaten 3-0 in your own backyard at any level is humiliating. For some reason, Scott Sellars opted to play the majority of the usual U23 side in a game against Romania U21s which makes absolutely zero sense. Yes, I can understand that some players might not get that opportunity again, however, surely the league has to take priority? Never mind. I highly doubt he will have a job after the summer.

Enough ranting about things I can’t change, although some would argue that’s all I do. It’s time for a story. This Friday we entertain Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium and a few years ago, for some reason which I’m still trying to figure out now, a few of us thought it’d be a good idea to go and watch us up there.

Now, you’re probably wondering why is it such a bad thing that we decided to go up there. For starters, it was a Tuesday night game and secondly, we haven’t won there since 1951. That’s what football does to you though, it makes you go on these journeys you’d otherwise never imagine embarking on. Due to it being a midweek game, I had to book two days off work as I was never making it to work on the Wednesday in any fit state and we ended up getting the coach up to Teeside.

Vodka Mixers Were A Terrible Idea

If I’ve got a choice, I’d always choose to go on the train, nonetheless, the coach was the only viable option. So we got on the coach with our vodka mixed in with our energy drinks and off we went. For those of you that don’t know, Wolverhampton to Middlesbrough is quite a distance and only half an hour had gone by before me and A Nother were absolutely blindo on the coach, literally laughing at things that weren’t even happening. What an utter disgrace.

We had a pub stop in Thirsk and I couldn’t tell you anything about that, I was a mess, as were the others who had come with me. Hell, we had a day off work, why shouldn’t we enjoy ourselves? After we had got back on the coach, we then arrived at Middlesbrough’s ground without any tickets, luckily it was pay on the day.

If my memory serves correctly, we all managed to get in on concession tickets, one can only imagine that the person who sold us the tickets felt a bit sorry for the fact we could barely speak.

It turns out we lost the game 2-1. I’m saying it like that because I’ve just checked for the purpose of this article and I could’ve sworn we lost 3-0 because we were absolutely abysmal. We conceded two goals in the first eleven minutes which is probably why I thought it was worse than it actually was. Back on the coach, we went after the game and so began the journey back to Wolvo.

67th Year Lucky?

When we got back, we thought it’d be a good idea to try and get in a club, the door staff were having none of it so we ended up in the casino until about 6am, what a day. So, to sum up, took two days off work to watch us concede two goals in the first eleven minutes, would I do it again? 100%.

Nuno hasn’t managed a Wolves side up at Middlesbrough before so maybe we’ll finally break our sixty-seven-year hoodoo. Here’s hoping anyway. It’s too early to say what team we’ll probably put out, although you’d imagine it’ll be the usual suspects. We’ll bury them alive. 8-0. You heard it here first.

See you next week.