Wolves (h) No retreat...No surrender It might be a long one this. I’ve a bit to go through...
When the team came through at 1pm I raised an eyebrow, Silva had gone brave, he’d in my mind rolled the dice a bit. By 1:15pm I’d suddenly realised he’d just picked our best team, there was no gambling at all. With the realisation of just how good a squad we have now, and the options coming off today's bench, I was more confident than hopeful.
On Wednesday the hugely impressive Danny Cowley said that Lincoln’s plan vs Everton was to break the game into 15 minute intervals, I think that Marco Silva was listening because that’s exactly what we did today. A plan, a process to unpick a tired yet very effective team.
We won the first 15 minutes and we won the last minutes, they were the most important times of this match. But, what we also did in the hour that sat in between those sections was ‘game manage’. A term not heard in L4 since the premature departure of Gareth Barry.
You all know who played well, and you all know who didn’t. I’m going to reserve specific praise for Delph & Gomes, in that middle 60 mins they were magnificent. They stood up, they screened & they broke, but more importantly they thought the game through.
Wolves are a good team, they came with a plan, they executed that plan. Isolate the fullbacks and get balls in the box. After they made it 2-1, Delph covered Digne. When they made it 2-2, Gylfi covered Coleman and Gomes became the pivot, he became the opposite of the elegant stylist that we have come to adore. For 15 minutes nothing went past him and he went through everything to push us forward. Kean, Iwobi & Richarlison will be some force for us, credit to Silva for keeping them in after Lincoln, and he was rewarded with power, creativity and goals. Confidence flowing, we’re going to win this. We did, each goal we scored was superb in it’s own way, with it’s own merits of team and individual quality.
Like Wednesday when adversity came today, we stood up to it. At Millwall adversity came, vs Wolves at home last season, adversity came, both times we had no answer, or desire to find the answer. This week adversity was met with no retreat and no surrender, and it was faced with a desire and spirit to push past them and laugh at the ‘experts’ that said there is no guts or graft in this team. We won, we take the 3 points and we go into the international break with a reasonable return, probably where we should be in the table on balance. The case for the defence rests, and the jury has reached a unanimous verdict, Mr Nicholas, Mr Thompson, Mr Merson and Mr Lawrenson...
Before kick off Graeme Souness questioned why Moise Kean had been sold by Juventus; he claimed to not know much about him, other than if Juventus have decided to sell him at 19 years of age there must be character issues with him... I have a MASSIVE issue with this, and some else I’ll get to later.
But, to cover Mr Souness first, he does not know Moise Kean, he admits to knowing ‘not much’ about him, so here’s the thing. When Souness was Blackburn manager on live Television, he said he would stake his reputation on Barry Ferguson being a ‘top, top player’, that’s the Barry Ferguson that returned to Rangers with his tail between his legs because he was an unmitigated disaster.
This is the same Mr Souness that was ‘conned’ into playing Aly Dia for Southampton because he was told Dia was George Weah’s cousin. Dia was given a one month contract on hearsay, and was actually brought on in a game, only to be substituted by Souness when he actually realised he’d been duped. A man in his position, in his profession taken to the cleaners like that is nothing short of scandalous. I personally don’t know Souness, however from a purely professional and fit for purpose perspective, Sky really do need to take a long hard look at the complete nonsense this man is allowed to convey on air. Surely it must be time for him to be removed now?
Secondly, and this one annoyed me just as much as Souness; The progressive Wolves are buying players from AC Milan these days, players at the start of their career, what a coup for them to be able to do that, or so the Sky commentator along with Jamie Carragher told us. Wolves’ opponents today have bought from Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester City this season. No disrespect to AC Milan, they’ve been in as much decline as Man Utd over the past 4 years, is buying from them really that impressive? Everton are buying from the champions of the 3 best leagues in Europe’s. Where would you prefer to shop?
Great day, great weekend, results went our way and we were big enough to take advantage. I said on Wednesday that I’d sensed change; I sensed new character; long may it continue.
By Matthew Barry
COYB, UTFT
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