We’re coming for you. Wolverhampton Wanderers we’re coming for you. BillytheBee catches up with David Evans – host, producer, editor and everything else thrown in between for Wolves Fancast – @WWFCFancast without consulting the committee, about their season so far, Steve Bull and shopping at Asda before the game
What was your first match. Talk us through it
I think I was about 6 or 7 at the time and it was Southend at home. I don’t remember much of it apart from we lost 1-0. I do remember a group of us standing up halfway through the game because the other stands were and we didn’t know what was going on? It was like we had been granted a goal for some unknown reason.
Wolves have had an excellent start to the season winning 12 matches, drawing 3 and losing only 1. You racked up decent wins at home to Swindon and away to Bradford and Port Vale. Looking good?
Looking good so far and even top of the league for the first time! Being in League One with the team we have brings new problems. Despite only losing one game in the league so far this season (why should we be complaining?!), fans haven’t been totally convinced by most of the performances. Our midfield has been a bit of a tricky situation. Fans have felt that a lot of teams have outplayed or at least out-passed Wolves in the middle of the park.
We’ve realised quite quickly that there are a lot of teams at this level who can play good football and the presumption by some that teams, especially with our squad, should be a walkover has far from disappeared. Not to say we haven’t played well at all this season. We’ve had some good results against Gillingham, Colchester and Swindon and a lot of our younger players who have been given the chance to break into the first team this season, for example Danny Batth and Matt Doherty, have impressed.
Leigh Griffiths who notched 27 goals for Hibernian last season has been given his overdue chance and took it head on becoming our top goalscorer so far. Swindon and Crawley Town has been our most impressive visitors and have been unlucky not to get a result out of us.
Your fans are very confident about this season. One a poll on the Wolves Rant website has over 40% of the fans polled believing you were going to go up as champions and over 30% believing you will finish in 2nd place. Are they being realistic? You still have a fair few of the ‘big guns’ like Peterboro and Orient (and the mighty Bees of course) to play of course.
Fans are quietly confident I think. We should, with the squad we have, be able to get automatic promotion. But I think despite our history with play-offs (even though we won it back in 2003, our history with it hasn’t been all that kind. Its the one thing about football I hate! Leicester have become the new us in playoffs ).
We knew that teams like Posh and Preston would be up there in the promotion challenge. Orient I think is one that took us by surprise. I think that they may start to lose their good form in the New Year and disappear off the pace. But even Brentford I think have taken Wolves fans by surprise as a team up there currently.
We have a run of tough games coming up which I think will define how we will get on this season. We have yourselves, Posh and Orient coming up. If we can get a result in all three, I think we should be good enough to go on and gain promotion in the automatic spaces, backed by a couple of signing in January.
You have scored 30 goals this season – the 3rd highest scorers behind Orient and Swindon. Who’s your main man?
As mentioned, Leigh Griffiths. After scoring so much last season, even by last Christmas, fans wanted him back to help spear a championship relegation fight. He returned and was assessed by Saunders but for some reason wasn’t seen as required. He went back to Hibs and scored even more goals, making us feel like we missed out on a talisman to help us out. Now he’s back he’s proving why we wanted him back in the first place.
James Henry is another one to watch. On loan from Millwall and hopefully we’ll be snapping him up In January, he’s been setting up and banging in the goals. He’s already a contender for player of the season.
Also watch out for Bakary Sako, he might not score much (or as much as we thought he would), but once he winds up a shot and if its on target, you won’t have a chance to watch it go in.
Griffiths seems to have benefitted from his time loaned out to Hibs the last couple of seasons banging in 28 goals for them last season. Do you think maybe if you hadn’t loaned him out you would still be playing in the championship or was that time away from Molineaux – away from the pressure – good development time for him?
I think it was a good development time for him. I don’t think he would have single handily helped us stay up. There were a lot of factors as to why we were relegated last season. One which would take a whole essay to go into!
Griffiths is part of a new era at Wolves, being with the squad last season and probably being a bench warmer may have pushed him away from Molineux back in the summer.
Talking of strikers, Brentford fans will be sitting (well standing) in the Steve Bull stand. Bully was amazing. Played for Wolves in all four divisions in the 80s and 90s scoring over 250 goals in around 500 appearances for you – scoring 52 goals in one season. He even scored a hat trick against Brentford in the paint pot (or van as it was at the time) cup but better still scored a hat-trick against Fulham the following season when you won the 3rd division championship. He also scored against us in our first game in the championship – Wolves won 2-0 in Griffin Park – getting the last laugh with Brentford fans chanting ‘Bull … Sh@t’ …. In retrospect do you think he did the right thing sticking with Wolves or should he have moved on? Some people say he didn’t reach his full potential and put loyalty for Wolves over what’s best for himself.
Legend is an understatement to what Bully means to Wolves. It’s even better that we brought him from our rivals down the road on a cheap and turned him into an England International. I don’t think you will ever see a player from League One or Two getting the chance to play for England, which is what Bully got the chance to do and made an impact.
There are two many good memories to re-count with Bully, but any time he scored against the Baggies are always great to look back on (even just to show Baggies what they let go!).
Bully could have been the best striker to not play in the Premier League. It would have been great to see how he would have fared and I think he would have proven what a great striker he was at all levels. Should he have moved to a Premier League club when he was in his prime? Maybe, I believe he was close to signing to Coventry at one point. But the fact he didn’t just shows the loyalty he had for the club.
You don’t get and you probably wont see many players giving that much commitment to a club.
Two seasons ago you were in the Premiere League. You started this season with a wage bill of £25million. Ours is closer to £5mill apparently and we think that’s astronomical. Is it sh@t or bust for Wolves this season with regards promotion (fan question – @TommNewmann)? Last time your finances got out of hand you had to build an ASDA by the stadium to bail you out.
Ha! That Asda is a good place to get your shopping at full time, or even a commiseration curry. I think it may be promotion or bust for us, but not in the financial sense. We started on a big wage bill, but many players have been loaned out to help take this off and will probably be sold by next season.
Although we have kept high earners like Sako and Doyle, we have done this to help us propel ourselves back into the Championship.
If we do stay in League One, most of out top players, even the young one’s, will probably go and Wolves will really be in a new era then! We dare think of a world where we stay in League One. Just because I think we will end up becoming a Sheffield United and stay in League One for years to come. I think re-building a team again in League One would be a very difficult task.
What players came in for you? I know you plucked McDonald from Sheffield Utd and gave him a decent song about now being a Yam Yam. Any good?
Yep MacDonald came in from Sheff United and seems like a great signing. Golbourne came from Barnsley and Sam Ricketts from Bolton who is now our Captain. James Henry has come in on loan from Millwall and recently Michael Jacobs on loan from Derby. We’ve just took on a McBean on trial from LA Galaxy. Unsure whether someone told him that Wolverhampton was the LA of England…
Anyone else we should be looking out for?
Bjorn Sigurdarson. Probably has the best hair at Molineux. Sadly he’s recently cut his golden locks for the short, back and sides approach. He will probably come off the bench but the Icelandic striker knows where the back of the net is. Also, watch out for a Danny Batth bullet header from corners!
Wolves are no chumps. They’re the 9th most successful club in English domestic football with 13 trophies including three 1st division (now premier league) championships, 4 FA Cups, 2 league cups and you even won the elusive Paint Pot Cup (which was probably known as the Van cup back then) back in 1988 – one cup we’re desperate to get our hands on. Honestly speaking, how humbling is life back in the third division?
Very much. Obviously we were disappointed to be relegated but we deserved it. We weren’t unlucky, we didn’t play well enough to stay in the league. A lot of Wolves fans haven’t watch League One football either so its been a breath of fresh air and many have been surprised and encouraged to see the type of quality football played at this level.
There are also a lot of fans, like myself, who have never watched Wolves in the third tier before! Being in League One has also given us a chance to re-boot. There were a lot of young players who deserved a chance and this has been the perfect way to give it to them. You’ve just got to look at what the likes of Saints and Norwich have done and hope we emulate that.
Head to head, Brentford are just shading it winning 8 games to Wolves 7 with 1 game drawn. Do you think you’ll even it up?
I think its going to be pretty tight on Saturday. You have done fantastic so far this season. 5 league wins in a row I believe with another win in the FA cup to boot? I’ve heard if you win your next two games, depending on results, you will overtake us on top!?
The battle will be in midfield again and if that is the case, you may have the advantage. As mentioned, our midfield performances have been our problem this season. Heard you’re taking over 2,000 fans as well so fair play to you!
Massive game Saturday. Give us a score prediction
A Squeaky bum time 1-0 win. Wanderers No 9 Griffiths with the goal
Where do you think Wolves will finish this season?
Personally I predicted 12th at the start of the season, which I’m already getting a lot of flack for. Only because, like a lot of teams whop get relegated from the premier league, find the Championship a whole different animal. In turn, I thought Wolves might take the league a bit too lightly. On reflection and how professional we have performed, I think we will finish at least in the playoffs.
Give us a 1, 2 position and playoff final winner prediction.
1. Wolves (Well, of course!)
2. Posh
Playoff winner – Coventry
Where do you recommend away fans hang out before the game?
Walkabout is your best bet if you fancy a few drinks before the big game. If you’re coming by train, its only a 5 mins walk from the train station (BillytheBee – Speaking to pub owners, Walkabout is the only pub away fans will get into with colours on. All pubs have bouncers on the doors and pubs like the Great Western, Sun St; The George Wallis (formerly the Litten Street) in Victoria St and Yatses in Queen St are decent ‘no colours’ options but we have been told that by 12.30pm they will be heaving and bouncers will be more picky on who they let in so get there early. Some Bees fans have opted to drink in Birmingham near the station .. Keep your noses to the ground for the venue).
(BillytheBee) – Brentford news: Uwe Rosler will be looking at keeping the same side (pretty much) together that beat Crewe 5-0 seeing Brentford on a 6-match unbeaten run. Forshaw and Harris went off against Crewe with niggles but Rosler is confident that they will feature this weekend. With midfield domination being key, this looks set up to be a match that Forshaw, Douglas, Saville and Harris will absolutely relish.
Having played at places like Stamford Bridge, Bramall Lane and Wembley last season, a 20k crowd shouldn’t phase the team – especially if 2k away fans can make it a home game just like they did at Leeds and Sheffield United. Without stating the obvious, an early goal will be key.
We would like to thank Dave for taking time out to chat to Beesotted. You can check out Wolves Fancast on-line or catch him on twitter at @WWFCfancast
BillytheBee
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