Whatever will be will be, Wolves are going to Barnserley
By: DJ | April 22nd, 2012
Wolves bowed out of their three year stay in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon as they were expectedly beaten by title chasing Man City at Molineux. But to their credit they did not give City an easy ride and gave a performance that would probably have been good enough to retain their top flight status if they had been able to play to that standard all season.
Connor made three changes to the line up that earned a point at Sunderland last week with Bassong replacing Berra, and Edwards recalled at the expense of Ebanks Blake, while Dorus De Vries came in as keeper to replace the injured Wayne Hennessey;
Hennessey
Foley, Stearman, Bassong, Ward
Henry, Davies
Kightly, Edwards, Jarvis
Fletcher
City had their title hopes boosted by United only drawing 4-4 against Everton earlier and within seconds of the start of the game Carlos Tevez was firing a shot over the Wolves bar. But it was Wolves who then went on to dominate the game fot a period and a Bassong effort was deflected inches wide. Aguero then shot narrowly wide before David Davis fired in a shot from the edge of the box to bring a save out of Hart in the City goal. Wolves were having a lot of the game but City twice went close when Nasri and then Aguero shot narrowly wide. But City did find the breakthrough after 26 minutes when an excellent through ball from Clichy put Aguero through and he made no mistake.
Wolves heads did not go down and a Fletcher header brought an excellent save from Hart. And as the second half progressed City were not putting the game to bed as was expected and Mancini made a cautious change replacing Silva with De Jong. The decisive second goal came in the 71st minute when two pieces of misfortune construed against Wolves. Tevez had fallen over and appeared to be obstructing Davis from getting to the ball but the referee penalised Davis when he tried to get to the ball. Tevez got up quickly and played a quick free kick and Bassong pulled a hamstring as he went for the interception leaving Nasri with a clear chance that he was able to convert.
De Vries – made a good impression with some good punches clear, and quick off his line to cut out through balls
Foley – had his usual steady game
Stearman – almost gifted City a goal with a poor headed back pass but otherwise had a decent game
Bassong – did well against the talented City frontline
Ward – held his own on the left of the defence and got forward well in the second half
Henry – had an excellent game and my man of the match for Wolves
Davis – another promising showing from a good late season find
Kightly – always positive and had a good first half in particular
Edwards – some good runs off the ball before tiring late on
Jarvis – had a good game but found a tough opponent in the excellent Zabaleta
Fletcher – some good lay offs and came close with a header
Doyle did well when he replaced Edwards
And so Wolves stay in the Premier League is over after three years and they will now have three meaningless games to end off their disappointing season. We can now look back at how it all went wrong and look forward to how a quick return can be secured. But at ten to six on Sunday the heavens opened over Wolverhampton and we all got totally saturated walking away from Molineux – a somehow fitting end to the Premier years.
Category: Team News
Comments
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The season has been over for a while, and the final match, and hopefully the appointment of a bright young new manager cannot come soon enough.
To be honest our form after the first month, when we were actually top of the league, since September has been absolute shite. We were struggling under McCarthy, though I honestly believe we’d still be scrapping away with a fighting chance of survival if he had have remained manager.
The signing of Johnson has been a catastrophic failure, especially since he was appointed captain. However I don’t think anybody saw this coming as he certainly came with a good reputation and taking away the captaincy from Henry and giving to somebody who should have been a solid and dependable first team centre back seemed like a good decision on paper, unfortunately for us, it turns out he seems to be a bit of a dickhead!
Our defence has been atrocious with or without Johnson this year however and that certainly needs addressing as it ain’t good enough for the championship at the moment. Gutted for Hennessey that he is out for 6-9 months though at least that means he won’t be leaving and I think/hope De Vries should be good enough to fill the gap in the meantime. I think I’d be relatively happy with Ward and Foley as our full backs in the Championship, but we are in desperate need of some centre backs. I do like Berra, and think he plays well when alongside a solid defender, but I cannot get that penalty he conceded against Villa out of my head, for me it sums up our season.
I cannot see Jarvis and Fletcher remaining, but hopefully they should fetch a fair bit of money. Both are internationals, and Fletcher especially as a striker who has proved he can score a decent number of goals in the league must be worth a decent amount of cash! I’d like Kightly to stay but his performances recently I am sure will have caught the attention of others. Not sure about Doyle, he had been our best player but has clearly underperformed this year. Will be interesting to see how Ebanks-Blake performs next year. I still like him and he is still a fan favourite so hopefully he can re-find his scoring touch possibly alongside this Griffiths guy who seems to have done well in Scotland.
I do feel very empty the way our season has come to an end, and it’s something I don’t think any of us had experienced during the last 5 years under McCarthy which were marked by a desire to fight to the end! I hope whoever comes in as manager next year can re-spark that fight, as it certainly gave me good reason to be proud of our team and club whatever results we experienced!
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Agree with all of that Rhombus. We do need a new central defender but i also think our failure to find the right set up in midfield was a major factor in our poor defensive record. When Frimpong and Henry were there for a short time we looked better, and the Henry/Davis partnerhsip looks promising.
Not sure Griffiths will make the step up for us. The club wanted him to take a loan to an English club but he insisted on going back to Scotland. And I suspect that will be where he stays.
Its been a depressing few months to be a Wolves supporter and yes I hope the fight and pride returns next season. A good managerial appointment is the vital first step in that direction.
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