Wolves looking to go posh with 3 wins in a week

The first season under the management of Stale Solbakken was unpredictable in terms of whether he would produce a promotion challenge, need a year of stabilisation, or even be a complete disaster. Well the two wins in the last week that have seen the club rise from a relegation position to the brink of the play offs has at least shut up the disaster theorists, and the optimists will be starting to emerge from behind their settees if a few more positive results can be gained in the coming weeks.

The wins over Leicester at home and Ipswich away were in games that didn’t look easy on paper, and its fair to say they were not games won in style, but it has to be seen as encouraging that the new look team could be capable of having a decent season. It’s still not clear what the Solbakken way is, the jury is still out on most of his new signings, and I think the majority of Wolves fans would predict that we are more likely to finish mid table than top of the league. But there does not seem to be any outstanding teams in the Championship this season that are going to run away from the pack, so if Wolves can keep in touch with the pacemakers over the winter, then with the manager and new players settled, a couple of more new faces brought in during January, and a challenge for a promotion place does not look impossible.

This weekend there is an away game at Peterborough who have lost all of their 6 league games so far this season. The Posh have scored 5 goals in those 6 games but have conceded 14 and do seem to play a game that is too open for their own good at this level. They have two former Wolves youngsters in their squad in full back Mark Little and winger Nathan Mendez-Laing. There has only ever been 8 meetings between Peterborough and Wolves. Four of those were in the bad old days of 4th Division football for Wolves back in the 80s which resulted in 2 Wolves wins, one draw and one defeat. There have also been 4 matches at Championship level in the 90s which saw 3 Wolves wins and 1 draw. The only Posh success in those 8 games was at Molineux in 1988, so Wolves have never lost in Peterborough.

What was additionally encouraging this week was that the two wins have been achieved while using a rotation system to bring in fresh legs for the 2nd game. With this being part of a run of 7 games in 4 weeks I think we can expect more rotation this weekend. The same defence played in both games and Solbakken may leave that the same again to give some stability. He might, however, fancy giving a chance to Kevin Foley at right back who is now fit again after injury. In midfield, Doumbia and Peszko were replaced by Edwards and Boukari for the Ipswich game so if fresh legs are the priority then maybe we will see them return to the team tomorrow with Henry and Sako rested. In attack Ebanks Blake and Sigurdarsen have played one game each this week so maybe they will both get a game this weekend with Doyle having some rest time.

I am sure there will be some who would say it would be typical of Wolves if they follow two decent results by screwing up against a team bottom of the league. But this is a new look team with growing confidence and lets hope for a hat trick of wins to keep the momentum going.

Category: Team News