Wolves Vs Sheffield – Pre Match

By: Toby | November 24th, 2008

Well doesn’t that picture look ominous? I don’t know what it is about Tuesday night, but it’s giving me that feeling deep down in the pit of my Wolves nouce belly that this is going to be a hell of a game. Wolves and Sheffield United are two massive teams, just look at that stadium, a hulking mass of iron and concrete lumbering out of the skyline imposing itself on the Sheffield skyline. It’s foundations originate from 1855, there’s history in that stadium, and when full all 32,609 fans expect their players to give their all. It’s almost gladiatorial isn’t it? That’s not to mention our recent history, the play off triumph sits well with many Wolves fans as a fond memory, and many in Sheffield as a bitter defeat.

They’re a different Sheffield United now, Warnock had them trained into brutish warriors, some of the hardest in the league. That all went out with Bryan Robson who bungled his way through his Sheffield United tenure with reliable incompetence, to be replaced with Kevin Blackwell, a man far more suited to the no frills style of United, when asked to comment on a lacklustre display at home to Charlton, he merely replied “bollocks”. He’s turned them into real promotion and indeed an automatic promotion chasing side, currently lying in fourth, two points off Reading this will surely be seen as a test of their mettle, and indeed the same can be said for us, for this Wolves team to realistically maintain their push for the top, you need to beat those around you. It won’t be easy, United with four wins in six are in strong form, only losing one of their nine home games this term. Former Premier league bumbler and nearly man James Beattie their leading scorer on eight in the league so far.

Wolves go into this game on a fine run of six wins on the bounce, having scored 13 goals in the process, in fact stat fans, we’ve only failed to score once this season in the league, and that was against Reading…after a run of consecutive wins (Refer back to spooky picture) But in all seriousness, if I were Sheffield, looking at our team I’d be worried. Our third highest scorer this term Kightly is one off their main man’s goal tally, and all together our top three scorers have nearly notched up double the goal tally of their counterparts on Tuesday. We’ve got Henry back after having served his “slap on the wrist” one match ban so that’ll bring some stability to the midfield and defence if United to decide to come out all (one) guns blazing. Mancienne at the moment looks doubtful due to his illness which has hung over from last week (I blame the air conditioning on the plane over from Germany….those things are sickness circulators) so it looks like Collins could keep his place in the team, which is not a problem at all because he was a complete professional on Saturday. I’ll be surprised if Gray can get those legs going to make it out for another game so soon after Saturday, so we could see Keogh take up the left wing duties.

So I hear you cry, enough stats, what does this all mean?

I think based on the fact that we’re still a bit unsettled by the team not being quite right at the moment, with the fact that Sheffield United are looking for a big performance it could be a high scorer. Though while my gut says it’s going to be the first draw since the first game of the season, my heart says Wolves will nick it by the odd goal, perhaps a 3-2 with Blake making up for going missing for the last few games with a stunning hat trick…I love all this fantasy football bollocks. But yes, expect a tight one, expect a right ding dong, end to end at times, I’m sure I’ll age 5 years, but hopefully we can come away with a result!

Tarra-a-bit!