Wolves 0 v Huddersfield Town 1

Huddersfield was once a gritty northern industrial town famous for woollen textiles and a football team who played in blue and white. When Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave hollowed out its manufacturing it turned into a gentrified market town whose team now plays in high viz yellow. As such they look more like a gang of Polish builders than a football side. But that, as they say, is progress. And for those of a certain vintage, with a corresponding diminution of vision there were benefits, their every move clearly discerned. Just a shame that it was the home side I had come to watch and, as with much that has occurred this season, it was to be another underwhelming experience.

I missed Saturday’s encounter against Blackburn Rovers. But had I been present I suspect the report on the game would have struggled to go beyond two short paragraphs. This evening’s...

Wolves 0 v Brighton & Hove Albion 2

Last season Brighton & Hove Albion finished third in the Championship only to miss out on promotion in the lottery of the play offs. A year on and they find themselves atop the Championship currently five points clear from second placed Newcastle United. But for the aberration at Norwich, manager Chris Hughton has done well where ever he has been and in his second year in charge at Brighton is doing so again. In Lewis Dunk, Dale Stephens, Solly March, Kevin Knockaert, Tomer Hemed and Glenn Murray he has a clutch of players who provide both spine and skill to a side that this year should gain automatic promotion to the Premier League. Would that the same could be said of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

As games go this was a free hit for Wolves. The fear of relegation had gone and they were clear underdogs. So one might think that they would come out all...

Let me take you back for a moment to the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah. The 23 year old veteran Tiger Woods is being chased down the home stretch by an upstart 19 year old from Spain. At the 16th the young Spaniard blocked his tee shot right, the ball finishing amongst the exposed roots of a tree, seemingly stymied. Assessing his options the youngster selected a six iron, but rather than chip the ball safely to the fairway, he affected a full swing with which to impart a dramatic slice. No sooner had he struck the ball than he embarked on a carefree sprint up the fairway ending with a famous Tigger like skip to signify the joy that his shot had brought. For in committing to the shot not only had he missed the dangerous tree roots, but more remarkably his ball had found its way onto the green. Though Tiger Woods would hold on to win that year’s PGA Championship all the talk was of this...

Wolves 1 v Nottingham Forest 0

Like Wolverhampton Wanderers, Nottingham Forest possess a degree of footballing pedigree. And like Wolverhampton Wanderers they have spent most of this century performing in football’s second tier. Both clubs currently find themselves in the bottom half of the Championship and, though this was far from a tedious encounter, signs were few that either side possesses the wherewithal to affect an imminent escape.

I think it was Graham Taylor who said that it takes only a second to score a goal. Well it took less than a minute to decide this game minute 61 being the defining sixty seconds. Though up to this point Wolves had dominated possession they had failed to convert the numerous chances they had created. And in minute 61 they found themselves somewhat stretched in their own half, trying to repel a Nottingham Forest counter attack. You know you are...

Wolves 3 v Cardiff City 1

When Cardiff last visited Molineux in January 2016 they taunted Wolves winning at a canter by 3-1. Yet the side that finished that game bears little resemblance to the one fielded today by new manager Neil Warnock. Brought in to staunch a relegation bound decline, Warnock sides tend to marry solid defence with fluidity going forward. Those characteristics were evident today. Unfortunately for Cardiff they found themselves facing a revitalized Wolverhampton Wanderers, flourishing in the confidence gained by two excellent wins away from home.

The game was only eight minutes old when Wolves took the lead. From the left Ben Marshall’s excellent free kick was headed towards goal by a Cardiff defender. It reached Andreas Weimann who headed it back across the goalmouth to Danny Batth who in turn headed home with ease. Given how poor Wolves have been at home all...

Germany 1 v England 0

What is the point of a friendly international? When, some twelve months ago, England last played Germany in a friendly, they were in the midst of preparations for the European Championships. Roy Hodgson (remember him) was manager and having gone 2-0 down rather quickly, England fashioned a remarkable fight back to claim a deserved 3-2 victory. On the evening in question Jamie Vardy’s impudent back heeled goal added to the sense that here was a side that might fare rather well once the Euros got under way.

You might think that but the reality, as we now all know, was somewhat different. Lacking the courage of his convictions, rather than stick with the basis of the side that won in Germany Manager Hodgson set about systematically dismantling it, his negative tinkering ultimately ending in national embarrassment with defeat against the part timers from Iceland...

Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 v Rotherham United 0

When in July of last year Fosun decided to dip their toe into the exotic world of English second division football it is unlikely that, seven months on, they imagined being engaged in a relegation dogfight. Bar the FA cup wins against Stoke and Liverpool the football since the turn of the year has been awful. When Paul Lambert arrived he made some early changes which seemed to me to indicate that he knew what he was doing. Now I’m not so sure. Like his predecessor he is becoming bamboozled by choice. The Wolves squad is huge, overflowing with half decent footballers who, unless they play together regularly, are incapable of forming a cohesive unit. Lambert is constantly tinkering hoping against hope that his next line up will gel and provide him with the golden bullet. But it’ not happening and as a consequence Wolves find themselves at...

Wolves 0 v Chelsea 2

A couple of years ago I suffered a midlife crisis. So I threw myself into tennis. As a means of negating thoughts of waning youth it’s not one of the more racier male pursuits, but it provided a focus and has kept me on the straight and narrow. I mention this only in as much that on Wednesday evening I found myself in the changing rooms at the tennis club following my regular weekly game when talk turned, somewhat inevitably, to the previous night’s encounter at the Molineux. A number present had been there, all concluding that it had indeed been one of the worst games they had seen. The moans and groans having reached their natural conclusion a long standing season ticket holder crystallised the mood. “In the second half I found myself listening to a pair of old buffers who sit behind me. As the game reached a crescendo of boredom one of them leaned across the...

Wolves 0 v Wigan Athletic 1

It is just over two weeks since Wolves went to Anfield in the FA Cup and outplayed Liverpool to record a deserved victory. Since when three games have been lost, two against sides who are languishing beneath them. Tonight’s defeat to Wigan was particularly worrying for other than a couple of opportunities part way through the second half, Wolves created nothing. The football they are playing lacks pace and fluidity often hampered by youngsters seemingly intent on showing off by taking too many touches. Even the basics of throw ins are invariably beyond them. Unless Paul Lambert can turn things around, a relegation scrap beckons.

As for the game it was rank. Both sides were poor though Wolves should have taken the lead in the sixty third minute following a good move which ended with Bright Enobakhare’s cross cum shot evading everyone. Ten minutes later...

When in 2014 Wolves escaped from the third division I wrote a little piece reflecting on how I would miss the certainties that came with third tier football. Games that were played free from play acting allied to a fixture list over which the malign presence of television had little influence. Of course now that Wolves are back in the second division there is more simulation (a Big Brothersesque euphemism for cheating) and you never know from one week to the next when your home games will occur - today’s fixture v Newcastle United being a classic example. And of course this messing with the fixture list is not the exclusive preserve of football.

Once upon a time the BBC had sole rights to the Five Nations Championship. You knew that on the first Saturday in February at 2pm on BBC1 four of the five nations would be playing one another and depending on where you lived you could watch...