Hungry like the wolf? Starving more like
I participated in an awful game of football this week. Thanks to a lack of bodies, what would normally have been 5-a-side became 5 on 4. We were thoroughly outplayed and my performance - shoddy at the best of times - grew steadily worse thanks to our failure to do the basics, keep it tight, get amongst them, or any other Sunday league cliche you could mention.
Needless to say, I was in the team of 5. Granted, the team selection was such that the best players were on the other side. But, as time went on and we became steadily more outplayed by opponents with more teamwork, movement and desire despite our apparent superiority on paper, I was consoled by the fact that, having grimly followed Wolves throughout this season, at least I'd experienced such feelings before.
A year ago, I wrote this blog after one ignominious relegation. Never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine that trapdoor opening once again and us bumbling right through it - and I am quite the accomplished pessimist. Although we're not mathematically down yet, even if we do stay up then this season could only ever be described as calamitous.
A game of Blame Trumps has raged on for a while, the general consensus being that anyone remotely connected with the club must carry some degree of blame - whoever founded the town of Wolverhampton, whoever invented football in the first place, God... Especially Him - on this evidence He must be a closet Sandwell fan. But here follows a round-up of the chief suspects.
The Owner
Steve Morgan's major decisions since purchasing Wolverhampton Wanderers:
Needless to say, I was in the team of 5. Granted, the team selection was such that the best players were on the other side. But, as time went on and we became steadily more outplayed by opponents with more teamwork, movement and desire despite our apparent superiority on paper, I was consoled by the fact that, having grimly followed Wolves throughout this season, at least I'd experienced such feelings before.
A year ago, I wrote this blog after one ignominious relegation. Never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine that trapdoor opening once again and us bumbling right through it - and I am quite the accomplished pessimist. Although we're not mathematically down yet, even if we do stay up then this season could only ever be described as calamitous.
A game of Blame Trumps has raged on for a while, the general consensus being that anyone remotely connected with the club must carry some degree of blame - whoever founded the town of Wolverhampton, whoever invented football in the first place, God... Especially Him - on this evidence He must be a closet Sandwell fan. But here follows a round-up of the chief suspects.
The Owner
 |
| Steve Morgan: perhaps the photographer had a prophetic sense of doom |
- Opting for stadium redevelopment over greater investment in transfer fees/player wages
- Sacking Mick McCarthy after the end of the January transfer window in 2012
- Not hiring Steve Bruce (probably about to get Hull promoted to the Premiership) to replace him due to potential fan backlash
- Promoting assistant boss Terry Connor to manager after failing to attract anyone else
- Hiring Stale Solbakken after relegation, ostensibly to change the culture of the team
- Keeping the core of the squad intact, only selling our highest-value players
- Firing Solbakken after an abysmal run of form, culminating in an FA Cup exit to non-league Luton that was no less embarrassing for all its predictability
- Hiring Dean Saunders - relegated from the Championship last season with Doncaster - to replace him
Conspiracy-mongers will trot out plenty of theories that he's merely out to make money from the club, pointing to his well-documented status as Liverpool fan as evidence - as if nobody ever owned/managed/played for a club other than the one they grew up supporting. I don't doubt his intentions as being anything less than honourable. Unfortunately, as owner and chairman the buck stops with him, and his decision-making has been largely disastrous.
The CEO
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| Jez Moxey: simmer down, ladies |
Mouth-breathing messageboard dwellers enjoy latching onto easy targets and, as a portly gent with slicked-back hair who chooses to be addressed as "Jez", our CEO is certainly one of those. Sifting through the outpourings of online opinion, from reactionary morons to self-proclaimed insider sources to supposedly ITK journos, it's tough to establish what Jez Moxey's precise role is at the club.
In the most believable scenario he has full control over financial matters, but Morgan is the hands-on owner who is making the key decisions as outlined above. Moxey is usually derided for not being a "football man", which to the best of my knowledge is something he's never claimed to be. On the other hand, he has built up a Daniel Levy-esque reputation as a hardball negotiator - see last summer when he managed to extract eight figure sums from Sunderland and West Ham for Stephen Fletcher and Matt Jarvis, who were always going to leave the club. And our books are quite infamously, and unusually, well-balanced (or were, at any rate).
However, while he continues to act as Wolves FC's chief spokesman and mouthpiece, Moxey will always cop a severe amount of flak - justified or not. Whether the club needs a proper "football man", either on the board or in Moxey's chair, to advise on playing matters - and the answer is quite probably yes - is an entirely separate debate.
The Magician (lower-league only)
Mick McCarthy claimed this week that we would have finished in the playoffs this season under his command, and it's hard to disagree. Ipswich's form after he took over would have seen them comfortably make the top six if averaged out over the season.
Big Mick's career raises some interesting philosophical and practical questions. Two Championship titles with two different clubs attest to his quality at that level, yet his Premiership record tells a different story. Would it really be so unreasonable for second-tier clubs to offer strings-attached contracts to the likes of McCarthy or Steve Bruce - essentially, you take us up, you get your golden goodbye and go out on a high?
It would potentially save an awful lot of midstream horse-changing shenanigans - see Reading and Southampton for the most recent examples of this. Sometimes that works, sometimes not, but certainly in the latter case it seems that Nigel Adkins was never their long-term choice for the top tier - so why let him even start?
In McCarthy's case, most of us desperately wanted him to succeed in establishing us as a midtable Prem club, and therefore he was given perhaps more slack than was deserved. Viewed with dispassionate hindsight, the trigger should have been pulled either immediately following the 2010-11 season when we'd clung to survival by our fingertips or, at the very latest, long enough before the slamming-shut of the January 2012 transfer window to give a new man the chance to make a few signings.
Mick can build a team who are prepared to work their socks off for each other, and at Championship level this approach works wonders. In the top tier, relying on graft rather than guile only gets you so far. But there's no disgrace in that.
The Enigma
It depends on your point of view really. Either Stale Solbakken was brought in to revolutionise the club's playing style and then not backed, or he was never as good a manager as his track record and steely demeanour suggested in the first place, and made a right old balls-up of our season.
On such knife-edge judgments are most managerial careers subjectively founded. Do you choose to believe that the Norwegian wanted to get rid of the majority of our underachieving squad, only for most of them to be kept and - in the case of Karl Henry - given new contracts over his head, or did he genuinely think he could make a smooth-passing silk purse from McCarthy's squad of determined but limited - and demoralised - plodders?
A little from column A, a little from column B most probably. Had he enjoyed the luxury of another couple of transfer windows, Solbakken would surely have brought in some more cultured personnel and got rid of the deadwood either through sale or contract expiry. But the trouble was, the way we were playing he'd have been doing that in League One, where more skilful players fear to tread. As for the players he bought, the likes of Sako and Sigurdarsson have delivered, but the jury is still out on others (who have all been unlucky with injuries to a point).
As it stood, in trying to keep things ticking over by moulding the likes of Ward, Henry, Berra et al into an awkward approximation of a passing side until such time as the right pieces fell into place to implement a proper style, Stale Solbakken learnt the harsh lesson that in modern football, time is one thing of which you don't ever have enough.
The Joker
Ah, Deano. What have you gotten yourself into? It appears that Steve Morgan plumped for Mr Saunders because he was (a) a known commodity through the owner's Liverpool-centric connections and (b) the polar opposite of that stern, foreign baldy with his fancy passing ideas. Deano would re-introduce the team's preferred McCarthyist up-and-at-'em style and we would quickly revert to winning ways - simple, eh?
Instead, Deano gained the dubious distinction of being the sore-thumb exception that very much proves the New Manager Bounce rule. He came. He saw. We lost. And drew a couple. And lost some more.
After a while we did start picking up some wins and a cautious optimism began to return - we weren't playing great, but we were set up to attack more and a couple of loanees had freshened up our stale back line. Then several key players got crocked and, like a sad old souffle, things just collapsed.
On top of those injuries, Deano will point to his not being allowed to spend money in January's transfer window as another excuse. Deano does like his excuses. In general, he likes to talk a lot, and probably thought when he got here that if he talked enough to these players, his sunny personality would sweep aside their complacency and gloom, with their motivation magically to return.
But for the various reasons described above, this bunch were utterly lost, and most of them could not give less of a shit about Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. Unfortunately, lots of us out there still do. Where we go from here is anyone's guess, but after a year or so of tumult and chaos, the only thing that's certain is that the real changes are only just beginning.
In the most believable scenario he has full control over financial matters, but Morgan is the hands-on owner who is making the key decisions as outlined above. Moxey is usually derided for not being a "football man", which to the best of my knowledge is something he's never claimed to be. On the other hand, he has built up a Daniel Levy-esque reputation as a hardball negotiator - see last summer when he managed to extract eight figure sums from Sunderland and West Ham for Stephen Fletcher and Matt Jarvis, who were always going to leave the club. And our books are quite infamously, and unusually, well-balanced (or were, at any rate).
However, while he continues to act as Wolves FC's chief spokesman and mouthpiece, Moxey will always cop a severe amount of flak - justified or not. Whether the club needs a proper "football man", either on the board or in Moxey's chair, to advise on playing matters - and the answer is quite probably yes - is an entirely separate debate.
The Magician (lower-league only)
 |
| Big Mick: who's laughing now? |
Big Mick's career raises some interesting philosophical and practical questions. Two Championship titles with two different clubs attest to his quality at that level, yet his Premiership record tells a different story. Would it really be so unreasonable for second-tier clubs to offer strings-attached contracts to the likes of McCarthy or Steve Bruce - essentially, you take us up, you get your golden goodbye and go out on a high?
It would potentially save an awful lot of midstream horse-changing shenanigans - see Reading and Southampton for the most recent examples of this. Sometimes that works, sometimes not, but certainly in the latter case it seems that Nigel Adkins was never their long-term choice for the top tier - so why let him even start?
In McCarthy's case, most of us desperately wanted him to succeed in establishing us as a midtable Prem club, and therefore he was given perhaps more slack than was deserved. Viewed with dispassionate hindsight, the trigger should have been pulled either immediately following the 2010-11 season when we'd clung to survival by our fingertips or, at the very latest, long enough before the slamming-shut of the January 2012 transfer window to give a new man the chance to make a few signings.
Mick can build a team who are prepared to work their socks off for each other, and at Championship level this approach works wonders. In the top tier, relying on graft rather than guile only gets you so far. But there's no disgrace in that.
The Enigma
 |
| Stale Solbakken: time to go? |
On such knife-edge judgments are most managerial careers subjectively founded. Do you choose to believe that the Norwegian wanted to get rid of the majority of our underachieving squad, only for most of them to be kept and - in the case of Karl Henry - given new contracts over his head, or did he genuinely think he could make a smooth-passing silk purse from McCarthy's squad of determined but limited - and demoralised - plodders?
A little from column A, a little from column B most probably. Had he enjoyed the luxury of another couple of transfer windows, Solbakken would surely have brought in some more cultured personnel and got rid of the deadwood either through sale or contract expiry. But the trouble was, the way we were playing he'd have been doing that in League One, where more skilful players fear to tread. As for the players he bought, the likes of Sako and Sigurdarsson have delivered, but the jury is still out on others (who have all been unlucky with injuries to a point).
As it stood, in trying to keep things ticking over by moulding the likes of Ward, Henry, Berra et al into an awkward approximation of a passing side until such time as the right pieces fell into place to implement a proper style, Stale Solbakken learnt the harsh lesson that in modern football, time is one thing of which you don't ever have enough.
The Joker
 |
| Robert de Ni... sorry, Dean Saunders, in happier times |
Instead, Deano gained the dubious distinction of being the sore-thumb exception that very much proves the New Manager Bounce rule. He came. He saw. We lost. And drew a couple. And lost some more.
After a while we did start picking up some wins and a cautious optimism began to return - we weren't playing great, but we were set up to attack more and a couple of loanees had freshened up our stale back line. Then several key players got crocked and, like a sad old souffle, things just collapsed.
On top of those injuries, Deano will point to his not being allowed to spend money in January's transfer window as another excuse. Deano does like his excuses. In general, he likes to talk a lot, and probably thought when he got here that if he talked enough to these players, his sunny personality would sweep aside their complacency and gloom, with their motivation magically to return.
But for the various reasons described above, this bunch were utterly lost, and most of them could not give less of a shit about Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. Unfortunately, lots of us out there still do. Where we go from here is anyone's guess, but after a year or so of tumult and chaos, the only thing that's certain is that the real changes are only just beginning.
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