Wolves v Newcastle Preview

With three defeats on the bounce, it's vital that Wolves get a positive result tomorrow against Newcastle.

A fourth consecutive defeat and even the most optimistic supporters, like myself, will start to worry and wonder where we are going.

Newcastle have surprised most of the critics so far this season, remaining unbeaten so far and lying in fourth place. With Hatem Ben Arfa just regaining match fitness, it's looking bright for Alan Pardew's men.

Back to Wolves, who desperately need a good start to the game. If we play like we did in the second half last week at Anfield and take our chances then we could get a decent result as surely Newcastle are due a defeat soon?

Doherty could make his first league start

With 4-5-1 not having the desired effect last week in the first half, I'm fairly sure we will go with two up top this time. Fletcher is back fit, and we will be hoping for a good performance from Kevin Doyle after recently signing a new contract. He has had a poor start to the season by his standards, hopefully he can now kick on and get back to his best.

The only other possible change to the starting line up could be the youngster Matt Doherty replacing Richard Stearman, who is doubtful for the game. It is brilliant to see a young player get a chance, even though it came through injury. Whenever he has played in the first team, he has looked confident and assured.

Our possible line up:

Kevin Doyle is due a performance

Hennessey

Doherty
Johnson
Berra
Ward

Hunt
Henry
O'Hara
Jarvis

Doyle
Fletcher

With that line up, I'm confident. There's goals in that team, and we are due a couple or more. I'm going with 2-1 to Wolves.

Four or Five?

That's probably the most important question of the week. Will Mick go with four in midfield again, or five?

While the clues lead to us switching to 4-5-1, it's not too unlikely Wolves could line up with two forwards. Steven Fletcher has returned to training, and is certainly an option. Playing one striker, would leave us with a anothher real quality one on the bench.

Looking at our midweek confidence booster against Millwall, it looks as if Mick was planning to go with 4-5-1. Dave Edwards, Nenad Milijas and Adlene Guedioura all impressed in the middle and while not all of them will start, you'd expect at least one of them to.

Nenad Milijas has that quality on the ball that we have looked lacking in recently, and is a fantastic player to have when you are keeping the ball. However, this might not be the game for him as an away game on a big pitch may not suit him, especially at Liverpool.

Dave Edwards has excelled in the second striker role at times behind Doyle. He was the match winner against Manchester City last season, and when put in that position again versus Blackpool he was once again a handful. He played just 45 minutes last week, is that a pointer to whether he will start or is it that he is just regaining fitness?

The last man of the three is the one I expect to see start. From various reports, it was as if Adlene Guedioura ran the game on Wednesday. He contributed to at least two goals, the second a fantastic strike from him. With him finally looking fit, will we see the Guedioura we saw on his home debut against Tottenham a year and a half ago?

That's all if we play 4-5-1, and if we do this is how I see the team:

Hennessey

Stearman
Johnson
Berra
Ward

Hammill
Guedioura
Henry
O'Hara
Jarvis

Doyle

Another face who hasn't seen much first team football is Adam Hammill. He will be raring to go, especially against his old club and I am excited to see what he can offer.

With the team above, I think it gives us a decent chance of getting something against a Liverpool side still stinging from a four nil defeat at White Hart Lane. They scraped through to the next round of the cup against Brighton also, with several key players featuring. I think it will be close. 2-1 to Liverpool, which in fairness isn't a bad result. Of course, I;m hoping for a performance similar to last years at Anfield.

Wolves 0 QPR 3

What is their to say about today's performance. Well, a lot.

The first ten minutes were the most torturous, agonizing and painful of watching Wolves, and the following 80 plus weren't much better either.

Why after such a good start, when we should still be filled with confidence, did we put in a performance as abject and lifeless as that?

First you have to look at our tactics. Although QPR are a team full of new players, they had a lot of good ones and were too much for us today. Our four man midfield was no match for the five QPR put out. Henry and O'Hara were left stranded, while Jarvis looks a shadow of his usual self and nothing went right for Kightly. With the injury of Steven Fletcher, surely it was obvious that we could bring in a midfielder like Nenad Milijas to help us keep possession. Not just that, but taking Stephen Ward out of the defence significantly weakened our defence in that first half.

Secondly, the players themselves. The defence was nowhere near as good as in the previous four games. Roger Johnson was quiet, Stearman was clumsy and Elokobi was hopeless. Christophe Berra was the best of a bad bunch, he was solid for most of the game. Most worryingly for me, is we look clueless going forward. Our wingers, for whatever reason fell short of the standard needed and Kevin Doyle was anonymous. After scoring against Fulham, I was sure he would kick on but he just hasn't been himself.

Maybe I am taking away too much from Neil Warnock's men though. They zipped the ball about brilliantly, pulling us apart and finding space with ease. If they play like that for more or less every game, they shouldn't have too many problems this season.

Hennessey - 7

Stearman - 5
Johnson - 5
Berra - 6
Elokobi - 4

Kightly - 6
Henry - 6
O'Hara - 5
Jarvis - 5

Doyle - 5
Ward - 7

Subs: Guedioura - 4, Vokes - 6, Hunt - 5

It doesn't get any easier next week, with a trip to Anfield looming (after the cup game v Millwall) but the last timewe went there we had come off the back of a poor performance at home.

Wolves 0 Spurs 2

It's hard to be disappointed after a flying start to the season, but there is still a feeling that we could have got something from yesterday's game.

For most of the game we competed well, kept possession and if anything looked the better side. This however, as we all know by now, is a cruel league and two moments of quality knocked the stuffing out of us.

With the chances we had we perhaps could have taken more from the game, maybe even three points. It wasn't to be, and the only noticeable difference between the two sides was the cutting edge Spurs had in the final third. Too many times we would build our way up to the edge of the area and look a bit clueless. Certainly something to work on. 

Michael Kightly was handed his first league start of the season. I had my worries when I saw his name in the line up, but he was a lot fitter than I expected and only seems to be a couple of games away from having the sharpness required. It was an encouraging display from him.

In the middle of midfield, Karl Henry and Jamie O'Hara can be fairly pleased with their performances overall. At times, both were sloppy and gave away the ball in dangerous areas but they have the makings of a strong partnership and there were more signs of it today. How fantastic would it have been if Henry's dribble and shot had resulted in a goal?

Richard Stearman is growing with confidence in every game. Many would consider him our weak spot in the team yet he was our strongest performer today. He never looked troubled, and handled Gareth Bale well as did Stephen Ward.

Hennesey - 7

Stearman - 8
Johnson - 7
Berra - 7
Ward - 7

Kightly - 7
O'Hara - 7
Henry - 7
Hunt - 7

Doyle - 7
Fletcher - 7

We have a good opportunity next week to bounce back against QPR, another home game. It could be a good test of how much we have improved, and to see how we handle the games against the teams we would expect to beat.

Wolves v Tottenham preview

This international break felt like the longest there has been, our game v Villa seems like it was ages ago!

Wolves face a confidence drained Tottenham side, with an unhappy Luka Modric and zero points on the board. We know what that means then!

Or do we? It feels like this year we are ready to take advantage of other team's bad luck or poor form.

But even an understrength or less confident Spurs team is still a dangerous one. Gareth Bale is one of the world's best wingers, and he now has a proper target man for his crosses. For all his height, Peter Crouch is not as good in the air as Emmanuel Adebayor and Wolves will have to be wary of him.

As much as Mick claims Jamie O'Hara has nothing to prove, I'm sure Jamie will want to stick a goal or two past his old team. He may feel that he was never given a chance under Harry Redknapp, which I think is an advantage for us. It's going to be vital that him and Karl Henry are at the top of their game.

It's very likely that we will go with the same team for the fourth game running. I'm not sure when the last time that happened, but for me it is a good thing and if we can resist altering the side then we can go from strength to strength.

Hennessey

Stearman
Johnson
Berra
Ward

Hunt
Henry
O'Hara
Jarvis

Fletcher
Doyle

We've had some entertaining games against Spurs in the last couple of years, I expect this to be similar. We will try not to open the game up, be patient and careful. I think if we can get plenty of crosses in, then we have a chance as that is where Tottenham have had problems so far this season.