The Opposition View with Wolves Blog, Wolverhampton Wanderers
Jealousy isn’t a good look, but we’ve turned green with envy reading Wolverhampton Wanderers website Wolves Blog this season as it documents their travels across Europe.
As recently as May 2018, Wolves supporters were watching Championship football. Skip forward 18 months and they’ve been seen their side take on the likes of Torino, Besiktas, Braga, Slovan Bratislava and Espanyol in the Europa League.
Visiting places like Turin, Istanbul and Barcelona to support your club less than two years after you’d been going to Barnsley and Burton Albion in England’s second tier and six years on from facing Stevenage and Crawley Town in League One is the very definition of living the dream for football fans.
“The football was largely forgettable, but the experience will live forever,” was how one of the writers on Wolves Blog described last week’s trip to Espanyol to watch. Wolverhampton Wanderers
“Travelling to Barcelona to watch Wolves play a game of football was always going to be a surreal journey, with League One reminiscing and head-scratching aplenty as we skip around Las Ramblas.”
For all Tony Bloom’s talk of establishing Brighton as a top 10 Premier League club, Wolves have actually gone out and done it. Bloom could do a lot worse than take a look at what Fosun International have achieved at Molineux and attempt to ape it.
Of course, it could get even better in 2020-21. With Manchester City currently banned from Europe, a fifth place finish would be enough for Wolves to secure Champions League football.
Trying to hide our jealousy, we spoke to Tom Baugh from Wolves Blog about Wolverhampton Wanderers and their secret to success, Europe and whether this would be the weekend when they finally ended their Brighton hoodoo. He said yes to that one, and we found it hard to disagree!
Brighton chairman Tony Bloom launched an ambitious plan in the summer to establish the Albion as a top 10 club. That’s not going quite according to plan right now. As a side who have come up from the Championship and breezed through the Premier League, what’s the secret to Wolves’ success?
Good recruitment and good coaching. We haven’t had many misses in the transfer market in the last three years and haven’t lost any integral players either, which helps. Nuno has a clear vision of how he wants his team to play, so marrying consistency and stability to good players looks like a winning formula.
Many pundits thought that Europa League football and second season syndrome might catch up with Wolves this year, but if anything you seem to be doing even better. How do this season compare to last?
I’d say it’s been better than last season, when you consider how well we’ve done in Europe and the results that have been achieved domestically. There are 10 games to go and we’re in the conversation about Champions League football – it’s the stuff of dreams.
On paper at least you don’t look to have the deepest of squads? How was Nuno managed to keep everyone fit and firing despite the demands of extra football?
It’s clear we’ve got a brilliant strength and conditioning team behind the scenes who help this small group of players recover quickly. Nuno constantly credits the players for their dedication to recovery though, and I think there’s something in that. These boys seem so professional and single-minded, it probably is down to their sheer dedication to maintaining performance that they’re able to cope.
Where do you see Wolves finishing this season? Is the Champions League in 2020-21 a realistic aim?
Prior to beating Totteham Hotspur last weekend, I would have given us an outside chance of getting fourth and a decent chance of getting fifth. Looking at our remaining fixtures and how well the team is playing, I’d say we’ve now got a good chance of hunting down fourth and an excellent chance of finishing fifth. It’s very much a realistic aim.
We continued our inexplicably good record against Wolves when we drew 2-2 at the Amex in December. What did you make of the game that day?
Not much in it was there? It was a rare game where we got the first goal and we’re usually strong front runners, but Brighton moved us around with good passing and were decent value for their lead before we seized on a mistake to get level again. I think we were on a good run at that stage and you were doing better, so given our terrible record against Brighton, I wasn’t unhappy with a point after things fizzled out in the second half.
Brighton are in a terrible run of form at the minute. What advice would you give Graham Potter to help come away from Molineux with something?
Defend deep, frustrate, keep the ball as much as possible and take your chances. What must be challenging for coaches at present is the fact Wolves are constantly changing between a 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 formation. In the 3-4-3 we’re much more expansive and attack-minded, whereas in the 3-5-2 it’s more about control and patience.
The title seems destined to be heading towards Anfield barring a major cock up. Who do you think is completing the top four and who is going down?
Assuming no points deduction, Mancheser City will finish second. Leicester City are wobbling, but they’ve still got a healthy buffer so will probably hang on to third. Then it’s one from Manchester United, Chelsea, Wolves and Spurs for fourth I think and at present, United look like they’re coming good. That said, they’ve got some tough fixtures in the coming weeks and if we can capitalise, I really do think we’re in with a shout.
I honestly have no idea about the bottom three. I’ve long felt Watford were in a false position and their form since Nigel Pearson has taken over coupled with victory over Liverpool proved that point so I don’t think they’ll drop.
Norwich City might have left it too late and Aston Villa seem a bit brittle to me, so I’d lean towards them being two to go. Then it’s one of West Ham United, Bournemouth or Brighton. You’ve got some nasty fixtures so I don’t see you pulling clear until the very end if you are to escape. My concern for you is where the goals are coming from compared to those other teams.
Finally, what’s your prediction for Saturday?
We’ve got to break the hoodoo in this fixture at some point and it should be on Saturday. There’s no way you’ll be setup as defensively as you were last season when we drew 0-0 at Molineux which should be to our benefit. If you’re solid and organised I expect it to be a very tough fixture, but one Wolves should have the artillery to win. 2-1 Wolves.
Thanks to Tom for taking the time to answer our questions. If you want to become insanely jealous of what it is like to follow your club around Europe, then check out Wolves Blog for some brilliant writing on Wolverhampton Wanderers and their Europa League adventures. You can also follow them on Twitter
