Mmm, Monday night in December under the lights.
Just the mere suggestion of it conjures memories of the crisp winter air carrying the smell of the burger vans, the twinkling lights of the city and the blinding glow of the stadium, the incredibly pissed off fanbase attending the very well organised protest against the owners.
Truly, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Chaos off the pitch, but hopefully, this is the point where it all clicks and the great escape starts here. Right? Right?
You’ll Never Kill Wolverhampton Wanderers
It would be remiss to not mention the protests, and the strength of them, this evening. It should never have got to the point where the ownership is protested, but all you can do is play the cards as you’re dealt them.
Everyone who took the time to protest, boycott, turn their back and thumb their nose at the ownership deserves a pat on the back. Everyone unhappy but still unsure of joining the concerned crowd deserves a compassionate ear and a kind word; football is a lifeline, an escape, and it’s sometimes hard to be angry at the ones you love.
Are we being asset stripped? Left to rot at the bottom of an Excel sheet? Our rich and storied history being exchanged for a badge? You can’t say definitely, but you can’t say definitely not either.
Where does it go from here? Who knows, maybe this is the tip of the iceberg, and the future is much, much worse from here. Maybe we’ll be left to die in the doldrums of the football pyramid as our once-iconic badge is lowered onto an esports stadium in China.
But here’s the thing; companies can be wound up, logos can be bastardised, and football teams can be excluded from competitions. However, one thing that you can never do, is kill Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Fosun could dissolve the entity that is based on Waterloo Road at 9am, and by lunchtime, the good old boys and girls would be wearing differing shades and vintages of old gold, putting their club back together. Maybe it’s a muddy quagmire in Castlecroft, maybe it’s a phoenix rising from Molineux’s ashes, but it’ll be Wolverhampton Wanderers. Premier League or Sunday League, it’s still the same passion that built this shattering legacy.
You can’t kill the spirit of community, the selfless charity of our fans for our own and others, the indivisible love, the dreams we hold and the memories we share. That can’t be contained in a spreadsheet, held in a brand portfolio, or owned by any conglomerate. Wolverhampton Wanderers will exist in your heart, your mind, and your dreams long after we’ve been renamed the MK Derers and moved to Didcot.
The powerful can kill one, two, or a hundred roses, but they’ll never stop the arrival of spring.
Just 23 More Days of Suffering These Guys
Fortunately for us, the transfer window opens next month, and we can sell players. We can buy players as well, but let’s not too carried away here.
However, when the window slams open next month, we can start to clear out the deadwood, the time burglars, and the footballingly challenged at pace. Arias? When someone like Flamengo comes calling, whether it’s £5m, £10m or even £15m, we should pay it to get rid of him.
Centre backs who can’t perform the basic task of kicking a ball away from a dangerous position? Gone. Lads who can set a blistering time at Parkrun, but shouldn’t be in the Premier League? Gone. Krejci and Gomes? They’re great, which is why we save ourselves the heartbreak and get them… Gone.
It’s evident now that if you sent Pereria and Teti down the shop to buy you a can of pop and a chocolate bar, they’d come back with a handful of dog mess and Novichok, but good grief, who ARE these guys that came in the summer?!
If you are a football manager or director of football who is somehow reading this, come on down to the Everything Must Go Sale at the Molineux this January! From the fastest player in Serie A to the copper wiring in the walls of the stands, there’s something for everyone!
JRB though? Great lad, sell everyone and build a statue with the proceeds.
What The F***ing Hell WAS That?
Can we talk about that goal? That first goal. Cunha, clean through on goal. Oh no, anyone but him. Ah! He’s laid it off to Fernandes, and he’s slipped! What a silly cl-
How. How did that goal go in? How did, at no point, any member of the team kick the ball away? Stop the ball going in?
Agbadou’s fancy footwork might get him far on Strictly, but unfortunately should be nowhere near a Premier League time. What is unfortunate is that he’s near our Premier League team, and is probably one of the better defensive options too.
Why was Andre there? Why did he get bullied off the ball so easily? Why was there one centre back there on the break? Why is this happening to us? What did we do? Did we do something bad in our past life?
There are a lot of conspiracy theories floating around Molineux right now, so let’s add one more; that’s not Agbadou; that’s an Agbadou body double sourced by Fosun to cover up the fact that the real Agbadou was kidnapped for being too good at football last year, and it’s cheaper for Fosun to hire the body double than pay the ransom.
Worse still, our growing record of not conceding in the first half is now in tatters. We’ll need a new record to replace it. Some kind of points record… from Derby…
No, Really, What The F***ing Hell Was THAT
It’s not easy being a Wolves fan right now, not least because scoring a goal is a notable talking point. Nine hours without a goal, and by god, it’ll probably be another nine before we score again.
Scoring goals is a problem, but conceding them is somehow even bigger. Make no mistake, Man United seem to be turning something of a corner, and are playing well. A tough game, certainly, but we didn’t have to make it easy.
All goals, bar the penalty, were a comedy of errors, with a lot of emphasis on comedy. Sure enough that tactics, styles, philosophies and such like take a while to bed in, but there should be the reasonable expectation that well paid, elite footballers know how to play together, or at least play well individually to give the impression of a collective.
There’s playing on the piss, and then there’s playing like you’ve got complete disregard for the concussion protocol. Are the ceilings too low at Molineux? Are our defence constantly banging their heads off door frames and low hanging light bulbs?
It’s a lovely bit of hyperbole to say that you could get a bunch of blokes from the pub and they’d play better than the highly tuned sportsmen on the pitch, but at this point, it’s about evens you’d be able to tell the difference. Or get a bunch of blokes from the pub and one of the wet floor signs as a sweeper.
The Premier League is an arse kicking contest, and we are but one legged men.
