Wolves Fans – the most fickle fans in the premier league
Mick McCarthy has done an outstanding job at Wolves, if you look at the clubs recent history, in the last 20 years this is only the 4th season the club has spent in the premier league; 3 of which under the wing of Mick McCarthy.
Since McCarthy took charge of the club they have progressed and flourished as a team. He took charge of a team who had struggled in the hands of Glenn Hoddle and the team seemed to play without passion and desire to win. When he took over there was little expectation of to gain promotion immediately as they had a reasonably young squad, but he actually took them to the playoffs in his first season in charge. In his second season came the investment of Steve Morgan, who put £30m into the club and the ethos was changed as they set out to “re-establish Wolves as a Premiership Club.” They signed good young talent such as Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Steven Ward and Kevin Foley, who are all now decent premier league players. After Promotion in the 2008-9 campaign they started off like a train and maintained the form not leaving the automatic promotion places after getting in them in August.
Since getting to the premier league, he has made some excellent signings, Kevin Doyle, Jamie O’Hara and Roger Johnson just to name a few and has managed to keep them up against the odds 2 seasons on the bounce, and if the season ended now, they would still stay up.
He made a bold decision in the first season in premier league, resting 10 players against Man United as he felt with his best 11 they would lose regardless which paid off as they secured 3 vital points against another promoted side with a 1-0 win against Burnley. For his sins, himself and Wolves did receive a £25000 fine for breaking premier league conduct.
But still despite all this some Wolves fans think he should be sacked.
They may sit in 17th position in the Premier League which they would obviously like to improve on, but considering they have played 6 of last season’s top 10 and they are only 3 points of West Brom in 10th place, they aren’t really doing that badly. Some of the fans have suggested that he makes the wrong substitutions, but how can you fault a manager who makes 2 changes with their team 2-0 down who both score to level the scores against Swansea who have shocked everyone with their first-rate performances this season.
They also suggest that McCarthy’s tactics are too negative, but sometimes against good teams you need to dig in and defend and hope to catch them on the break. Every fan wants to watch an excellent flowing game of football, but for managers football is a results business. The Wolves fans want to see their team to show a bit more going forward but would you really want to watch your team go forward irresponsibly and end up getting stuffed 3-0 or 4-0. The answer is no. Wolves restricted Everton really well; the 1st goal came from a set piece and the second a soft penalty. They have Chelsea at the weekend, despite Chelsea’s fragile defence they are potent going forward, it would be unwise to go for an attacking minded tactic.
I’m not suggesting teams should stay with their managers just because of the work they have done in previous seasons, but if they sacked McCarthy now, who would they replace him with and with the resources available and the current squad would they even do any better? My thoughts are that it is unlikely.
Calum Steel @CalumSteel
12 comments