Writing the blog as the match starts is a weird thing. I know I’ll get tangled in wires at some point, the dogs will bite me, the lap top will end up with another dent and another crack in the screen. I’m a gloomy bastard sometimes. Usually after Wolves have been dicked by a no mark team like Sheffield United but normally it’s Burton, who we play today. I’ve never been so sick of football as when they beat us down here. I raged out of the Southbank all boppy and angry with my coat up my face like a Fooligan. Ranting, aggravated and heated. Around the corner from the Steve Bull came the Burton fans. Moms, Dads, kids, all happy with their victory, ecstatic in fact. I felt hollow and shit. I crept back into town to see what new colours of hair the bar staff in the Royal London had that week. This week has been punctuated by big dollops of rain dumped on us by various storms. Down the canal I lit my roll up with a lighter that disintegrated after a fart of flame I managed to catch. Then a big dollop of raindrop landed straight on the end of me roll up, extinguished it. Leon fucking Clarke I thought. It’s a long journey to Burton too, short in a temporal sense but long in that waiting for your dealer way. It goes on forever that road there. Leaves a hollow in your stomach like Leon Clarke.

We play ‘The Town Of The Damned’ again today. At their place. Burton is strange, I say that from personal experience as I’ve been there a few times on business and pleasure. I met a woman in a pub Sally Canwait. Her chat up line was ‘I’ve got loads of food in my fridge if you want to come back to mine’. Kind of sums up the vibe of the place where that glowing heaven of bite sized delights in the corner of the kitchen is a precursor to some hefty workman like lovemaking in a strange town. I hope our team feel some love today. Last week at Sheffield Utd was a dire affair of football apparently but one that has to come along at some point, perhaps a few points.

So, Sally Canwait had a zit on her neck, not a bad one, but it kind of held the attention. Leo Bonatini is that zit. I don’t mind it in a bad way he just holds my attention while he’s playing and I’ll explain why. Watching him move around the pitch he reminds me very much of Andy Mutch. Now I sent some big love to Andy Mutch the other week because I enjoyed his play, his link play really being that filter between Bully and whatever quality of ball came over the top or from the side via Dennison. That filter is a necessity to players like Jota and Brighty who require a pretty forensic ball to be played to them. That effortless perfectly weighted pass that dips right on the foot you want at the perfect pace. I’ve watched him do it, that ball gets dipped off with the skill of a Snooker player. His leg whether he’s in mid air or ready to receive a Warnockian ‘snackle’ is poised to deliver the right amount of pressure to the ball. His passes are rarely errant, often a work of pure art. He’s not a ‘snotter’ or a ‘head’ but an artiste of sorts and one I think is an integral part of the way he and the team get’s it’s groove on.

I’m tempted to believe that he’s probably the signing of the season once you look past the brilliance of Jota and the vibrancy of Neves. Jota I will have more words to say about another time but Neves? He’s had some stick hasn’t he? Gone off the boil a bit, not really catching fire as well as he did earlier. That gets Marvin Groin in a state straight away. Marvin would live in Burton, two bedroom house, Vauxhall car, tribal tattoos he would be married to Sally Canwait too. You see there’s nothing better than a Marvin having a rant. You can switch him on like a Duracell bunny, watch him wind up, go red in the face. All you have to mention is a certain player he doesn’t like or understand and he’s off. Neves is that player for Marvin. I suspect Neves is just having a bit of grief settling down. It’s tough moving from a beautiful Mediterranean groove to Wolvo. We love our Wolvo of course because we have the proper filters in place to appreciate it. Neves of course looks like a fella having problems deciding what filters to put in place. The cadence of your life away from the training ground has some effect on how you play our football and Neves is at the moment a little polarised, maybe a little detuned to the rest of the band so his parts of the great Nuno musical hit are discordant sometimes, a little too loud and often not loud enough. But like all band leaders Count Nuno will be tapping his baton relentlessly to get everybody on the same musical wavelength, I can see it happening in the future, Nuno is too good a coach to let Neves slip into some abstract existence.

Now today we are going to have a new face in the back three. I think Boly still has a bad leg or something and I also suspect we may see Hause in there somewhere. I don’t mind Hause, he has kind of lost his way again for some reason or another and maybe today will see him stake a place in the back. When I wrote ‘Mad Men’ the other day I was thinking about Hause a lot. Now I suspected Neves might be the mad man in the team this season, the maverick gunman, the wild bastard we need to kick start some mental football. But now I’ve though about it some more maybe the dynamics of the team could do with a Hause or two. He’s not backward in coming forward Mr Hause. I can see him settling some rhythm down at the back, getting stuck in and bullying a few people. I hope he plays today.

‘Hey! No fighting in here! Oi put those Bounties back now!’ Swansea away.

Ok forget about Hause, he’s not even a thing today, just saw the team announcement. Bennett, ok then, maybe he is a thing. Bonatini out too so everybody I’ve just bigged up in the previous words aren’t even in the team. Good job I’m not a Manager or a pro-blogger innit? Saiss in too next to Neves. I don’t mind Saiss, his shots into the Southbank wake me up a bit and he’s a bit gnarly too and my inner Sunday footballer enjoys this a lot. Mr Groin will be gnashing his teeth of course, he hasn’t got over Dave yet. I’m liking Cavaleiro at the front too, hat trick I hope, Jota and Costa on either shoulder like bad demon/good angel whispering naughty things in his ear. Wonder if Costa is aking the Bonatini roole? Its a statement of intent for sure, the art of Bonatini or the rage of Cav’ who knows?

So Cav put through Jota and he scores. The journey becomes a little brighter for our loyal and brave fans that made their way up the road to nowhere. I am grinning, I am happy, fuck Leon Clarke. Fuck Sheffield. Fuck Burton Albion with their cursed last name. Fuck Nigel Clough too. Fuck Brewery towns and I’m on the fence yelling at the pitch at some ground in the 80’s shouting so loud my voice just stops dead. A.L.B.I.O.N SHIT ON THEM SHIT ON THEM. For Gods sake save me, this joy erupts within me and is a fire, a fire that gives me Jota love in armfuls. Now Saiss!! We are moving the ball around too fast for the agricultural Burton, it was coming wasn’t it? We knew they would click at some point. Oh my days, I have to sit down, the dogs are barking and I’m feeling that hot football sun on my head even though the skies outside are grey and sad. Sunshine super football all day my friends. Joys. Madness. Holiday vibes. Laughing babies, little puppies, little kittens!

Has Nuno sat within his office and endlessly clicked the Rubik cube of possible dynamic tactics and squad position? Has he rolled the bones at his feet and asked the Gods for aid? Who knows? But this front three are moving like a snake at the moment. I’m listening on the radio, refreshing the Twatter, texting friends in the ground. Madness, insanity. Burton fucking Albion for Gods sake. But it’s working obviously. Helda is a thing, is he the missing link, the bridge between the old and the new having been part of both. Is he the piece of the puzzle we had dropped down the back of the settee and now he has been found we are complete? Questions!

Burton of course wont let Wolves have it all their own way. There always has to be a drunk at the kids party falling over onto the cake, getting all emotional over something and then anger, ranting in the middle of the garden while the kids are crying and everybody should be off really it’s late. Burton ball, fuck ’em off Wolves, don’t take any shit.

‘Cavaleiro throws himself on the floor and wins a free kick’

Burton you horrible bitter twisted non entitys, how dare you after the histrionics you showed at our ground in numerous games. You disgust me. Town of the damned you are, the Vauxhall cavalier of towns, a haven of blandness, a Nans browser history of a town.

Burton are pushing up, being pressure dynamic, moving these big crosses into our box apparently. I’m hopeful it will leave a gap as big as the ones in Sally Canwaits teeth just big enough for the ‘TRIDENT OF POWER’ Jota/Cavaleiro and Costa to slide in like a sesame seed. Like a sausage in a roll. Like a pound coin in a crackheads pocket. And as I type Salt’N Vinagre with a belter. I’m emotional I’ll be honest. I told you they would click, I knew it. Unstoppable, European cup glory in two years, I see it. I’m over emotional, the dogs are barking and the tea is burning and I know I should be there but I’m not I’m here but that inner sun is still shining bright in my heart. 0-3. Nuno you Magi, you absolute Magician.

Half time and my phone starts buzzing with messages ‘awesome’ and ‘brilliant ay’ and ‘have you got that money you owe me’ ok forget that last one. But the vibe is clear now, we must have absolutely decimated those crab hand Burton bastards. I bet they are sitting in the dressing room now rubbing lotion on the burns they got from our front three running around like little burning suns. I bet the ground is heaving with the passion from our away support. I’m sad and happy. Sad I’m not there but happy we’re winning. Who needs a striker anyway ay? What would those weird named non entities from Europe have given us that the Molineux Trinity of Costa-Jota-Cavaleiro haven’t? Such slickness.

‘AAAAAAAAA BonafuckingTini you beauty!!!!!!’

I stand here happy now, four fucking nil my friends. It’s a destruction of Burton. A decimation of their intent and a reinforcement of ours. Bonatini you absolute beauty. Yes you are a part of it, get your nose in their son. Here’s a paper plate, we have onion bhajjis, sausage rolls, quiche, pork pie, a bit of black forest gateaux. Eat your fill my friend, eat in the cosmic glow of the community center disco that is the cultural apex of this godforsaken place, remember this is a story you will tell your children and you will point to the East and say yes, there I slayed the one eyed blandness of that place and yes! I left them weeping into their Marmite smelling shirts.

Well there we go. Another weird day being a Wolves fan. The ignominy of Sheffield a few days ago and now the treasure of bringing back the spoils from that depressing weird place Burton. We have to have these days don’t we, at least a few times in the season when everything clicks into place. The Kwan has indeed flowed today and yes it could be construed as metaphysical. It didn’t flow in the week for sure but under all the chaos of the Leon Clarke retro revival there was still a belief, still a thought that there was a kind of unstoppable force to the season at Wolves. There’s something moving in the sand stone geology underneath Molineux that hasn’t moved for many years. I suspect it’s a Dragon, a huge fiery thing that went to sleep at the end of the sixties and the success we have had since is the Dragon dreaming and moving but now I suspect the magic of Nunoism is gently prodding it slowly awake and I await with a strong heart that one day it will poke it’s nostrils above the beautiful pitch and it’s nostrils will quiver. It wants to see what Nuno is cooking.