Amazing what you can actually buy from Aldi with two quid. It’s like a Mediterranean breakfast or something. Four croissants, soft cheese, butter and a funky coffee. Two quid! So I eat like an Italian Prince as the rain and wind beats on the window outside. Beautiful Wednesfield. I’d swap it for a gentle bike ride around some Spanish island for sure. Wonder how the lads are getting on in Marbella? They look happy. Hause and Graham doing the Insta strategy good. They believe in themselves I suppose and that’s good. These times don’t last forever though do they?. Now is the time to be working on your game and getting focused I suppose.

I did intimate to a few people that this trip may well be a smokescreen of sorts. What a beautiful place to meet ‘certain’ people who may join the club. Somewhere quiet in a small bistro. Perhaps Nuno will be there, maybe Uncle Mendes too. Probably some Spanish or Portuguese starlet who isn’t feeling the love at the club he’s with at the moment. I bet there is a DVD somewhere of Compton and the Molineux looming large on the 4k TV back at this young lads Hotel. I mean you can’t drag the poor bastard to Compton in weather like this. He’d be like ‘fuck off’ in some Latin lilt and he’d be off quicker than a rat in a skip fire.

Add to that a leak from the Compton staff that ‘Boberto Sexylegs’ is at the ground and the Wolves Social Media army would be chewing their fucking fingers off. So is it all a smokescreen? That Vitamin D comment from Nuno sounds like a massive laugh. Perhaps his humour has levels, I suspect it does. Especially when you see the team loving their break. I think it’s a sterling move for sure. Of course Gaz Mastic wasn’t happy.

‘Eh fucking off to Marbella for a week Eh? Eh?’

As I’m trying to get through the front gate. The wind is trying to get into my coat and I’m holding my Croissants tight in case they blow away. It was writing about them the other day. These delicious French curly things. I fancies one. I had two quid. I dare not show Gaz what’s in there but he’s hanging onto his Staffy as she noses the bag. Gaz wouldn’t like a Croissant. I know he has Margarine on his toast. He can’t tell the difference between butter and Margarine you see and we’ve had a long conversation about it in the summer which I wont bore you with.

Of course the break will do them all good. It’s a working holiday after all. Now they can train and groove along by the pool for a bit. Have a sunbathe and a chill out. This season is long isn’t it? It seems longer than the ones in the past anyway. For certain. I think that’s because we have had so much to cram into our little minds about how the team do their thing. New members of the squad, the emotions and the madness of the start of the season. That loss to Swansea and to be fair that rain coming back from there was a nightmare. I fancied a holiday after it. Fosun should have chartered a few planes to take every supporter to Marbella for a week or two.Yes, I see it as a positive for sure. Our momentum had declined somewhat over the past few weeks. These are young lads after all. The incessant grey skies above us are a hefty mind bomb for kids that have spent their lives cavorting on sun drenched pitches. Now there is mud, and rain, and grey. As much as we British can huff and sneer at the weather you have to remember we are used to it. We have the skills to deal with it. We enclose ourselves in layers and get out there in it. I think we actually enjoy it sometimes. That’s why we go insane in the sun. Have a riot or two. We are just happy that we have one layer on instead of six. Perhaps these lads will redefine their game at Ipshit maybe?

‘I’ve always said we needed a striker, I said it last season and the season before that, there’s no difference between Moxley and Jeff Lee’

Gaz is apoplectic with eye bulge and the odd spray of spit. He is getting his rage on. He is Molineux Mix made large and organic. He is ‘Dingles Ay We’ there, right in front of me and there is definite rage for sure. His thin legs are trembling again. In my pocket I have a lone crumpled Southbank Resistance sticker and I give it him to try and stop the rage before he gets on to Afobe.

‘What the fuck am I going to do with that? I’ll put it on me tackle box ta’

I had been told that Afobe didn’t want to go, didn’t want to leave the club. Good sources too. He loved it at Wolves. Loved the stadium. Didn’t much love the ball being hoofed up field for him to chase. But I can’t say anything to Gaz because he has his own ideas about Afobe and they pour out. I wonder if his rage will turn my cheese into mush. I suppose that will be Moxeys fault. He rages. That’s what he does and I do love him for it because thats what you do when you love something. He shouts at his dog who rarely listens but that dog eats steak and Liver that Gaz buys and cooks for her. His rage is just the way he filters the world out. Do we actually need a striker? Leo may come back a different man. Ready to start smashing things. Perhaps that mystery Striker will come in the close season after he has perused the DVD and Nunos magic words start to entwine with his own Kwan and becomes a thing. Who knows. Would Benik fit into this team? Is he even a thing?

What interests me is that I suspect Nuno has the knowledge that despite a couple of losses he understands that we have won this thing. He’s not an idiot. He’s looked at the teams around us and I suspect he sees them lacking. Doesn’t quite see how these teams are going to challenge the quality he has at his disposal. I think he’s confident and this sunshine break is perhaps the perfect coda for the first part of the climb out of this division. The players wont understand of course, but I think Nuno does. I see this break as a perfect example of how Nuno works on the minds of these players. He has segmented and parceled away the previous months and now there’s a chance for a new start and a new opportunity for the players to really start to impose themselves.

‘Are you going on Holiday Gaz?’ I ask him. ‘Ar Skeggy in June same as always, Love Skeggy’ he says as he wanders off. That’s fair enough.

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