Our Chinese Overlords

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Sky Sun (left) with Jeff Shi

I’ve read some right madness on the internet telly thing over the past few weeks about the whole Thomas Cook failure and the ramifications for any Fosun related funding of their jewel in the Crown Wolverhampton Wanderers. Allow me to wax some lyrics about it. 

First of all the Fosun Group probably won’t be taking that much of a whack from Thomas Cook going down the chute. Some estimates have put the figure between 38 and 43 Million Euros. About what you would pay for half of John Stones really. That kinds of puts it in a clearer light anyway. Plus with all the problems Thomas Cook had over the past 18 months or so I suspect Fosun was already starting to nail the windows shut as the leaves from the coming storm started to blow around in Fosuns front garden. Fosun are not idiots. They will have learned much from how the disintegration of Thomas Cook flowed from the start of their troubles to the finish last week. I would be quite happy to look at the Fosun acquisition of Thomas Cook in 2015 as an errant variable in Fosuns often flawless and relentless global march. Thing is my friends…when you are a global company with investments scattered all over the globe then a pissing amount like the Thomas Cook investment is a gnat dick of a hit. They will be more pissed off at the emotional damage to their self esteem than a few quid trust me. The money involved in Fosuns march across the globe are that vast they have become abstract and meaningless on the larger map. It doesn’t mean diddly squat mate. 

But what does that mean for us? Wolves?

I know there has already been some lyrics in the press and from academic sources as to the ‘horrendous’ losses Fosun will have to bear now Thomas Cook is no more. This is just noise. You can be as empirical as you want about the figures and the accounts flying around but ultimately the position Fosun hold worldwide is becoming unassailable in terms of micro positions like the Thomas Cook investment. Like the team at Wolves they are learning rapidly about what actually constitutes ‘business’ in the wider worldwide context like we are learning about how to play six or seven games a fucking month. It’s learning curve time….and very interesting for us. 

Many of our fans can’t understand why we aren’t doing a Manchester City and piling in players that are above and beyond financial constrictions other clubs have and why we aren’t using the financial clout of the Fosun entity to dominate these markets. Things are very much different to when Manchester City and the Mansour family started to flex that Oil money around. Financial Fair play or FFP is often a term thrown around by people who don’t have much of a clue about how it works. When Mansour started to crack his wallet open the ownership of clubs was pretty much (in the UK) dominated by Boardrooms full of dusty white men who had owned a local firm or made money doing old school shit like building or flogging insurance. They made money and that money gave them a ticket to the big tables at clubs. Nobody knew at the time what an impact these Oil men like Abramovich and the Mansours would have on English football and in the wider context some European clubs too. This was reigned in rapidly by governing bodies of the major footballing associations with a tranche of legislation that has grown every month or so with new constraints and new implications for clubs. Manchester City made the most of it for sure while the going was good. Abramovich fell by the wayside a little via FFP but mostly by his close association to Russian figures in Politics and finance in direct competition with our own Westminster Oligarchs, commonly called ‘The State’. You can kick against the pricks as much as you want but when the pricks are as firmly entrenched as Westminster then there will only be one winner. 

Fosun now have to navigate absolute bear traps of legislation to pull Wolves from the nether regions of the Premier League to absolute dominance. This means throwing money at the whole subject is a no-no. The whole Wolves journey cannot be extrapolated with the Man City experience any more and any parallels with it should be shot down immediately. There is a gulf between the Mansour family and the Fosun idea for Wolves and I will tell you why. 

The Chinese are a whole different ball game to the Oil Sheiks. We have seen Laurie Garglypimple sent off into the void already. OK there have been many reasons bandied about on Social Media and other rumours as to why he was shunted off. The Rod Stewart gig was one of them. I think they ran out of beer or didn’t have the requisite staff on duty. Man, if I listed every little rumour then I’d be here all day typing. I have my own thoughts as to why he was thrown into the void. 

I suspect it was the fact Laurie wasn’t totally au-fait with the Fosun ethic of ‘how you do shit’. Companies in the Far East aren’t the enemy to people that work for them. They have a Philosophy in major companies that sometimes verge on the edge of becoming Scripture. When you go to work for a company then you basically give your life to them. Everything you do in your life becomes entangled with Company directives and dogma. You give your working life to them. Moving between companies in the East is almost unheard of. They say jump, you say how high? Here is where the vapid and abstract world of finance becomes enmeshed with the Chinese philosophies. Laurie was a variable that Fosun did not know very well. If they didn’t know him then his position was a weakness and that goes for everybody that works with Fosun. If you aren’t a full member of the squad then you have to be moved on. Fosun require an almost fanatical employee base with an almost Mormon adherence to the  tenets of business Fosun espouse. I think Laurie was a weak link in the chain. But Tenets…

One of those tenets was prevalent in our Promotion season. The cries of FFP weirdness was led by Aston Villa and Leeds with a few other clubs throwing their hats into the ring as well. What did Wolves do while under attack? Nothing. A few soundbites thrown out by Jeff Shi that were so ambiguous that they could hardly be called soundbites at all. There was no defence and no attack just a strange ambivalence as the press and the FA made strange negative noises. The Fosun way. There was no to and fro from Fosun just a relatively dignified silence on the whole subject. What happened to Aston Villas hierarchy? Off into the void…what happened with Leeds? They eventually shut up (which was a shock) The Fosun Crazy Train trundled on over their corpses. By making big noises and throwing annoyed shapes the Boardrooms and Chief Executives of these two clubs crumbled immediately and became the drunken pisshead fighting the Bus shelters of every town and city of England at 2 am in the morning. 

The whole Jeff Shi experience was one I expected for sure. Bring in somebody that has some idea of how to do business in the UK and Europe. Make them that Chinesey that anyone that has any dealing with him have some comforting feelings that they have a dude in front of them that ticks all the boxes of what they expect from a Chinese big cheese at an English football club. Unassuming, quiet, reserved, private typical Chinese businessman and the pen just goes on ticking the boxes and his opponents feel very happy knowing that all their prejudices about Chinese business has been confirmed. This effort gave his opponents much happiness. But it wasn’t what Jeff was about. I knew that the first time I set eyes on him. He was a Fosun Jesuit if you like. Directives were everything, there was no room for any creative meanderings from the scripture thank you very much. But Jeff was what was required at the start of the whole project. Jeff ran rings around them and was exactly what Wolves needed. But is he any more? 

Knowing Chinese business as I do I can see that our Jeff will be off back to China soon and will probably be the interface between the new Fosunites in the boardroom at Wolves and the Fosun high tables back in China. Jeff Shi was the perfect foil at the time and his appointment was pin point in it’s accuracy. His disarming smile, buying pints in the Great Western, his happiness to have his photo took with every doughnut that shouted ‘Oi Jeff’ while he was walking into the ground. But now the whole show has changed. The landscape is much different and the stakes are higher. Now no stone can be left unturned and no route left uninvestigated. Now the running of Wolves will be ramped up to levels absolutely unseen in that Wolves boardroom. They cannot neglect a single aspect of the way Wolves is run. 

Who will replace Jeff? Enter Sky Sun who will probably be our new big cheese either by the end of the season (which I suspect) or (if our European campaign grows more and more successful) before. Who is Sky Sun? He’s the dude mate. Young, ambitious, sports marketer and soon to be the new face of Wolves Worldwide. When he puts on the big hat shit will really start to happen trust me. I say trust me because I have actually said hello to him outside the ground while he was walking into Molineux. I’ve met many people in my life and I like to think I get a practically complete picture of how and why that person does what they do in that few seconds between me saying hello and them practically running off because I’m an often frightening looking dude. But I’m also an observer because I write things so I have to have some idea of what I’m writing about. I can tell when people are lying, it’s a major skill, I can also read between the lines of anything I read. Sky Sun is the Don trust me. He has a presence that would scare me if I was working for him. With him in place there will be no cock ups like Garglypimple on board. I’m not cussing Jeff Shi here. Jeff is a dude that has had to learn hard and fast while juggling an insane entity such as a football club. Jeff has been an absolute demon in turning this club into the transitional club it is at this moment. But. There will be a new covenant written for people that do work for Sky Sun and he will be fucking ruthless in propelling Wolves to absolute global dominance. He used to work for Nike too, expect a sponsorship tie in with them with new bespoke kits instead on the off the peg standard Adidas ones we have now. Expect the unexpected. 

Of course as I’m just a doughnut who can type words on a blog that sometimes seem to have some order why would you listen to me? I don’t know to be honest, but something is about to happen at Wolves. They have been too fucking quiet. 

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NUNOISMping     AMAZON_EBOOK

 

Making Things Happen

Wolves V Reading – Carabao Cup

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If you’re honest with yourselves you can draw parallels between a first round Carabou or whatever Cup game with trying to jerk off to the women’s underwear section in Kays catalogue Spring 1979. It’s hard to concentrate, it’s often hard work and the end result leaves you with a disgusted feeling about your existence, a limp usless arm and a vow to shoplift one of those ‘Fiesta’ magazines next time you’re loading up your paper bag with newspapers in the Newsagents. But it’s also an opportunity to cast a yellowed teary eye over the investment Fosun have made to our under 23 squad. It’s a chance to see what might be coming our way in the near future…pretty much like looking at the women in the September 1977 edition of Fiesta magazine. 

Playing against a team currently in the arse end of the Championship isn’t going to get the blood flowing in any way. Charlie Adam for fucks sake. I thought he had retired but there he is, little chubby legs going ten to the dozen as he trundles up and down trying to remember why he was here, maybe having a few thoughts about previous visits to the Golden Palace. Poor Charlie. The Lurpak Kid iterates that ‘he had a wand of a left foot’ while shortly after this statement Adams boings the ball into the North bank from a ‘shot’ of sorts. I bet that woke somebody up. Me and Lurpak exchange side eyes. Reading are a great reminder of how we have dragged ourselves out of the mire we wallowed in for so many years. Kevin Doyle, Alex Rae, ‘that match’ all these things flying through my head before the game. I had almost forgot about Reading as a footballing entity. How these lofty heights make your brain go fuzzy eh? Their team have some insane bad trims. But hey, if you are going to splurge £40 on a haircut at some Hipster barbers you want your moneys worth don’t you? I think most of them had got their moneys worth to be honest but they look like they had just lost a battle with Moms K-Tel Trim-O-Matic (£4.99)

I wasn’t sure about anything that happened before our Lazio lad Bruno trundled a ball goalwards and the Reading Goalie made a right muff up of gathering it up and off it bounced into an open goal. You have to be in it to win it yeah? You have to get that ball going goalwards to get a chance and I enjoyed Brunos contribution. I’ll be honest the chanting ‘Bruno! Bruno! made me have a moment of extreme weirdness fora few seconds. It’s a thing in Wolves football lately that we don’t have many more cracks at the goal through defenders. I mean Palace last week have had joy doing it as most sides we have conceded to this season so far. I like Bruno, I like that hungry feeling he has. Busy and moving, good vision for a pass, he dinked some lovely balls around for sure. So here’s the point where I started to get all sticky and weird. Bruno gets stretchered off after some bastard falls on him. Was it Charlie Adam? Later on our sub Shabani is off with what looked like something horrible. My mind shouted out that it was a fracture or break and to watch him roll around in pain was freaking me out a little after my own experience with leg pain bollocks. Before that Shabba was getting more and more comfortable with the ball and his team mates. I was basking in some sort of confidence that here were two players that could fit in this team of ours and throw their own minds about football into the mix. Of course pride too, before the fall. I was sickened by it to be honest and just wanted to go home at that point. I hate it when players get hurt and when it’s our players it’s a thousand times worse.

I hope the injuries to both of them are relatively mild, I really do hope that with all my heart so best wishes to both of them X

Max Kilman was sublime. He is growing fast as a player. He looked refined and to be honest looked like he grew there. Countering attacks, putting the odd foot in and spraying a few gorgeous passes around. I would like to see him move up the pitch a little more to be honest and support other madness happening in midfield, but did you notice how many headers he won? He goes up high and perfectly times, snatching the ball off Reading heads like a pure Don. Moving the ball out of defence was slick and right on the button too and there is nothing I love more than watching a player pass out of the back in arrow like lines that go ‘dink dink dink’ until everybody is standing up as we blast up the pitch. It’s exciting and I like it.

Bruno also, seemed like he had grown there. He was also assured and on point sniffing out the ball whenever he could. Getting in faces and challenging second balls brave and strong. Some of his runs were an art in themselves…without the ball. I’m just watching for a moment what he is doing by himself when not in possession. He holds the shape Nuno wants superbly by moving into space, shutting down space and making the fifteen yards around him purely his own. Man, I’m gutted he had to go off. There would have been more madness from him as he grew into the game I’m sure of it. I’m guessing that the concession of a last dying seconds goal was a reaction to the injuries, the mind just flipping off for a moment or two as some sort of weird screensaver came plopping into their minds.

Strangely enough I had to piss off home before the penalties were done and dusted and here we are having another competition to play in as if we don’t have enough games to play this season. I know it’s bad enough (or good enough) that we are playing so many games and I’m wondering whether my mind can sort it all out into some semblance of order yet alone the players.

Matt (75k) Doherty should have a stand named after him I think. He reminds me of…me. No matter what the hell is going on within the greater metaphysical circles that revolve around Wolves there he is, the ultimate Stoic ploughing up and down the touchline again and again doing what he does best, simply being Matt Doherty. He was constantly probing and moving into areas that oozed danger. He’s obviously had a few moments over the past few weeks where things have gone a bit weird, but he’s always there, always. But no Conor Coady and I read he has played 7,020 minutes of football unbroken. By God I hope he put his feet up on a comfy footstool and watched UFO videos on Youtube all night for a good chill out. I missed him for sure.

Later on of course while I’m getting my head in some disorder to go to sleep I read that Jesus Vallejo is getting some pelters off various quarters for his display tonight. I don’t really know how to react to people that tend to castigate our players on a regular basis and it’s the same group that always do it, with a few no marks piling in too. Of course years ago (sorry for time travelling again) if you were in the South Bank shoulder to shoulder with other similar minded lunatics…if you did cuss a Wolves player you were odds on to get some beer monster nutting you a few times. I’ve seen it plenty of times. Paul Birch springs to mind now. I remember him getting some verbals off a ‘stand actor’ that had crept under the section 8 bit of the terrace and said actor being bundled down the steps with his eyebrow hanging on by a hair. If you didn’t like a particular player you kind of kept your mouth firmly shut. Jesus is getting the same shit we reserved for Helder Costa and Traore this season and most of last, always has to be a fall guy for the crowd and I suspect Jesus might be this years. My own opinion of course is that Jesus has fucking tons of potential and his football at times leaves me breathless, I’m thinking of that pass to Cutrone a couple of weeks ago which was like a dart in the eye it was that accurate. Jesus now lives under the tutelage of the Nuno Mafia at Compton and is undergoing re-education that will bring him out of his shell and turn him into a Wolf. It’s a slow process sometimes, Nuno has to juggle egos and game time, judging where and when to put players into the mix and when to take them out. Put Jesus into a team that’s not performing very well at the start of the Season and it’s an uphill battle for Jesus. He has to get into the groove, has to learn what the fuck is happening, here at Wolverhampton Wanderers, a team he’s never even heard of, a City that looks like it never recovered from recession after recession. Young, fresh and thrown into the mix straight from the off. I’m surprised he has played as well as he has. Especially in the rough end of the pitch too, playing a Youthful if unimaginative bunch of Reading necks. The gift we can give Vallejo is time. Let him start to push out his own personality and idea of how he would like to play his football, let him try to impress his own model through the rigorous framework that Nuno and the Coaching staff tend to erect around the idea of how Wolves should play. I bet there are a thousand things going through Vallejos mind at the moment and I would like to say…chill out man, everything is good, relax, enjoy your football and don’t worry about the odd errant decision, we all make them dude.

I think Morgan Gibbs White will also be finding this parched footballing landscape a little trying lately too. It’s hard to shine when everybody else has turned their love lights off. Morgan plays an extremely tight game tonight. I tend to think he is holding himself back from going full tilt at a game. Of course it’s a team game we all know that and Morgan will have orders about shape and movement going through his head and all the while he is trying not to listen to the little voice in his head that is imploring him to do this or do that. This means there are moments when simplicity is the tactic but there are so many fast and beautiful possibilities going on in his head that everything becomes tangled up and a simple pass is missed or a steezy beautiful Portuguesey movement becomes a local park kick around. If only we could stick an old head and brain into a young mans head. Put our addled brains in Morgans head and yes you would see a player that would ‘see’ the simplest pass would be the best. But being young eh? When I was his age I was fighting Hells Angels in a tent in Wiltshire all the while holding onto my beefburger. We are critical and it is our right I suppose but something tells me most of this team are learning and criticism becomes that dude slapping his toddler becuase she couldn’t stand up by herself. Fragile footballing egos become bruised fast. The whole team tonight are young.

Neto is a stand out and an errant variable. Errant because he has steamed into the squad with pure footballing intent. This is a footballer who is so confident in his own ability that he can drift into any tactical set up or philosophy with barely a shiver. He attacks everything. He grabs hold of the ball at one point and he is just gone into the Reading half for a chance or at least a goal effort. He is tripped of course, in the box. Penno? Nah the Referee books him for simulation not knowing that if there wasn’t contact Neto would have just barrelled onwards. It was like the Ref was castigating him for having the audacity to actually play football and having the cheek to take the piss. Jordao had the same outlook really. He scored a goal from a Goalkeeping error, fair play, have a bang at the goal if you are in sight of it and nobody seems to look like wanting the ball. Goalie goes down to gather and it was a ‘bobbler’ and bobbled off his arms trickling into the Reading net. Got to be innit to winnit. But do you see how things are moving now? These lads are the future. Taylor Perry comes on to throw some shapes around. Again there are a few moments I think that nerves come into play and the pace of the game becomes insane maybe. But it’s a concrete performance again. This is a precursor to what we will be watching in a few seasons time when the whole idea of playing for Wolves is that entrenched in their minds that a little of themselves is starting to leak out. At the moment it’s all strict and shape, effort and movement, all these keywords rattling around their heads while they try to remember who they are.

In direct contrast the ineffable Benno is in the driving seat at the back playing the Coady role. What can I say about Benno that I already haven’t? Consummate footballing pro and a pleasure to watch play football. It’s not glitzy shiny Moutinho level football and it’s not electric like Traore but it’s what we needed at the back. A presence. A player you can put your trust in that if you are pushing out of your position to close down or move then he will be there to mop up the crumbs. Poor Bennett is also struggling to offer some light at the darkness of our mini slump and also gets infected by the insanity of our bad run. But here he is ‘Benno’ and there isn’t a blade of grass he doesn’t cover in front of John Ruddy (who also never put much of a foot wrong tonight).

Of course, I will take a win on penalties all week mate. Onward through the competitions, throw them at us, we don’t care. let us wallow in every competition they can throw at us and we will throw our players back into the cauldron week after week, match after match. I don’t care about how tired we think they are or if the ‘threadbare’ squad isn’t big enough. Nuno knows, the mantra carries on, make our ideas stronger than theirs. Make being the operative word…

‘Make’ Where you form (something) by putting parts together or combining substances; create.

‘Make’ Where you cause (something) to exist or come about; bring about.

Watford on Saturday. Fuck Watford.

A Step Forwards (666 remix)

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To be honest I can’t say any more denigrating faintly humorous stuff about Roy Hodgson, or Zaha to be honest. Hodgson is a pale Owl of a man and his teams are the same, they are vapid and fucking weird. The whole place is weird including Zaha who has a Spider plant on his head the fucking doughnut. I’ve not run out of things to say about them but I think I’ll leave it to one side a minute (or not). But what a fucking hell hole the place is, it’s like a Death camp for people that don’t know they are alive. Fucking horrible and full of cunts to be honest. It always rains, it’s Morrisey in a stadium, depressing, it makes me feel fucking ill going there, I had more laughs when I had chemo. Jesus fucking holy Christ I feel sorry for the poor bastards going there. Fair fucking play muckas, Jesus Christ. I’d rather eat Ed Sheerans hair than go there again. I heard Benno has every Ed Sheeran guitar made. Benno get in touch lets have a jam session get those Sheerans buzzing like they were never designed to do. Ed Sheeran fucking hell, I’ve had it up to here with warbling cunts on acoustics moaning about not getting a shag.

So, this game was important on a metaphysical level rather than an empirical point scoring one. It was a point on our travels fair enough. But how did the team do in a wet mouldy Croydon again? It must be hard trying to garner some sort of fucking effort in Croydon. The whole place wants to make you lie down and fucking die. But there they were getting off the Team Coach to go into the stadium, all fucking glum. Jota looked like he wanted to stab somebody, Bolys eyes were darting everywhere, Neves looked pissed off, Nuno was off to a funeral it looked like. Matt Doherty looked as pissed off as he always does so no change there. Coady looking beautiful as ever. 

Jesus Fucking Christ the poor bastards. Haven’t they had enough all week with all those spotty fucking football virgins on Twitter giving it large on Social media. It’s not only the Virgins either it’s the powdery Wolves Dads too the fucking slap head spatulas. I love social media, it’s full of those lunatics you see in town and at the match with their fucking phones glued to their hands dribbling and bumping into things like head the balls. Of course I’m going to listen to your inputs you fucking freaks. I’ve actually met some of you at matches or in pubs and yes you are fucking horrible. I met some right stupid fucked up cunts down the canal when I’m walking the dags. They talk more football sense than most people on Twitter, and don’t forget these canal pissheads often shit themselves in times of intense inebriation. I should get them cheap phones and on Twitter.

Well Diogo Jota levelled in the last minute. A bloody deserved leveller too. Palace ‘Ultras’ shut up at last the little pricks. Those fucking glum faces when the goal went in were a fucking delight to be honest. Shitheads. Serves them right for living in a cack hole like Croydon.

Of course I was watching it on the electronic square thing and to be fair I nearly kicked the fucking screen in with delight. Not for the team of course, or the result, just that it would send those Palace fans back home with a right itchy angst bone, the poor bastards. I hope they sat there in the evening punching themselves in the balls and going on SOCMED moaning and posting wank gifs. Last minute levellers mate, lovely, I could taste the blood in my mouth as it went in, not because it was bleeding at the time but if I was there I would have definitely got an elbow in the mouth or a head in the limbnal mosh that occurred as Jota smashed it into the top of the net. I even started doing wanker signs at the screen, I wanted to throw it through the window and beat up that fat cunt Villa fan over the road. 

Who are we? I think over the past few weeks we have kind of forgotten. I remarked to some canal pisshead that these rough weeks would either galvanise the squad to some level of beauty we had last season or send us spiralling into some whirlpool of nothingness. He just looked at me like I was a mental, he only said ‘orite mate’ before I collared the little filthy tramp to talk football. You see I was also emotional and I didn’t know who I was most of the last couple of weeks. I think it is a Wolverhampton thing, maybe a change in the weather, end of summer all that shite. Was it four straight fucking losses we would have had if the scores would have remained the same? Fuck knows, I’ve had enough days looking at numbers. I’m not sure as I don’t really dwell on negative things, but I don’t bury my head in the sand either. 

But the amount of trust I put in Nuno is more than I have ever given another Manager, and I can say Nuno stands with John Barnwell and Graham Turner in that respect and that’s a small club for someone that’s supported Wolves for…bloody hell 47 fucking years nearly. Jesus Christ it’s nearly killed me watching this team home and away. Watching Nuno (as I do a lot) I can tell that the whole subject of why we aren’t killing teams off is bothering him. He looks fucking angry and a bit mad, ready to slice somebody up. Don’t attack Woy for fucks sake, he’d just explode into a mist of skin flakes and blood thinners. On the touchline our Nuno, well, he’s doing the old moustache licking again and his legs and arms are exploding shapes. Not in a theatrical sense but emotionally. He wants to run on and start kicking the fuck out of somebody I’m sure of it. Maybe this crazy journey is his too, maybe he doesn’t quite understand where he is some times.

When Saissy got sent to the stands I was in two minds. One of them was having a go at Saissy for stepping on Zahas foot. The little Gremlin of a Referee Atwell (remember him) had no doubts and boshed the card out that fast it nearly caught fire. Atwell, fucking hell. He’s like your Nan finding your browser history or looking for the nail scissors in your Moms dressing table drawer and pulling out a fluff covered three foot long black dildo. That’s why you have a dent in your head then? Atwell…fucking hell…it rhymes as well hahahaha.

But in the other mind the more sensible non dildo one I could see how it affected Saiss. He was gutted but stoical for sure. Fucked off, a bit embarrassed. He went a bit pale and he knew he had made a guff somewhere, I mean old Spider Plant Zaha wasn’t actually going anywhere but when you have a player with the lunacy of Saiss there are bound to be weird fucked up moments when he just wants the ball back regardless of where it is. I suppose it was his hunger to get the ball that lead to the foul. That’s ok, I want players who want the ball. Palace weren’t really doing anything constructive in that ‘Palace’ way they have when they wonder if playing football there has any point at all. Maybe there was no need, maybe there was every need? Even Boly had some moments when things could have gone weird again. I suspect he’s been told to enlarge his personal space on the pitch and he is just getting to grips with what that actually means. It means he runs off at times to get the ball when it isn’t really his job. Fucking hell Boly you beautiful man, I love you.

You see Nuno and his staff have a central tenet and that is ‘we must always improve’. Now that isn’t just a throw away line to these dudes. It means day in and day out they have to be better than they were yesterday. You try that with anything you do in your life. See what discipline actually is. I’m fucking useless at it but that’s why I’m not a footballer. But I can see it is what we are missing a bit maybe. 

Indeed we threw our own shapes into the mix but Guaita and McArthur were doing things for Palace in the goal mouth. McArthur looks like one of those blokes that smells of sweat whenever you see him, it hangs around like a cloud of flies. I bet his duvet stinks. Half fucking chances, full fucking chances…but fucking chances nonetheless and for the love of Nuno they nearly went in too we were that close and still struggling with that identity crisis. We were a bit better than Palace, not brilliant but better riding the lip of the groove threatening to slip fully into it and rip some holes. Jota of course hadn’t read about this fucking identification problem, he doesn’t give a shit and was the same Diogo he always is. Probing, moving the ball, looking for space. How such a little dude shakes off the hundredweight sack of spuds Palace call their defence I haven’t got a clue mate. But he does doesn’t he? Then he is off on another fruitless run. I know people like Jota who never give up and they scare me. He probably couldn’t wait to get back home and talk to the severed heads he keeps in his fridge and Jonny keeps bringing more of them back home!

The first 45 minutes was Wolves looking a bit like Wolves again but there was the odd moment where a pass was 100mph knee height bollocks, a couple of passes going North and moments when our defence looked like they had been dragged through a hedge backwards…then forwards. But on the whole we kept plant pot head and Ayew quite quiet and reserved apart from some barrelling runs they made and we forgot who we were again. Zaha is a tricky little bastard…well a big lanky bastard. Trouble with him is that it’s all about him, everything he does is him as the main act.

I sat thinking is it a lack of beautiful Kwan for Wolves or have they got another fucking identity crisis? Second half is started with a dodgy deflection again and boom into the goal regardless of Rui Patricios stretching and shaping. He wasn’t far from getting a leg on it to be honest. It was that unlucky Kwanless feeling again. I want that Kwan back desperately. I want to punch myself in the balls and I have a go at the screen. The dogs fuck off into the dining room. Roll another fucking fag. Fuck off.

But the interesting thing about this Wolves team is that they have adopted this crazy fight until the end philosophy from Jota I’m sure of it. They just never give up, carry on having a pop at them, see if anything pops up. Get the rhythm going again, feeling the vibe out, busting another defence splitting pass. Traore (who is awesome all game) keeps trying it on too. I think there was only a few of us last season bigging Traore up now he is drifting these shapes everybody is on there knees trying trying to gobble his dong. Last season he had moments when he was fucking Seagull or Moon watching. He still has those moments but they are getting rarer and rarer for me. But everybody fought hard, everybody got involved. Everybody had some sort of a pop. Even when Nuno started throwing on subs early doors here was a statement. Time to get the fucking party started in some way. Put Neto on the tricky little sod. They had obviously seen a need for change and why not do it as soon as the problem was identified? They did, boom, players on and there was a new sense of urgency going on as we started to press and press. Started to be ourselves again really. Stamping authority in thick lush passes from midfield again with Adama linking and starting to move and groove.  This is what we do. Palace players looked fucked twenty minutes from the end and we looked like we could have played another 20 minutes.

Moutinho bothers me. Why does he play for us? How does he play for us? This bloke for me is pound for pound the best player to ever play in a Wolves shirt. He is absolutely divine, sublime and he shines. Beautiful weighted passes here and there, movement is to all first impressions languid and understated until you look at the wider aspects of the play and you watch how he moves around into the BEST places when he doesn’t have the ball. His brain, his footballing brain is taking up the slack from a body that is getting maybe a little slower so he thinks more about what he is doing. Those movements bring him into dangerous areas where he can collect, breathe, and send the ball off to the foot of somebody more able to attack. But he waits and he moves again without the ball, into another area, he will collect again and another chance another run at the Palace defence. Gobsmacked mate to be honest. God knows what our other players are slowly learning off him but I hope this osmosis of talent is slowly leaking into heads around him. I know Adama should watch how he moves, I know Neves is.

For sure that 3-4-3 groove is looking tasty. I’m not sure whether we have totally got to grips with it yet. Jota left side, Jimmy in the middle, Adama on the right. One of these days that system will click and it will be chaos in opposition defences again but it’s a string to the bow. A tactic, not a plan B. I don’t believe Nuno even offers a thought to having Wolves play to the vagaries of an opposition Mangers plans. It’s not his way. But I think Nuno picks tactics more to do with how the team looks that week. Who is vibing off who, what looks effective for that side he wants to pick. For the previous two games we looked like the gap between Moutinho and our attack was an abyss. I wish I knew what the fuck I was talking about when I wax tactics, I need to go on a fucking wank FA course or something. There was no link, no real connectivity and no one wanted to exploit that gap and push forwards into the final third. That left Jota and Jimmy twiddling their thumbs a lot. This is also (maybe) an identity issue, we lack a lunatic who grabs the ball and trundles off to attack. Big Alf used to do that job and to be honest I think we may have missed him a little. But who knows eh.

All I know is Traore slices in a ball at the death of the match and Jota is Jota not giving much of a thought to anything but whacking that ball in the top of the net. Is it a change in our fortunes? I hope so. All I want now is for our defensive line up to suss out what’s going on in front of them. I’m not going to write of Jesus Vallejo yet despite watching him fluff some moves out, I think he has the ability to come good in the Benno role, I also think Benno himself can come good again in the Benno role, hopefully. That trio has to start clicking again. Coady for me is trying to cover up for the dysfunction around him, I think he is that good a footballer there’s no place in his head for a drop of form, it has to be things happening around him. Attackers sense there is something fractured in the way we defend lately and are concentrating on forcing errors rather than directly attacking our defence which I suppose is a positive thing. I have a headache with all of it to be fair. Learning curves, I’ve never thought so deeply about the intricacies of playing football, never looked at it forensically like I do now and I’m learning too. Because I want to be able to understand what the hell is going on when our Citys team walk out onto the pitch.

It’s a good result to be honest. I’m not losing me fucking hair worrying too much about how things are going to pan out over the season. Trusting the Coach is a new thing for me, I’ve never had so much confidence in anybody connected with our team before. If anybody can sort out this negative zeitgeist it’s him and his backroom team. It’s a good foundation to build on though. Watford on Saturday will be very interesting and very fraught seeing as at this early point in the season we are bobbling around in the nether regions of the Premier League and that gives me horrible feeling to be honest. But watching Cutrone hugging Jota after Diogo scored gave me hope. Cutrone looks like he is getting a half lob on for Wolves, starting to understand how fucked up and crazy the whole thing is. Here is a team that will go beyond what is acceptable to win matches and fight until the very last kick. I like that, it gives me a bit of hope when things seem a little dark. Fair fucking play Wolves. That fat Villa bastard over the road survives another week. 

Any way I’ve scaffed a ticket off the Lurpak kid so I’m going to see the young lads play against Reading, hahahahaha remember them?

A Step Forwards (Palace V Wolves)

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To be honest I can’t say any more denigrating faintly humorous stuff about Roy Hodgson, or Zaha to be honest. I’ve not run out of things to say about them but I think I’ll leave it to one side a minute.

So, this game was important on a metaphysical level rather than an empirical point scoring one. It was a point on our travels fair enough. But how did the team do in a wet Croydon again?

Well Diogo Jota levelled in the last minute. A bloody deserved leveller too. Of course I was watching it on the electronic square thing and to be fair I nearly kicked the screen in with delight. Not for the team of course, or the result, just that it would send those Palace fans back home with a right itchy angst bone, the poor bastards. Last minute levellers mate, lovely, I could taste the blood in my mouth as it went in, not because it was bleeding at the time but if I was there I would have definitely got an elbow in the mouth or a head in the limbnal mosh that occurred as Jota smashed it into the top of the net.

Who are we? I think over the past few weeks we have kind of forgotten. I remarked to some canal pisshead that these rough weeks would either galvanise the squad to some level of beauty we had last season or send us spiralling into some whirlpool of nothingness. You see I was also emotional and I didn’t know who I was most of the last couple of weeks. I think it is a Wolverhampton thing, maybe a change in the weather, end of summer all that shite. Was it four straight losses we would have had if the scores would have remained the same? I’m not sure as I don’t really dwell on negative things, but I don’t bury my head in the sand either.

But the amount of trust I put in Nuno is more than I have ever given another Manager, and I can say Nuno stands with John Barnwell and Graham Turner in that respect and that’s a small club for someone that’s supported Wolves for…bloody hell 47 years nearly. Watching Nuno (as I do a lot) I can tell that the whole subject of why we aren’t killing teams off is bothering him. On the touchline he’s doing the old moustache licking again and his legs and arms are exploding shapes. Not in a theatrical sense but emotionally. Maybe this crazy journey is his too, maybe he doesn’t quite understand where he is some times.

When Saissy got sent to the stands I was in two minds. One of them was having a go at Saissy for stepping on Zahas foot. The little Gremlin of a Referee Atwell (remember him) had no doubts and boshed the card out that fast it nearly caught fire. But in the other mind I could see how it affected Saiss. He was gutted but stoical for sure. He went a bit pale and he knew he had made a guff somewhere, I mean Zaha wasn’t actually going anywhere but when you have a player with the fire of Saiss there are bound to be moments when he just wants the ball back regardless of where it is. I suppose it was his hunger to get the ball that lead to the foul. That’s ok, I want players who want the ball. Palace weren’t really doing anything constructive in that ‘Palace’ way they have when they wonder if playing football there has any point at all. Maybe there was no need, maybe there was every need? Even Boly had some moments when things could have gone weird again. I suspect he’s been told to enlarge his personal space on the pitch and he is just getting to grips with what that actually means. You see Nuno and his staff have a central tenet and that is ‘we must always improve’. Now that isn’t just a throw away line to these dudes. It means day in and day out they have to be better than they were yesterday. You try that with anything you do in your life. See what discipline actually is.

Indeed we threw our own shapes into the mix but Guaita and McArthur were doing things for Palace in the goal mouth. Half chances, full chances…but chances nonetheless and for the love of Nuno they nearly went in too we were that close and still struggling with that identity crisis. We were better than Palace, not brilliant but better riding the lip of the groove threatening to slip fully into it and rip some holes. Jota of course hadn’t read this identification problem and was the same Diogo he always is. Probing, moving the ball, looking for space. How such a little dude shakes off the hundredweight sack of spuds Palace call their defence I haven’t got a clue mate. But he does doesn’t he? Then he is off on another fruitless run. I know people like Jota who never give up and they scare me.

The first 45 minutes was Wolves looking a bit like Wolves again but there was the odd moment where a pass was 100mph knee height bollocks, a couple of passes going North and moments when our defence looked like they had been dragged through a hedge backwards…then forwards. But on the whole we kept Zaha and Ayew quite quiet and reseved apart from some barrelling runs they made and we forgot who we were again. I sat thinking is it a lack of beautiful Kwan for Wolves or have they got an identity crisis? Second half is started with a dodgy deflection again and boom into the goal regardless of Rui Patricios stretching and shaping. He wasn’t far from getting a leg on it to be honest. It was that unlucky Kwanless feeling again. I want that Kwan back desperately. 

But the interesting thing about this Wolves team is that they have adopted this crazy fight until the end philosophy from Jota I’m sure of it. They just never give up, carry on having a pop at them, see if anything pops up. Get the rhythm going again, feeling the vibe out, busting another defence splitting pass. Traore (who is awesome all game) keeps trying it on too. Last season he had moments when he was Seagull or Moon watching. He still has those moments but they are getting rarer and rarer for me. But everybody fought hard, everybody got involved. Even when Nuno started throwing on subs early doors here was a statement. They had obviously seen a need for change and why not do it as soon as the problem was identified? They did, boom, players on and there was a new sense of urgency going on as we started to press and press. Started to be ourselves again really. This is what we do. Palace players looked fucked twenty minutes from the end and we looked like we could have played another 20 minutes. 

Moutinho bothers me. Why does he play for us? How does he play for us? This bloke for me is pound for pound the best player to ever play in a Wolves shirt. He is absolutely divine, sublime and he shines. Beautiful weighted passes here and there, movement is to all first impressions languid and understated until you look at the wider aspects of the play and you watch how he moves around into the BEST places when he doesn’t have the ball. His brain, his footballing brain is taking up the slack from a body that is getting maybe a little slower so he thinks more about what he is doing. Those movements bring him into dangerous areas where he can collect, breathe, and send the ball off to the foot of somebody more able to attack. But he waits and he moves again without the ball, into another area, he will collect again and another chance another run at the Palace defence. Gobsmacked mate to be honest. God knows what our other players are slowly learning off him but I hope this osmosis of talent is slowly leaking into heads around him. I know Adama should watch how he moves, I know Neves is. 

For sure that 3-4-3 groove is looking tasty. I’m not sure whether we have totally got to grips with it yet. Jota left side, Jimmy in the middle, Adama on the right. One of these days that system will click and it will be chaos in opposition defences again but it’s a string to the bow. A tactic, not a plan B. I don’t believe Nuno even offers a thought to having Wolves play to the vagaries of an opposition Mangers plans. It’s not his way. But I think Nuno picks tactics more to do with how the team looks that week. Who is vibing off who, what looks effective for that side he wants to pick. For the previous two games we looked like the gap between Moutinho and our attack was an abyss. There was no link, no real connectivity and no one wanted to exploit that gap and push forwards into the final third. That left Jota and Jimmy twiddling their thumbs a lot. This is also (maybe) an identity issue, we lack a lunatic who grabs the ball and trundles off to attack. Big Alf used to do that job and to be honest I think we may have missed him a little. But who knows eh. 

All I know is Traore slices in a ball at the death of the match and Jota is Jota not giving much of a thought to anything but whacking that ball in the top of the net. Is it a change in our fortunes? I hope so. All I want now is for our defensive line up to suss out what’s going on in front of them. I’m not going to write of Jesus Vallejo yet despite watching him fluff some moves out, I think he has the ability to come good in the Benno role, I also think Benno himself can come good again in the Benno role, hopefully. That trio has to start clicking again. Coady for me is  trying to cover up for the dysfunction around him, I think he is that good a footballer there’s no place in his head for a drop of form, it has to be things happening around him. Attackers sense there is something fractured in the way we defend lately and are concentrating on forcing errors rather than directly attacking our defence which I suppose is a positive thing. I have a headache with all of it to be fair. Learning curves, I’ve never thought so deeply about the intricacies of playing football, never looked at it forensically like I do now and I’m learning too. Because I want to be able to understand what the hell is going on when our Citys team walk out onto the pitch. 

It’s a good result to be honest. I’m not losing my hair worrying too much about how things are going to pan out over the season. Trusting the Coach is a new thing for me, I’ve never had so much confidence in anybody connected with our team before. If anybody can sort out this negative zeitgeist it’s him and his backroom team. It’s a good foundation to build on though. Watford on Saturday will be very interesting and very fraught seeing as at this early point in the season we are bobbling around in the nether regions of the Premier League and that gives me horrible feeling to be honest. But watching Cutrone hugging Jota after Diogo scored gave me hope. Here is a team that will go beyond what is acceptable to win matches and fight until the very last kick. I like that, it gives me a bit of hope when things seem a little dark. 

Any way I’ve scaffed a ticket off the Lurpak kid so I’m going to see the young lads play against Reading, hahahahaha remember them?

Learn To Love Yourselves Again (Wolves V Braga)

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Everything is a lie, a fantasy and nothing at all is true in this particular game. What are the shapes of this football, on this night? What are the sounds of it? I can taste the skills of Cutrone, I love Rui with all my heart, Nuno looks as if he is standing on clouds. Jeff Shi’s face is a big moon in the sky and he is booming out lyrics in a loud comedy Chinese accent “Put fucking Menu back, no touch TV, no change channel! I phone fucking Police!”. Some woman has fell over in front of me, she has hurt her knee, she is embarrassed. Some kid is puking up in the bushes. A Cop stares at me like he wants a wrestle. I nearly get run over but Bubbles pulls me back and laughs. The sunset. Wow. European football. There are loads of people here. I am smoking a one skinner and that’s why the Cop was looking at me. I thought it was my ‘normal’ roll up but it was mistaken. I pre roll and put them in my pocket. Bubbles is doing my head in being loud and obnoxious. Every second word is fuck or bastard. I noticed he has bitten chunks out of his steering wheel in road type rages, his dashboard has a crack in it from the odd punch. 

In traffic going up to the game we are stuck on the Lichfield road. ‘Dave and Bubbles’ are my muckas tonight. They just happened to acquire three tickets and contacted me an hour before the game started to confirm my appearance. I am happy. It is European football for some, just football to others and for my two mates it’s an excuse to get rat arsed. I of course am not drinking, in fact I am all eyes as the Police have stopped Bubbles three times now asking to see his ticket and we are only on the ring road walking down to the game. Bubbles is naughty. I’m a bit ashamed the Police haven’t asked to see my ticket but I must look like an old bum. I’ve got my dog walking shorts on and rolling a cheroot as they probe Bubbles existence. 

Braga had a toughness here tonight. They had great shape, a Portuguese madness we all know so well with a big slice of defend at all costs and try and grab a goal when opportunities arise. Cutrone had a chance, Boly too, and Neves. Three goal scoring chances to their one. They bust a goal, we chase. We looked slow from the off, I’m standing by myself in the Steve Bull as Bubbles and Dave do what they do best, throw big bets down and more lager. I can watch properly and analyse but it’s the same games I’ve seen for most of the season. We look tense and aggravated. Nervous and too laid back at the same time. It seems we are playing in mud two feet thick sometimes. Often there are moments of pure lovely football we all know and then it gets heavy, plodding, no urgency. Too bloody forensic. 

It’s easy to lose control of your footballing brain. The gears between ‘Joy’ and ‘Disaster’ are a slight notch apart for most Wolves fans and last night the gear slipped again. I wrote in my first book that maybe we are suffering post traumatic stress from the double relegation and the mismanagement from previous campaigns. It doesn’t take much for us to start to twitch when a few results go to crap. It is a natural thing of course, a process if you like, we all go through as football fans. We expect too much, too soon. The big fangly polished media announcements Wolves fart out on a regular basis have made our eyes gritty with glitter. The shirts, the pre season tours, the players, the high from last season now stripped out on a balmy evening in WV1. 

I’m not twitching. Last time I wrote about Wolves on here I was throwing my dummy out of the pram because “I don’t feel like I belong here anymore”. It’s stupid and emotional but it’s also new and novel to feel that success within the club isn’t ours, really. But it is you know. I can be dysfunctional and emotional and I suppose our team can too. But the future? The next few games, what battleground is this to be? What new horrors wait for us as we drag ourselves back to some semblance of normality? 

Memory is a good thing. Remember a few keywords thrown around by Nuno and the club. ‘Project’. This is a project and here’s a description of what project means…

“Project- an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.”

We are indeed a project and are ‘in progress’. We are already (really) a year or two ahead of where we should really be and at a giddy height…a European level of giddiness I might add. This really is unknown territory for everybody concerned and that goes for Jeff Shi right down to Bubbles who is alcoholically annihilated fifteen minutes into this match and is leaning on me, all 17 stone and six foot six of him. It’s like wearing Willy Boly as a coat.

A project, still going on, still working out what the hell we are doing here and how we stay here, how we do better, how we can perform to our utmost ability. We are on (not) a learning curve, a great exponential climb into the stratosphere of Champions league football…not a curve, more like a series of peaks and troughs as we manage to work our way through what is turning out to be a crushing series of games that are coming faster and faster as time goes on. That’s what happens when you are learning and developing. So we know that often through this learning process there are going to be times when everything seems to be going wrong, everything is shit. Nuno should do A-B-C or put in Player 1-2-3 to replace 4-5-6 and then we should play 3-5-2 or 4-3-3 or whatever permutation we can come up with as we balance our phones in one hand while we shovel food in our gobs. We can do that forever as fans of course, it’s easy for us to do it as we can wax great doomed filled ‘Winter is coming’ lyrics and then go about our day quite happily, or grumpily whatever. That’s our prerogative as fans and this debate comes at no cost to ourselves really, it’s cheap and it’s free these opinions and they are sprinkled around like dog eggs on a canal footpath.

But what this opinion and debate does (especially) if read by players or staff is cheapen and discount the position of said players or staff. If we are accurate or even inaccurate in our analysis and have uncovered an as yet unknown variable as to why our performances have been poor then we denigrate the position of players and staff with that analysis. All of a sudden they are less able to do their jobs in an effective way once the great game starts on the pitch. They are unsure of themselves all of a sudden. Their minds aren’t fully on the game or the tactics. That’s if they read any of the media of course. I’m sure some of them do, Googling your own name if you have a high position in the hierarchy of Wolves must be a thing, it’s human nature. Those long hours recovering from a training session or a match when you have to rest must be filled with something. It’s an obvious thing that it should be filled with clicking and swiping that little rectangular box of electronic evil you carry around with yourself all the time. Give the team a run of poor results and that clamour for change is all consuming and loud if you like and so are the endless words of denigration.

Get a run of results like this and your self esteem, your self image too takes a few knocks, your serotonin levels drop, you start to become insipid and lacklustre…like this performance really. We were tense and we were unbelieving in ourselves. Braga were nothing special here, a Premier league mid table team if we can throw a comparison out there…a bit like us really. But where the difference hit me was that Braga obviously had a sense that their position in the competition and hence in this game was deserved and their place was rightfully given. So they could set out their ideas straight away with a full sense of belief in themselves.

A positive thing about last nights game was that Nuno confronted it head on. There are no propaganda filled missives from Nuno. No bullshit Klopp or Mourinho type meltdowns. Just pure mission statements replayed for the heretics that didn’t quite catch the ear the first million times he said it. It’s a project, we are learning fast, we are getting better, we want to slide up the pecking order. My advice to the players last night is to walk into Compton with your chest out and your shoulders back ready to listen to what Nuno says and to learn from him also. We all have bad days when we want to curl up into a defensive ball in some dark place because people are saying nasty things and God! Everything is just shit! But we can’t do that, because the job isn’t finished yet and fucking hell we have hardly started this seasons work. My take on the whole crazy season so far is that the Wolves team have stopped loving themselves (in certain games) and I don’t mean they look in the mirror hating themselves. What I mean is, they have maybe stopped looking at these challenges in the Premier League and Europa League as positive moments and started looking negatively at them. Seeing every game as a mountain to climb and overcome rather than as a lesson in learning and expanding their knowledge. So the game becomes a battle rather than an experience. I think initially Nunos ‘ideas’ were and still are better than other Coaches and Managers but I think the message sometimes get’s muddled when the team are on the pitch. Maybe this wrangling with Philosophy and idea makes the football placid often, not incisive, not violent in it’s beauty. Instead we have dysfunction sometimes, a lack of awareness and a lack of baseline hunger as the team cycle through shape and tactics. They tend to see the minutiae of direction as paramount to the blood and bollocks gladiatorial battles that often win matches at this level and is often the deciding factor when two similar teams meet. 

Wolves have to start loving themselves again. If they don’t then things are going to get worse. There will be a fragility creeping into the team. We are basically in some sort of existential blip in the upwards trending curve of our fortunes. Can we say love the player you are but hate the game you just played in? If you can’t bring anything into the game that is beautiful and creative then the game becomes a much darker and dim place. Wolverhampton needs what you have to offer us, what you have shown us before and you must learn from these experiences to become better, more crazy, more creative in what you do albeit within a framework of Nunos concrete mantra of continual improvement, shape and form. I read this morning that Nuno will be offered a new contract, here’s a thought for Fosun, give him a lifetime contract, give him everything he wants.

We as fans of course are powerless to effect a transformation of results. We just sing and moan, drink and fart. You, the players must stop being self conscious of your positions, strength and place in the squad and relearn to love what you do. Only you have the power to affect that transformation of results and you start the fight back by loving what you do and that perhaps is your one responsibility to us, the fans. To enjoy yourselves. Once you start doing that then your play will transform itself from being a stressful angsty experience to one that is elated, positive and progressive. Stop being horrible to yourselves. 

I can safely say that the team aren’t alone in feeling the pain. We feel shit too. The first thing we do is start to blame others for our own misfortunes. That’s why Braga don’t really figure much in this post. This problem we have is nothing to do with opposition tactics and play but everything to do with how we perceive the way we play as being negative. That’s why you never read anything truly negative about the team or it’s owners on here. I love the team no matter what but I wouldn’t be a true supporter unless I constantly support the team regardless of results. Even if my missives and writing gets to  few people rather than a lot and it just floats away into the ether I know that I have done absolutely everything I can to support my team. 

Post match I just take ten minutes to sit down on the Art block hill and watch people go home. Bubbles and Dave have gone to the pub. Their night will be one that involves copious amounts of alcohol and drugs and I am not really part of that madness today. I am sober and looking forward to my walk back down the canal and home. But, give me this any day. A few Braga fans walk past and they are jubilant and full of joy and I love that too for some strange reason. I look to the art block steps and remember a few years ago punching some Walsall fathead in the mouth after his team beat us 1-0 too. I’ve changed I think, like the team. Now I stand up a lot straighter, I laugh more for sure. We will be good trust me, everything will come out in the wash. Something will spark in the team that nobody really notices either at Compton or on the team bus going to a match. I think our team will start to enjoy their football again at some point like I did when we beat Torino at Molineux. Learn to love your football lads. 

Why not Sponsor a podcast or post?

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Well here it is the Podcast I have been threatening for a few weeks. As some of you know I was diagnosed with ME a few weeks ago. Apparently it makes you tired and sleep a lot, sit in the chair and moan….which was probably why I didn’t know I had it hahahahaha. But it has made me a bit disorganised in getting content out while I sort some tactics on how to deal with it in some effective way. But fear not I’ve got a handle on it now so I’m going to be cranking stuff out. Over the past few years I have met a lot of people that should have their stories heard. Especially stories about the club, supporting them, what it means to us and stuff from way back in history too, 60’s 70’s etc probably even the 80’s and 90’s at some point. Thing is I hear a lot of stories that should get a wider audience because for me it defines what the Wolves fan mindset is about and how we have developed over the years. I think it’s history really and interesting.

I will be putting the Podcasts on ‘Podbean’ which is a great way of getting the Podcasts out to a wide audience as possible. Trouble is it costs £10 a month which I can’t afford at the moment so if anybody wants to sponsor an episode at a tenner a pop feel free to contact me. If you have a business we will talk about it for a few minutes before each poddy starts and big you up. If you want us to talk about a person or yourself we will do that too. The Podcasts get about 3.5k listeners on average most of them Wolverhampton based. Great way to get your business out there to people that will be most likely to use it ie Wolverhamptonites. You can get me on Twitter @petalengro or by email yamyambroadcasting@gmail.com

You can also sponsor a blog post if you like too, send a banner in or something and I will stick it on the bottom of the post. I would like to wax lyrical about the rates but hey if I like you then you get it cheap, if you buy me a pint is good too but I figure for a blog post that gets 6k people reading it then see above ay it.

Anyway I’ve put the poddy on here for now and for my Patreons only for a week or so until someone gives me a tenner to put it on Podbean then I will leave it private for a week or summat. My Patreons really do put food on the table for me and they deserve much love. Anyway….here’s the Patreon link, throw a quid a month in and get the extras I will be putting out including more podcasts and more writing.

https://www.patreon.com/petalengro