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Preview - Wolverhampton Wanderers v Derby County
Preview - Wolverhampton Wanderers v Derby County
Tuesday, 9th Dec 2008 18:50

“Swing from high to deep, extremes of sweet and sour.” So sang James back in the 80’s and last week us Derby fans did a lot of swinging.

Wolverhampton Wanderers v Derby County
Coca Cola Championship
7:45pm, 9th December, 2008
Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton

It all seems to be fairly sweet for Wolves at the moment but are they on the swing to sour?

Wolves currently lead the Championship - 3 points clear of Birmingham and leading scorers in the league. They’ve won 8 out of 10 games at Molineux, drawing one and only losing to Reading back in September.

Mick McCarthy’s men don’t fancy the play offs this year and are going for automatic promotion. The goals of Sylvain Ebanks-Blake and Chris Iwelumo are doing the damage - only Doyle at Reading has scored more.

The last two games haven’t been so good for Wolves - a draw with high flying Birmingham was followed by a defeat at QPR at the weekend.

Mick McCarthy wasn’t to despondent and took some positives from the game; “"We are the top team in this division - I'm not saying we're the best, but we are top - and that inspires other teams to play against you and we have got to live with that. We are still top. We didn't play well for 50 minutes today but we did play well for 35 minutes and we just could not get a goal back."

Maybe he’s suffering from the curse of manager of the month? 5 straight wins in November meant McCarthy was a shoe in for the award - it would be good for us Rams if the hangover stretches to tonight!

 

Matt Jarvis is nearing fitness for Wolves but might not be risked. Definitely out is Jody Craddock.

Wolves Facts

Current Wolves Squad

1 GK Wayne Hennessey

2 DF Neill Collins

3 DF George Elokobi

4 MF David Edwards

5 DF Richard Stearman

6 DF Jody Craddock

7 MF Michael Kightly

8 MF Karl Henry

9 FW Sylvan Ebanks-Blake

10 FW Andy Keogh

11 MF Stephen Ward

12 GK Shane Higgs (on loan from Cheltenham Town)

14 MF David Jones

15 DF Mark Little

17 MF Matthew Jarvis

18 FW Sam Vokes

No. Position Player

19 FW Chris Iwelumo

20 GK Matt Murray

22 DF Jason Shackell

25 MF Darren Potter

26 DF Matt Hill

27 DF Michael Mancienne (on loan from Chelsea)

28 DF George Friend

30 GK Carl Ikeme

31 MF Mark Salmon

32 DF Kevin Foley

33 DF Michael Gray

37 FW Liam Hughes

38 MF Lewis Gobern

39 MF Alex Melbourne

41 FW Ashley Hemmings

– MF Dénes Rósa

Last 5 ...

Southampton 1-2 Wolves

Wolves 2-0 Blackpool

Sheffield Utd 1-3 Wolves

Wolves 1-1 Birmingham City

QPR 1-0 Wolves

Games since...

Clean sheet 3

Goal 1

Loss 0

No score draw 26

Score draw 1

Win 2

Top Scorers

Iwelumo 13 lg 2 cup

Ebanks-Blake 12

Kightly 7

Vokes 3

Jones 3

The Rams

No place for Roy Carroll following his dressing room spat with Paul Jewell. Surely this should have been kept in house and not added as fuel to the fire of us being a laughing stock?

Besides if Paul Jewell had come into the East Stand, he would have probably got the same sort of spat with many of the disgruntled fans leaving the game.

Many were pondering the fact that Dickinson scored another two goals for Blackpool despite the fact that out forward line didn’t look like scoring this side of Christmas. They weren’t accounting for the fact that a forward line of Deco and Thierry Henry wouldn’t score with the service ours were getting.

What’s gone wrong in midfield? Miles Addison is doing well… er, that’s it.

Commons & Barazite don’t seem to be contributing while Kaz seems to drift through games at super slow speed. Commons and Barazite to be fair are receiving high balls that they haven’t a hope of controlling or struggle to control. They rarely receive the ball on the ground in a place were they can do some damage.

Kaz looks to be a good footballer - but he just seems to want too much time on the ball. We need Barnes, Green and Davies back as soon as possible and in January a combative midfielder in the style of Seth Johnson.

Mick’s team: Bywater, Stewart, Powell, Tomkins, Nyatanga, Connolly, Kaz, Addison, Varney, Barazite, Hulse

What the bookies think

Long odds on a victory for the Rams. We are at 9/2 while Wolves are 8/15 on. The draw is at 5/2. Sylvain Ebanks-Blake and Chris Iwelumo are evens to score in this game and only art 4/1 as first scorer. All of our strikers are at 10/3 to score. The Bookies aren’t expecting an upset then?

 

Information for travelling fans

Driving; One of the closer grounds, it’s still going to be a bit of a journey in rush hour traffic. The RAC reckon the quickest way is the A38 to the M6 Toll. Take the toll road as far as JT8. Pick up the A449 to Wolverhampton and look for the signs for football parking.

Parking: Molineux is within walking distance of Wolverhampton Town centre so it’s possible to park in the town. There are a few car parks for away supporters signposted as well.

Drinking: Most of the pubs near the ground are member only and don’t cater for away fans. You can drink in the town but as seems to be common these days, they have a downer on colours.

Mick’s prediction

On paper, we’re in for a beating and it depends which Rams team turns up. Will it be Tuesday’s heroes or Saturday’s wet lettuce?

Photo: Action Images



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