Mullet added 21:01 - Dec 23
The challenges of a 46-part epic that is a Championship season get no steeper than today’s ascent into the upper corner of a Molineaux, brimming and buoyed by the success that a half season of nearly 2.5 points per game brings. A few hundred Blues were funnelled into a small section behind the goal, overlooking the field of play flanked by a few hundred home fans making the most of the holidays and celebratory atmosphere sweeping through the Black country right now.
If the combination of oriental money, foreign and domestic collaboration and all that offers of gold and glory can bring has combined into the indomitable form of Wolves; then it is without doubt that behind him, the tanned and exotic figurehead of Nunes commands the potential might to sweep aside all of the old order that has risen and fallen around Town in the last decade and half of Championship existence.
Mick had both Skuse and Knudsen missing today from a team that was slandered as being as old-fashioned and spartan as anyone might find. Bart now had Kenlock shielding his left flank, Chambers and Webster the commanding plinth on which today’s side and defensive heroism was built. Added to Spence as the right sided buttress at the back. Connolly and Bru faced up to Wolves’ 2 in 4 as Ward and Celina occupied left and right roles marking their respective wingbacks. Garner the sharp end of an attack that had Waghorn as the shaft of our attack, tipping and hacking at their backline.
If the prospective clash seemed one laden with doom before the onset, the loss of two key players were not immediately obvious in the opening flurries. Wolves’ 3-4-3 was clear and well-constructed. An engine of Saiss and Neves, much talked about at least in part because of the “Champions League†(price) tag of the #8.
What transpired was a game where few real chances, would mean that both sides were well matched tactically or in terms of desire if little else. What could be seen from on high was that Wolves liked to play, and certainly can. This was no side built on physicality or gamesmanship alone. If they are the latest to ignore FFP and spend their way out of the league, they are the most deserving for some time. They are at least a “proper club†of size and stature more befitting the top flight than most in that category. It feels horrible to even think that, because so often they were once like us.
Town’s 4-2-3-1 did not surprise, but nor did it just sit off, or match up. Whether it was the big, the bad or the brazen of Wolves’ attack set upon us, we bent and flexed and weathered any huff and puff they could muster. At times Town were a lopsided 3 with Kenlock drawing up and down the flank, Celina overlapping him both forward and backward as the excellent Doherty and dangerous Caveleiro tried to twist their way into dangerous positions.
Often Town limited Wolves and usually the aforementioned inside-forward to frustrated lashes at goal on an angle too easy for Bart or too far off the mark to matter. When Town did retain the ball then a fluidity to the old gold meant sometimes whoever had position had one pass on and four opposing players closing them down.
In some instances, this might have meant the end for many men, as it had the conquistadors who found molten gold shoved down their throats so fatal. Town however made the most of this. Webster more than once stepped out of defence and between the duo of Neves and Saiss to close either the runner, or retrieve the loose ball.
One fine move saw him burst between them, and career through the midfield to play the ball and then left side of their defence. It was a display where we were reminded just what a good passer he is.
Wolves held a very high line and pressed the game into a tiny phalanx either side of the halfway line. This meant when Town got free they were felled, through cynicism and the scything tackles of markers happy to limit us to set pieces. Neves made them tick, and any sense if his quality being overhyped may fall in the sense that he always has time on and off the ball to test teams or work out the move that allows his strikers to do it.
Either side of a Ruddy slip on a backpass (showing he was still a canary in Wolf’s clothing) Waghorn and Celina bent efforts over the wall in what looked like Town’s best efforts to force a goal. In the case of the left-footer, it careered into the distant stand. Celina went for a Burton, and in recreating that winner, spun the ball perfectly again, unfortunately it was at the perfect height for Ruddy too this time.
It took 40 minutes of a finely balanced game for Wolves to finally crack us, Jota definitely fouled Kenlock on halfway, but in a game full of soft freekicks for both sides, the deputy who had done so well, didn’t do enough to get back up. The #18 who early in the game had gone down under no challenge and looked done for, pulled the ball across the area for his counterpart Caveleiro to whip it inside the post with aplomb. Wolves and Town had been excellent in playing the second ball all game, but they were just that little better this time, and made it count.
Garner who by now had won little, but made himself known to both the defence and the ref with his usual tricks could only dream of such service. Whereas Connolly had looked the classiest of the Blue side of a midfield maelstrom, often finding that touch or turn of body to get a second pass or piece of play going, Ward had got into some excellent positions but not found the cross to equal their effort.
Too often Town had played the ball low along the ground, but without the requisite pace or power to scatter defenders and to get a touch needed to keep the game level. What we saw instead was a monumental collective effort going into half time, but it amounted to nothing in one crucial moment.
The second half saw no changes, but brief hope amongst those gathered below the stands that Town could still change the result. No fans knew McCarthy better than those in all 4 stands today, and it was perhaps telling that Wolves might fear a stalemate by any means necessary.
If the corners of the first half had been disappointing from a Town perspective, in the second half our best chances came when Ward sent them all the way through a box of zonal statues and attacking spinning tops. Garner almost vaulted one as he didn’t know what to do with it, and Bru took the initiative only to lob it again too easily for Ruddy.
It was a game where Wolves where either continuing the derisory ‘slump’ their fans had talked about of late, or were not used to a team not polite enough to stand back and admire their approach to the game. Both managers stood on the corner of their technical area. Mick, driving his team on and kicking every ball. In contrast Nunes orchestrated every appeal and judicious decision from his. Some Town felt after the game his side were dirty, but the ref was fair today, or if not, consistent in what he gave and what he missed.
Bishop and Enobakhare were both introduced at the same time. A youth product from the bench for each team, it was illustrative perhaps that Wolves took off their goalscorer and freshened their attack. Bru made way for Town as Mick looked for fresh movement and ideas in the middle of the park where so much play was happening.
In one move Celina cut back inside one or two oncoming defenders, only to move right across the halfway line when most games it’d be the 18 yard one. Such were the levels on which today’s contest was being played, in the context of a league leaving us behind in so many ways.
Town removed Waghorn after he lost his temper. A booking for a silly slap across the calves of Neves and then a demeanour that showed nothing had fallen right for a man so dangerous to most sides. McGoldrick came on to applause, but a sense that the physical approach that had so far kept the massive Boly unmoved at the back only served to make Coady sweep up a mess into Ruddy early in the half was the better bet to parity.
When Garner soon gave way to Sears with about ten minutes plus stoppages remaining, then Town’s gelatinous sticking approach to Wolves’ torrent of continental passing, playacting and possession football was reduced to trying to loosen a hit and run in the channels between their backline. Ward again staked a MOTM claim with another overlap deep down the right that allowed him to dummy Douglas, then beat him as landed and put in a reasonable cross. Alas, no one in the Town line up really had the head or heart to put the killer touch to any such move. It was frustratingly less effective than the one where Connolly tried to repeat his near post signature move from a corner, but was high and wide.
In counterpoint to this collection of near misses, Wolves spent the second half probing but not drawing blood again. The last few minutes of the game gave rise to better chances for them as their sub got the ball under his feet but not control without troubling Bart’s palms.
Resignation might be the talk of some Town fans, but there was a sense today that we were again a little bit more than just resigned to what was an obvious defeat. If the result was marginally better than recent trips to other second tier big boys such as Boro and Villa then the performance was miles ahead of those two, as were Wolves. With a dropping of points and even more places from the top six, it’s important that Town might be just off those sides at the top and not as far off a shot at the playoffs.
If the horrendous injuries that have kept so many out of the first team, are now affecting those established in it, then again, we can fear another drift toward those relegation places so many made our likely destination in the summer. How close we get to either won’t be final in the next month, but with many more modest and midtable teams to play it could be decided by the run we go on next. When that window opens, it’d be nice to think our season will not disintegrate because of little more than a stiff breeze.
Whatever the future holds for Mick McCarthy and Ipswich Town after this season, it’s clear Wolves and Nunes would have to monumentally screw it up now not to hear the Match of the Day boys bidding another Portuguese dugout prodigy a “welcome to the party, pal†come May.
Merry Christmas ya filthy animals.
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