One Season Down, Lets Look Forward To The Next One
By Tom Bason
May 19 2010
That is it. Job done. Premiership season over. And we are still in it to fight another day. Big congratulations must go to Mick and his backroom staff, and Karl and the players.
To me it feels likewe’ve slipped through this season without much fuss from the rest of thecountry. An (arguably) weakened-11 at Old Trafford aside and we’ve hardly been mentioned. I even remember one sentence from a rival website in December summing up our season so far- ‘no one noticed when they came in to the Premiership and no onewill notice when they’re gone’. Instead, we’ve survived without much fuss. Alldone and dusted with 2 games to go. Could anyone have realistically asked formore?
And now we lookforward to next season, high of hope and full of expectation. 15th this season, surely we canbeat that? Well, in a word, no. This seasons Premiership was a funny one, with Portsmouth plotting their own downfall, Burnley seemingly accepting relegationwith the appointment of Brian Laws in January, and Hull leaving it six months too late to replace Phil Brown, and then appointing the relegation specialist Ian Dowie. Surely West Brom and Newcastle, with their top flight experience will put up more of a fight. The winner of the playoffs can expect a battle, but can anyone else see 3 teams as weak as those who have gone down? Of the teams we finished above, Wigan will surely strengthen, or at least not haemorrhageplayers in the way they did last summer. West Ham? Who knows. Avram Grant is a very decent manager, but they seem set to lose the spine of their team. It’s looking like a summer of upheaval at the Boleyn Ground; they may sink, they may swim. Bolton also may well struggle- 18 points from 18 games under Megson became 21 points from 20 under Coyle. This doesn’t suggest anything other than a dogfight next season.
And so, to our squad. Every fan has a list in their head of players they hope leave & players they hope come in. I won’t bore you with my wish list. But, a degree of realism is needed here. Unless we are prepared to smash our wage structure, I can’t seethe likes of Robbie Keane returning as the prodigal son. There are too many other areas of the team that require strengthening to splash out that much on one player. And don’t forget, the team that comfortably stayed up this season is a young team in progression. The likes of Zubar, Elokobi, Jarvis, Jones, Milijas, Ebanks-Blake and Foley are only going to get better next season. And maybe, just maybe, we may have the equivalent of a new signing in a fit Michael Kightly.
So, the moral of the story is not to get our expectations too high, either in terms of buying big name players or our final league position. I for one would definitely be happy with 17th place next season- too many teams have stayed up the first season only to go down the next- a victim of the so-called ‘second season syndrome’, which may just hit Birmingham next season, to expect more. Remember, aim low and you won’t be disappointed. Ooh, is that Denis Bergkamp I see in Asda….?
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You are right that this has been a strange season. I think there was a general drop in quality when compared to our last stint in the prem. Portsmouth, Hull and Burnley all self-destructed in one way or another. Wigan could ship cartloads of goals but still comfortably survive. We got by while playing Kevin Doyle up front on his own for almost half a season without picking up an injury, While the top teams all under-performed in comparison to previous seasons.
I expect some teams who were able to take advantage of a mediocre league this season will find themselves joining us in a far more competitive battle to survive next season - Brum, Blackburn, Bolton, Stoke and Fulham spring to mind. The quality and financial clout of the promoted teams, Newcastle and WBA, is also going to set a higher survival standard than this season.
For good or bad we are clearly sticking with MM so it begins with the summer squad rebuilding. I think we slipped through unnoticed because the league seemed to be going through a transitional period. Next season will be tougher but if we are ambitious and determined then who knows?
So in summary it will be much more challenging next season, and the club has to significantly raise the bar. What we can't do is follow the same path as Hull and try to repeat the same Houdini act twice with pretty much the same resources and hope for the best.
Nevertheless, while I don't rate McCarthy esppecailly highly compared to most on this Forum, he is a very good "back to the wall" manager., I tend to rate players as a group much more than those on the forum. This means I rate the scouting staff really highly. I am hoping they come up with a couple of surprises.
Wolves have been in one season so lack of experience is no longer the problem/excuse. This suggest that a better start should be expected.
But what probably won't work again is the lone striker tactics. Credit for this goes to McCarthy and it probably saved Wolves this season. But next season the inability to score goals will see teams adopt tactics that will make it even harder to score for Wolves.
The league position and the number of games in hand before premier league status for 2010/11 was sealed are irrelevant. It was knife edge and a couple of different refereeing decisions or acciddents would have seen Wolves in the Championship. three cheers for Tottenham's help.
Gunmekkers