What a horrible little team Wolverhampton Wanderers are.
The term “anti-football” has been used to described a few teams in the past – the likes of Bolton under Big Sam and Stoke under Tony Pullis. But this was more due to their ultra physical way of playing the game.
What Wolves do is completely different.
They do everything within their power to not play football.
There is a reason why they have scored just 24 goals in 25 games this season. They have zero interest in trying to attack.
On Thursday, they got their early goal through an Arsenal mistake, and then shrank back into a 541 formation.
At every opportunity, they were trying to wind down, break up play.
I sometimes think football should consist of two 30-minute halves, with a time turning the clock “on” and “off” so that we get exactly an hours play despite what happens on the pitch. This would kill Wolves as their primary tactic is to be playing football for as little time as possible.
Around half a minute to take every goal kick. Justas long to take free kicks and throw ons. And the joke of a substitution where their manager deliberately gave the 4th official the wrong number to bring off.
It created confusion, a flare up, and wasted nearly 3 minutes whilst Martin Atkinson, Raul Jiminez, the manager and the 4th official decided what they were going to do.
In the end, Granit Xhaka took matters into his own hands.
They are quick to throw themselves to the ground in an attempt to get the game stopped, to halt their opponents momentum.
Wolves wasted further time when one of their players went down injured in the second half.
Close to the touchline, the Wolves physio declared that the player needed treatment on the pitch and could not be moved. The player then stood up and walked off the pitch unaided. What a load of rubbish. Another 3 minutes wasted!
Every time they venture into the opponents half, they get a nose bleed and immediately look for a backwards pass.
Whilst their fans might be celebrating being mid-table in the league, that style football will eventually catch up on you.
You can not keep winning by a single goal. Eventually your luck will run out and wins will turn into draws, draws into defeats. And then the fans will turn as they will no longer accept the brand of football on offer.
To get 6-points from 6 against a side playing that brand of football is a good effort.
We were mocked as to how we celebrated when we won on the outskirts of Birmingham a few weeks ago. At the final whistle it all went a little mad again!
The win puts a 5 point gap between us and Wolves and keeps us leaves us in 5th place, 1 point behind Manchester United.
We have 2 games in hand, but they are against Chelsea and Tottenham, so we can not take them for granted.
I am just glad we bit the snivelling little team from Birmingham.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 