Reality Check

But at least Wales won ... but that's the reason why the Wolves lost!

Indeed. No match this season has better reflected standings. With the big wins in mind, United, Chelsea, City and Liverpool, we were within our rights to sit back and expect the unexpected. The stark reality was an awful record against Arsenal, and I had lost count of our dire away record, we have lost every away game bar the trips to Liverpool and Everton. The four wins mentioned above account for exactly half of our points, which 26 games into the season is frigthening. Birmingham and Villa are already showing signs of improvement as mentioned, and it is no great mystery, they signed well in the transfer window. We may prop up the table, but again, as mentioned we have come through a shocking fixture list still in touch- beating Albion could well see us climb right out of the bottom three. Despite their improvementm, we have a game in hand on Villa so whilst six points ahead in 15th, this position is not on paper that far from us. It looked for a while that Blackpool had already done enough, and I repeatedly asserted there would be no implosion as they kept tacking points on the board, but how things change over the course of a month, Blackpool and Albion have slid down the table with spectacular fashion. Over the course of their last 6 games, Blackpool are shipping 2.83 goals per game, Albion 2.5 and ourselves 2. Sadly we have scored 6 in 6, 3 of those coming at Manchester City. Keep the likes of the City and Sunderland games in mind, and there is proof that we score when we play a very attacking 4-4-2 and we will surely go at these two games with that formation- he really can't play anything else can he? We are down to the pure and simples now- we are bottom and the teams we are about to play are those directly above us. Beat them and we swap places, lose, and we will launch them away from us- if we can't beat these two sides then the writing will be on the wall. The Hodgson effect comes into play and I expect us to meet a very different Albion to the one everyone has watched this season. Expect a pragmatic approach based on simple structure and stability. All good in theory but he only has the same players to work with and he is not going to transform them in the space of a week. 4 points is a more than fair and reasonable expectation but knowing the Wolves we are, we can win both of these games and I want to see 6 points.

Cant see us staying up since we threw 2 points away at the Hawthorns. Micks substitutions were cack and we continue to be unable to close matches successfully.