They only went and did itEverything from
History lesson down was wrote prior to last night, honest, I said we should never give up, Barcelona proved it and Mo Salah even wore the shirt, this team gave us yet another reason to be proud of their efforts this season. Anything is possible. Well done boys, what a fucking night. I did say never give up but good god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What can you say about last night, phenomenal stuff.
History lesson: "I wanna be a sledgehammer"May 1976, friend of a well known rawkite told me a good one. A Liverpool fan is walking up to Molineux for the last game of the season knowing Liverpool could win their 9th league title, he has no ticket. He is approached randomly by a fellow scouser who asks if he has a ticket. “no” is the response, he is asked to “come with me”, im picturing it in my head like some sort of mafia film. The ticketless fan follows with some trepidation:
“You’re not gonna try anything are ya” he says with undoubted quiver, clenched arse and fast heartbeat.
However this is no mafia hitman, he isn’t even a tout, but maybe he is some sort of hitman given he then proceeded to pull a sledgehammer from his coat and crack an almighty hole in the side of a stand. “there ya go mate, in here for free!”
I actually don’t care if it’s true, it’s pretty funny how I picture it in my head.
I have had a good feeling about this season from before day one, pretty much back to the day we signed Allison. What a team we have, I mean jesus Christ 98% of the seasons in the past we wouldn’t have just won the league we would have had it won weeks ago. That percentage is no exaggeration and its roughly the same percentage of time I have felt this season we are going to do it. So much so that I booked a trip for this game as early as September, though I knew tickets would be as rare as rocking horse shit.
I do hope to have a bit more in common with the alleged freeloader above, ok maybe I don’t want to meet a guy with a sledgehammer but I do want to see us win something that has been out of our grasp for the last 29 years.
The above game in question was in Bob Paisley’s second season in charge, at the time a system used was goal average, the number of goals conceded divided into the number of goals scored was what was used to divide up teams that finished level on points. With that in mind Liverpool seemingly could win the league with a low scoring draw. Ah that’s too complicated isn’t it? So we just had to go and win.
Wolves who were relegated made it even harder, Steve Kindon gave Wolves an early lead but Liverpool finally got the job done. A reason I believe sledgehammergate to be true is there was a ridiculous amount of people behind the goal, so much so they literally had to sit behind the goal line. They needless to say went nuts when Kevin Keegan equalized with 14 minutes left. Just to be sure we decided to score two more, a calm controlled finish from John Toshack and a last minute goal from Ray Kennedy saw the fans go wild as they invaded the pitch. Liverpool won the game 3-1 and it was the first leg of a league and Uefa cup double.
WolvesSo that’s our history lesson for today, Wolves were promoted this season but unlike some others that have been promoted in recent years they had a good squad in place already and were well funded and adapted to the top flight well under manager Uncle Albert Nuno Espirito Santo.
A more than respectable 7th place finish is no fluke, they have had some notable results this year, they drew with Manchester City and took 4 points off Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United and had a very impressive win at Spurs over the Christmas period. The biggest let down was in the FA Cup, having defeated both Liverpool and Manchester United they seemed to have an FA cup final spot at their mercy against Watford when they lead 2-0 in the semi-final but a last minute penalty took the game to extra time and a 3-2 defeat denied them a chance to win their first trophy since the late great Emlyn Hughes captained them to a league cup in 1980.
The Wolves team tends to consist of Portugal’s European championship winning keeper Rui Patricio in goal, defenders Wily Boly, Jonny, Ryan Bennett and former Liverpool man Conor Coady, that has remained largely unchanged all season although Irish Defender Matt Doherty has appeared at the back he often is used on the right of midfield with great effect and has been one of Wolves best players this season.
In Midfield there is further Portuguese influence with Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho having fine seasons alongside Helder Costa. There has been plenty of rotation here though with Romain Saiss, Leander Dendoncker, Adama Traore and Morgan Gibbs White all making appearances.
Upfront Diego Jota has been in fine form in the second half of the season alongside the solid Raul Jimenez, the latter was signed on loan initially but has impressed to the point where Wolves have already shelled out 30m to keep the Mexican on board next season.
Lucky?This is by no means an easy fixture, Wolves haven’t had much to play for in recent weeks and although we will be a little tense one would expect a win, it is win or bust. This is one team though that won’t give up, I think at times we haven’t been at our swashbuckling best but by god we never gave up. The amount of times we got late into a game and I thought “if we don’t win then that’s it” only for a goal to crop up from nowhere.
Last Saturday against Newcastle was another example, this team works harder than anyone, lucky? Maybe at times yes, but there is nothing lucky about accumulating a staggering 94 points with one game left, that is just phenomenal. I can’t tell you how many times I thought city would slip up and they got a win. Lucky? Yes but they didn’t get 95 points through luck.
Let’s not put all this down to luck, there are two great teams in here that have gone hammer and tong and reached an unreal standard. Let’s give due appreciation to two brilliant teams that have made this a thrilling race. No one has bottled it (not yet anyway) each team has won a serious amount of games and played some great football. Neither side deserves to lose but one must, that’s the way it is.
Do I expect City to mess up at Brighton? No, at best I think maybe we might be teased for a while, a draw for a long time or maybe Brighton taking an early lead but the end result will be the same. There is nothing we can do about it, and even if City screw up it’s no good unless we do our job.
So don’t give up on this team, they haven’t given up on us, if we win on Sunday and it’s not good enough for title 19 it won’t be nice but this team never let us down, not one individual thus far can have the finger pointed at them and be told “it’s all your fault”.
Each staff member and player have been wonderful, lets show them what it meant to us on Sunday regardless of how the table ends up, there are only so many times I can put up with us being unlucky losers, one trophy in 13 years is annoying but this team and its manager can’t have done anymore, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
Don’t give up on them because they didn’t give up on us.
YNWA