What has happened to Kevin Doyle?

"I won't make a rash decision on my future. Ideally I would love to be back playing in the Premier League but also I don't want to be relegated again. I would rather have a year in the Championship fighting to be promoted."

Things can change very quickly in nearly a year.
On July the 3rd last year the Internet went mad when Arsenal were heavily linked with a £12m move for Kevin Doyle. In an article about it, even suggested asking for £15 million for him. 


Now we will be lucky to get £5m for him and with him saying he doesn't want to play for a team in a relegation battle, it looks like he will be set to stay at Molineux for at least another year.


The question is, will we see the Kevin Doyle of old, or the one we've seen this season? 

he was worth every penny of the £6.5m we spent on him, as he hustled and bustled his way to keeping us in the Premier League in  his first year. In fact, watching Didier Drogba in the Champions League really reminded me of those performances from Doyler in 2009/10, Liverpool at home sticking out. The next started slowly for him but when he got going we improved as a team and looked set to stay up. His injury nearly cost us our Premier League status until the three Stephens (Hunt, Ward and Fletcher) fought to keep us up.

Since then, good performances from Kevin have been limited. The goals have dried up even more, and he has looked lethargic at times. Why? 

I noticed this season that Mick was careful with Fletcher, resting him (especially over the Christmas period). It seemed that he had realise what he had done to Doyle, burning him out and running him ragged on his own up front. His confidence dropped and he began to pick up more and more injuries. 

If Ståle can reignite him, and we can see him back to his old self then he will surely be too good for the Championship, and strengthen our chances of an instant return to the Premier League. He was a joy to watch as he twisted and turned defenders, pulling them apart and running them ragged. 

Let's hope Ståle thinks the same. 

Wolves appoint Solbakken

As of July 1, Ståle Solbakken will take over as manager of Wolves. And although before yesterday I knew nothing about him at all, I'm quite excited! 


We've moved swiftly to get the man we wanted, it's our first (proper) foreign appointment and he has had a lot of success in his short time as a manager. 


It would be silly to ignore his time at Cologne this season, but as many know the manager's job there is something of a poisoned chalice, and he had plenty of problems to contend with. 

He's got no hair, but we don't care

Listening to the Norwegian correspondent talking to Sky Sports News, he spoke of his attractive, attacking football, something that will certainly please the home faithful. A passionate character (look at the video below), he certainly seems like someone that if it goes well, Wolves fans will like him a lot. 


The players reaction to it all will be interesting. An up and coming foreign manager with experience of winning titles may convince the likes of Fletcher, Jarvis etc that it may be worth it to stick around for another year. How he deals with Roger Johnson will certainly be something to look at, as my guess is he probably doesn't know that he has (apparently) been a disruptive influence on the dressing room harmony. 


He'll have been briefed on the young players we have by Morgan for sure, Matt Doherty and Danny Batth the main ones that may be in the fight for first team positions. 


And in a way, I'm pleased that Terry Connor looks like he will still be at the club. Ståle will in all likelihood bring in some of his own men in, but having Terry there may be good as he can help them adapt to English football, and get to know the players. 


I'm not even bothered that it could go all wrong because for once we look to have a young, modern football manager who could possibly, take us onto a new level.

Endless ball of energy

I never really understood Dave Edwards while we were in the Championship. 

He didn't seem to offer any qualities there, and when we were playing him ahead of David Jones I couldn't fathom why. 

But since our return to the Premier League, I've generally been impressed by him.

He offers us what none of our others seem to have had this season, when we've been having a stinker (this has been the case in pretty much every single game) not many have stood up and been counted. But Edwards, alongside a couple of others have never stopped running, chasing lost causes or trying to get us back in the game. This was exemplified last Saturday at Swansea. 

Even Tony Gale was full of praise for him, claiming he had changed the game. And he had, he'd got us flying, playing some fantastic football, linking play with the wingers and forwards (perfect case is his goal to make it 4-3). 

It makes me laugh that he has been the main target of criticism when really, alongside Kightly, he has been our best player recently. It makes a mockery of the idea that Wolves fans don't mind if they aren't good enough, just as long as they care. We've seen that with Neill Collins, Stephen Ward and Karl Henry already though.

Of course has had some poor games, but no more than any other player, if not less. Arsenal at home he was extremely poor but under TC, I can't think of any other games where you would say 'Edwards was rubbish'.

He will, sadly, always lack the star quality. His finishing does let him down, as does his passing at times. It's just sad that he has to suffer the abuse while others get off scot-free. 

I'm not sure I'd even have him in my team next year, with hopefully Adlene Guedioura coming back and Jamie O'Hara returning to full fitness, but at least we'll know we've got someone who can come in as back up, because he can certainly 'put a shift in' from time to time. 

Get behind Dorus

Maybe it's a bit late to be trying to get this going, but I only thought of this when I remember that we had a game tomorrow, at Swansea.

It's rather unfortunate that the few games Dorus de Vries gets to play in the Premier League are when we are relegated and even worse, one of them is against the team's he left saying this:

"Wolves are a club with all the fundamentals in place to grow and expectations are higher than at Swansea at this moment in time."

Obviously, he's going to get his fair share of stick from the home crowd at the Liberty stadium, so I'm urging anyone who goes to get behind Dorus, in full voice! I'll leave others to get a chant going, because I'm clearly not creative enough to think of one... 

It will be a nice confident booster, not that he seems to need it. 

I was struck by the confidence he showed on his Premier League debut. His distribution was excellent, he made two excellent saves and even when he flapped at a corner he seemed confident about it! 

If Wayne Hennessey leaves in the summer, I won't be too disappointed as we have a good goalkeeper ready to come in. If not, then there will be an interesting battle to happen between the two for sure! 

Please share this with other fans heading up for our first European away game for a while! 

Miracle day!

On the same day that Andy Carroll scored the winning goal in an FA Cup semi final for Liverpool, Wayne Hennessey and his four defenders did the seemingly impossible. 

They kept a clean sheet.

And after a tough season where we have conceded goals for fun it was quite nice to have at least one more shut out before the end of the season. 

I thought all of the back line had a pretty good game. Berra and Stearman battled hard and long, Wardy support the attack and nullified the threat of Seb 'diver' Larsson but most pleasing was the performance of Kevin Foley, returning from injury. He's had a tough season, but today showed what a class footballer he can be. Tidy on the ball, kept McLean quiet and made some important defensive headers. 

It was nice to see Anthony Forde get his third Premier League start. He looked lost at times and was shrugged off the ball too much for my liking but there were definitely glimpses of what he can offer. He came close with a good driving effort, which would have done wonders for his confidence had it gone in. 

Another youngster David Davis was one of our best players. A bit rash on the ball but strong and powerful in winning it back, which was really nice to see. Next to him in the middle was my man of the match, Karl Henry. Our captain put in a really effective performance. He did what he did best, winning it off a player in dangerous situations, reading a pass or moving the ball on to a wide player. I have a feeling clubs will come in for him in the summer and we will do well to keep him for next season. 

No doubt it was a boring game, not helped by Sunderland looking fairly disinterested at the best of times but had Fletcher's header gone in, or SEB tucked away one of his chances then it would have been deserved, and been a job well done. 

Hennessey - 7

Foley - 8

Stearman  - 7

Berra - 7

Ward - 7

Kightly - 6

Henry - 8

Davis - 7

Forde - 6

Fletcher - 7

SEB - 7

A second away point for Terry Connor, finally, and hopefully we can get some more before the season ends. Hey, maybe we can even end Manchester City's title challenge next? They've only scored ten in their last two games...