By Tom Bason
August 3 2013

Wolves’ first step into third tier football since 1988/89 resulted in a battling 0-0 draw at Preston North End. Kenny Jackett’s first game in charge saw debuts given to Lee Evans and Sam Ricketts, while Leigh Griffiths made his first Wolves league appearance since signing in 2011.

- Kenny Jackett's first Wolves XI was quite unsurprising. With Wayne Hennessey only having a small amount of pre-season football behind him, Carl Ikeme kept his place in goal. As usual, there was as much talk about the players who didn't feature as those who did. Roger Johnson, Stephen Ward and Jamie O'Hara are all surplus to requirements, with Tongo Doumbia, George Margreitter seemingly moving in that direction, and no-one is really sure as to the Kevin Doyle situation. We lined up in a 4-4-1-1 formation, with Bakary Sako and Björn Sigurðarson playing in deeper roles than last week's friendly defeat to Real Betis. If Doumbia is on his way out, then this is putting a lot of pressure on David Davis in central midfield. How much he has improved since his impressive Premier League debut against Blackburn Rovers is debatable. But, making him the senior partner in midfield, a role I'm not sure he's ready for, could potentially be the making of him.

- Alongside Davis was Lee Evans, a player who reminds me a lot in terms of the way that he moves in Jordan Henderson. Evans is the one player in the starting line-up in who Jackett has shown a huge amount of faith. He's a 19 year old midfielder, with just 25 games for Newport County behind him, yet has effectively forced his way beyond Doumbia, O'Hara and Karl Henry. In the opening 8 minutes, he gave the ball away sloppily three times, but managed to recover his composure. What impressed me was his vision. His passing didn't always come off, but there were a few times that he spotted a pass that I don't think anyone else on the pitch would have. The technique needed to execute the pass can be taught (although whether you'd trust our coaching setup to do this is another matter), but having the ability to see the man in space can't. An added bonus is that he has a longish throw. On a scale of Zubar to Challinor, it's not the longest throw you've ever seen, but has a nice trajectory that is quite flat which will be quite difficult to defend against.

- Our two wide men were Sako and Sigurðarson. I've written an awful lot about my belief that Sigurðarson isn't a midfielder, but felt that he was played there today due a lack of other options. Last season it frustrated me to see him stuck out wide when Słavomir Peszko was a better option, but today the only real alternative was David Edwards who was already in the team. Generally, Edwards played as the attacking midfielder, in behind Leigh Griffiths. As usual, he was a bundle of energy, but doesn't have the ability to really be a force in this position. I don't mind Edwards, but would far rather see him in a slightly deeper midfield position. Wide left was Sako, and he was very poor. In theory, he should be the best player in this league, but today it seemed like he'd forgotten how to play. He tried too often to beat his man when in a good crossing position, but very rarely was successful. The crosses he did put in went nowhere any of our forwards, and two inswinging corners went straight out for goal kicks, over the top of the crossbar. On this evidence, I'd be amazed if Fulham decided to come back in for him. 

- Making his Preston debut was former England international, and my WAGU! podcast colleague, Kevin Davies. You know exactly what you get with Davies; a battle that's not for the faint hearted. Early on, it seemed that Davies was targeting Richard Stearman in the air. Stearman is never one to shirk a challenge, but doesn't have the physicality to dominate someone like Davies. When Stearman went off injured, I assumed George Elokobi would be a straight swap for Stearman, and looked forward to seeing an old fashioned wrestling contest as George got to grips with Davies. But instead Elokobi took up his normal left-back position, and Sam Ricketts moved inside to centre-back. I was a little worried that Davies would bully Ricketts, but the Welshman did well against his former Bolton teammate, and Davies' influence started to wane. It has to be said that Danny Batth also did well against Davies - I'd have thought that Batth will relish the battle of strength against bigger strikers. It will be interesting to see how he deals with the smaller, quicker forwards. 

- As I said earlier, with Sigurðarson a striker playing out of position and Sako a winger playing like a drain, we lacked penetration upfront. Defensively we were solid enough, but found it difficult to carve out any real chances. Sigurðarson had one superb run in the second half that I'm sure had many fans thinking back to George Ndah's solo goal here, but didn't really carve anything out. Griffiths, effectively upfront on his own had a couple of half chances, but his first touch let him down, and one goal bound effort cleared off the line from a corner. I've no doubt he will score goals this season, but at times I suspect he will need to create his own chances. Given how many teams will put 10 men behind the ball over the coming season (and consider that Preston are one of the better teams in this league and were timewasting towards the end), if Kenny Jackett has any money to spend by September 1st, the priority should be someone who can create chances.

Preston 0-0 Wolves

Discussion started by Wolves , 03/08/2013 20:32

Wolves
03/08/2013 20:32

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013:08:10:18:41:18 by toomb.

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jamwolf
04/08/2013 10:03

Hi Tom.

You need to rethink your style a bit, mate.

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toomb
04/08/2013 15:07

Quote:

jamwolf
Hi Tom.
You need to rethink your style a bit, mate.

Any suggestions welcome...



toomb's twitter

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Mills Wolf
04/08/2013 16:56

Abit harsh that imo jamwolf, decent read to me.

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an angry wolf
04/08/2013 19:04

Decent read Tom apart from the sako part. Its clear he doesnt want to play in league 1 ~(who can blame him) so dont think it will cause Fulham to lose interest if he displayed negative body language with the likes of crawley looming

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Dudley Wolf
04/08/2013 22:04

Sounds spot on to me Tom, I do think we will probably be left with Sako if that's how he's feeling though. He won't impress any potential suitors with games like yesterday's. If his move doesn't come off, we could have an upset and disappointed player on the books and then what? Does he need to be exiled to the outcasts as well to show KJ's the boss?

I actually feel Sako does deserve a move to a Prem club, but then, I also feel we should at least be bringing in a couple of frees or loan players to strengthen the squad if Morgan has decided he's not going to put in any money. We shall see what the next few weeks bring...

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jamwolf
05/08/2013 00:06

Hi Toomb

Only that it needed more emphasis on the match itself.

Mind you, it did sound a dull game - maybe there wasn"t that much to say !

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toomb
05/08/2013 10:51

Quote:

jamwolf
Hi Toomb
Only that it needed more emphasis on the match itself.

Mind you, it did sound a dull game - maybe there wasn"t that much to say !

Yeah, this is a fair point. I avoided doing that when we were in the Premier League, and everyone could see extensive highlights and read full reports elsewhere. Now we're a couple of divisions down, with less coverage, I'll try and put a bit more in about the whole match



toomb's twitter

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ernesto hunt
05/08/2013 18:29

Toomb - I liked the old 'marks out of ten' assessment along with the match report.

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