some time ago .....

By Ivybridge Wolf
April 20 2024

Wolves v Arsenal is a 7.30pm KO this evening and televised by Sky under (eventually) the Molineux lights. Gary O’Neil locks horns again with Mikel Arteta (see picture!), however the Sky narrative, no doubt, with be all about a team on a poor run of form leading to a significant loss of position as other sides around make up crucial ground in the league. And they’d be right, in fact very highly perceptive, with Wolves failing to have won a match since March 9th versus Fulham. We do need to get the show back on the road with only one win in the last five (W1 D2 L2), last six if you include the cup quarter final. Talking of which, it will not escape Wolves fans that tomorrow many of us thought we might be travelling to Wembley, consigning this league fixture v Arsenal to postponement ……. If only, and sorry to bring that up, it still hurts!! Anyway, as March and April have progressed both Fulham and Bournemouth have closed the gap on us with Chelsea opening a gap.

In short, we need to be as positive as possible, however that might be tricky against Arsenal who were eliminated from the Champions League midweek and lost to the Villa last weekend – they too will want to bounce back. Indeed, a win for the Gunners will propel them to top of the table with Liverpool playing tomorrow and Man City engaged in the FA Cup. Let's face it, the title race is on a knife edge and every match now counts - with Wolves still having to play all three contenders, starting today.

Gary O’Neil certainly has some troubles in picking our side with more injuries and doubtfuls to contend with. Cunha is out with a calf strain, Nelson Semedo has a muscular issue and can’t play, we learn that Dawson is now out for the rest of the season, RAN is uncertain to play and apparently Hwang can only play a maximum of 45 minutes. It’s another set of selection difficulties highlighting the thin nature of our squad. Meanwhile Arteta has all but a full squad to choose from.

Arsenal are going for their 7^th consecutive win against us however we put up a creditable fight in our 2-1 defeat at The Emirates back in December. Being a little more upbeat we have scored much more freely this season and have only failed to net in one match in our last 26 matches ( v Brentford and I was there!) and this is despite our well documented injury lists.

Whatever the lineup, lets face it GON is not averse to chuck in a couple of surprises, all Wolves fans will hope that they set the right tone and give their all ……. We are 9/1 for the win and 4/1 for the draw so the betting doesn’t rate our chances. It’s very obviously going to be a tough test, prove the bookies wrong lads!!

Enjoy the match, hope you are able to follow it and whilst I will struggle to do so today, your thoughts and observations would be greatly appreciated in the thread below.

Final reflection – these 7.30pm KOs, it’s an awful long time to wait on a Saturday for your team to play!

Good luck to our side, UTW!!

Arteta at yesterdays press conference - happy to select from a near full squad

Match Thread: Wolves v Arsenal 20.04.24 KO 7.30pm

Discussion started by Wolves , 20/04/2024 11:06

Wolves
20/04/2024 11:06

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2024:04:25:07:27:13 by Cheshire wolf.

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Lupy
20/04/2024 15:45

With our injury problems and the Gunners still striving for top dog this could turn out to be one of those embarrassing score lines.

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chicagowolf
20/04/2024 18:59

Quote:

Lupy
With our injury problems and the Gunners still striving for top dog this could turn out to be one of those embarrassing score lines.

Could be. No Dawson, Lemina, Sarabia, Neto or Cuhna, this one might be a shade challenging 😉. Nevertheless here we are, playing all patched up, and with a bench of youths. Fun night!

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Cheshire wolf
20/04/2024 19:30

In fairness to GO’N he still does his best look at the positives and plays as attacking team as he can. No pressure on us tonight, We can only hope we don’t get mullered!! Lots of my mates are begging us to win to help Liverpool out!!!

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Cheshire wolf
20/04/2024 20:28

In my view a really performance from a Wolves team which haven’t started together before. Gomes so unlucky not to get the first goal, but the typically Arsenal get an opportunist goal in off the post! It will be interesting to see what happens if RAN, Lemina and Serabia join the game in second half.

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essington wolf
20/04/2024 21:52

Thought we played pretty well to be honest with what team we had on the pitch, just no real threat up front which is what I think we all expected tonight.
No discrace, the players gave their all but came up short against a very good arsenal team who still have a chance of ending up champions.
Bit of a shame how the season is failing off, the squad is just not big enough to cope with injuries, jeff Shi and fosun need to sort it out in the summer, no more excuses.

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An angry wolf
20/04/2024 21:56

Always next summer, always in the future with Wolves whilst we all grow a year older. We have been saying this every season pretty much for the last 17 years I've been posting on here. We will probably lose a few key players in the summer whilst Fosun will do what they need, to make staying in the premier league a probability rather than a possibility and the same things will be said this time next year. The only chance of glory will be a " good run in the cup " again.

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Andy Pandy
21/04/2024 11:17

If the Gomes shot hadn't hit the post we go 1-0 up and then who knows what would have happened. We might still have lost. It was better than I expected and 2-0 flattered Arsenal. Doyle, Gomes and Boubacar all played well in midfield and Chirewa had a decent first start. With Lemina, Ait-Nouri and Sarabia coming on from the bench hopefully they might be ready for Wednesday. We're not going to hang on to our best players and pile money into strengthening the squad. Someone will have to be sold or we will be spending peanuts.

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Ivybridge Wolf
21/04/2024 15:22

The writing was on the wall for this match, our form, the opposition and the depth of squad combined with acute selection difficulties. I felt Molineux was anticipating the worse from the off (but supported the team well throughout).

In reality I thought the lads did reasonably well, despite being second best. I was worried in the first 25 that a key pass or an explosive Arsenal run would do us in, but it didn't come and we grew into the first half, and didn't play too badly, even hitting the post.

The last minute first half goal was gutting for us. I haven't seen the replay yet but to me it seemed to ballon into the net.

Second half was much the same and we never truly threatened but when you sub on Lemina as a makeshift centre forward, you know the teams options are limited. We desperately need to address the forward spot .... how many years have we been saying that now?

The last minute second was harsh on our endeavour, maybe not so harsh on the balance of play.

Credit to Arsenal and all their efforts, really putting us under a lot of pressure whenever we did have possession.

Credit also to a number of our players, Doyle, Gomez, Kilman to name three. I still don't like how we play out from Sa at the back, verging on kamikaze at times!!

Very disappointing result but I've certainly seen worse from Wolves and with a rough and ready team selection.

An important week for Wolves now, another 2 home matches. Can we get back on track or will this season truly fizzle under the pressure of injuries and depth?

UTW

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