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Wolverhampton Wanderers
Posted by Daniel Pountney on 11/08/2010

Arsenal had another player sent off on Sunday making it four red cards for the season – the joint worst in the league.
They share the dishonour with West Bromwich Albion.
In terms of yellow cards, Manchester City are the worst offenders in the league with 25 of them.
Arsene Wenger’s team have picked up 23 - one less than Wolves.
I’m tired of talking about discipline but I just want to bring a close to the whole sorry saga with one final post addressing the issue.

I’m one of those people who likes to see a fair but aggressive game with plenty of tackling.
So I’m not going to slag of Arsenal, even though their manager was quick to condemn my team a few weeks ago.
They are bottom of the disciplinary table now but it’ll be someone else in a few weeks time.
I just want to put down, for the record, two things here about Wolves’ recent hammering in the media.

Firstly, has it ever been suggested that Arsenal, Man City or West Brom have any disciplinary issues whatsoever this season?
No – Wolves were specifically targeted and the table now shows it was completely unjustified.

Second, have you heard it mentioned anywhere, even in the tiniest of newspaper fillers, that Wolves are not even in the bottom three of the worst offending teams now that we are a quarter of the way in to the season?
No – the coverage was initially lazy and shameful and even worse, no-one has taken any steps to put it right.

Wolves are a combative and aggressive team, but so are Arsenal, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
That’s why I expect a ding-dong at Molineux when the Gunners come to town.
Let’s match them for strength, stifle their creativity, out-work them and if we’re still in it with a few minutes to go, see it out to the final whistle.


Another game, another late goal ©PA Photos

I’m being deliberately optimistic for a point, perhaps even three, because I am ashamed to say that I showed my team a lack of respect on these pages a few weeks ago.
I said anything we got from Chelsea away, Man City at home, United away and Arsenal at home would be a bonus.
But Wolves have been brilliant, running the champions close, beating City and being 60 seconds away from a point at Old Trafford.
It showed me that we are good enough to expect points in every game we play, wherever it is.
Whoever the opposition, I should keep the faith that we are good enough to match them.

The key to climbing the table will be to keep playing the way we have done, but taking it through to the end.
Otherwise it’ll be death by a thousand cuts for us this season, and that would be a cruel way for such a good team to get relegated.
Wolves have been shown enough cruelty already.



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Comments

Posted by yoyo on 11/08/2010

For all the red cards that arsenal received only one was for violent play, all the rest was for descent or being the last man.

Posted by Canus Lupus on 11/08/2010

Not only was the media ready to have a go at Wolves. Every match following the infamous Newcastle game on MOTD you felt the referee was just raring to book any Wolves player for even the smallest incident imaginable so the Premier League have something to answer for too.

Posted by Terry F. on 11/12/2010

Ah, the media. They've got to write about something, don't they? Well, the whole "Wolves are a dirty team", came out of the very physical game vs Newcastle, two teams that knew that there were very important points at risk in that game, determined to get a result, Karl Henry's fair tackle against Fulham that unfortunately cost an serious injury to Bobby Zamora, and then Henry's ridiculous challenge in the next game that resulted in a red card.
Henry is a physical player that gets the most of his talents. My perception is that he most often goes in hard but fair, but can get out of control at times and frankly, can be awkward at times. He's not a dirty player, just lacks the pace and grace that many midfielders have.
All of this rubbbish about "a dirty team" is just media hype and is totally forgotten, until the next incident that will bring it all up again!

Posted by Terry F. on 11/14/2010

We've got the next 7 games to figure out whether we're going to be in the Premier League next year. Losing to Bolton at home is not a good start. It's starting to look an uphill battle. You can't waste points in the Premier League and we've thrown away about 6 to 9 of them now.

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