ESPN Soccernet - Correspondents - Wolverhampton Wanderers- The Bullies

Posted by Daniel Pountney on 05/25/2011

It's time to dust off your imaginary dinner jacket and celebrate another amazing season in the Premier League. The Bullies are my unofficial awards to recognise the players that have made this topsy-turvy season worth watching.

And the award for Player of the Season goes to...

. . . MATT JARVIS . . . who else?

The Steve Bull award for Player of the Season
Winner: Matt Jarvis
Nominees: Jarvis, O’Hara, Elokobi, Henry, Fletcher

This year it wasn’t even close. Matt Jarvis was absolutely outstanding from the first game of the season to the last. His call-up for England, the first Wolves man to claim the honour since Bully in 1990, filled us all with pride but it was his wing play week-in week-out that won him the gong. Seeing him against Manchester United was a particular highlight. He was slaughtering the young and quick Rafael so Sir Alex brought on the tough and reliable Gary Neville. Matt then duly murdered him too. O’Hara was brilliant for us this season and a major reason why we stayed up. He misses out on the award though because he was only with us for the last five months of the campaign. Fletcher too has been outstanding in recent weeks but he missed out due to the long wait he had to endure before taking his chance in the starting line-up. We started the season thinking we were without a quality left-back but George Elokobi made the position his own after a shaky start. For the last six months he was been solid defensively and has chipped in with a couple of goals. Captain Karl Henry deserves a mention too. Not the most gifted of players but never gave less than 100 per cent across the whole season.

The Robbie Keane award for Newcomer of the Season
Winner: Fletcher
Nominees: Fletcher, Hammill, O’Hara

Again this award could have been O’Hara’s but I’m looking for performance across the whole season. Fletcher cost big money but despite limited appearances in the first half of the season, he ended up in double figures and as the club’s top scorer. Hammill played his part on the wing at one stage of the season so is worth a mention here too. Other new lads failed to make any real impact.

The George Ndah award for Goal of the Season
Winner: O’Hara v West Brom
Nominees: O’Hara v West Brom, Jones v Stoke, Ebanks-Blake v Newcastle, Jarvis v Villa

The season started with a goal worthy of winning this competition. Henry flicked a free kick to Jones and he volleyed it over the wall to open the scoring against Stoke. The next contender also came in August when Ebanks-Blake outmuscled Perch and volleyed home against Newcastle. Jarvis entered his name to the shortlist with the driving volley across Brad Friedel against Villa in March. But the winner has got to be O’Hara because not only was his goal, a scooped shot in to the top corner after a cleverly worked free-kick on the edge of the box, a peach which showed great skill, it was also against the old enemy.

The Sir Jack Hayward award for Quote of the Season
Winner: Mick McCarthy
Nominees: McCarthy, McCarthy, McCarthy, McCarrthy

Nobody comes close to the gaffer for quotes and could you pick any one of him press conferences and find a gem. The one I particularly liked was his play on Monty Python when asked why his team were winning the big games but failing to get points out of the lower-ranked sides. He answered: “What's the wing-speed velocity of the American swallow."

The Bob Taylor award for Bogeyman of the Season
Winner: Mark Hughes
Nominees: Hughes, Dempsey, Murphy

It’s hard to estimate exactly how much damage Fulham did to us at Craven Cottage at the start of the season. The first 45 minutes were pretty clean but there was the unfortunate incident of Zamora breaking his leg following a (fair) tackle from Henry. In the second half though, tempers flared on both sides. There were some bad tackles yes but Dempsey in particular behaved disgracefully by throwing himself on the ground at every opportunity. We ended up with a red card and a load of yellows – some of which were fair, some of which were not. Oh and we lost the game with a goal in the 91st mnute. After that we had the suspension of Berra to deal with, the lost point in a campaign when every one was crucial and something unquantifiable – the knack of losing points in the dying minutes of games. If matches ended after 87 minutes, Wolves would have had seven more points this season. Bad guy number two was Danny Murphy who publicly suggested Wolves were a dirty side after the match. It was rubbish of course but Henry took the bait and against Wigan, after being told not to shy out of tackles, he put in a terrible one and got a straight red. We lost the game against a big rival and the captain was suspended. Hughes gets the award though for being the boss in the first game when so much damage was done and also making an inspired substitution at Molineux after being banded to the stands which rescued a point for his side when we were desperate for wins.

It has been an incredible campaign packed with exhilarating highs and painful lows. But that’s why we love life in the top flight, that’s why we love football and that’s why we love Wolves.
Roll on next season.

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Comments

Posted by AR on 05/25/2011

George Elokobi?!?!?! Possibly the worst player to ever pull on a Wolves shirt, someone who would struggle to get in to a poor Championship side, with no awareness, positional sense and the appaling distribution, and you are putting him forward as a candidate for player of the season?!?! This is clearly a joke or you haven't seen any games this year, farcical.....

Posted by Josh on 05/25/2011

Hunt's goal has to be in there. We're probably down without it.

Posted by Terry F. on 05/25/2011

Nothing to argue here! Although, my two favorite goals were Jones' in the first game, and O'Hara's in the last. Both came straight from the training ground and that shows creative and technical merit!
I would also argue Henry's name even being included in the discussion of best player, but that's a moot point.
For me, I would add as a "bogeyman", Emile Heskey, as I can't stand to see him score against us! To add a category, I'd like to thank Roy Hodgson for being my favorite gaffer to get points off of!
It's still a real plus/indictment of the club, that we can beat the best the Premier League has to offer, yet struggle with the bottom half. It has to be the principle topic of conversation in shaping next year's team. I think Ian Holloway showed the Premier League something.
It's called "go big or go home". they may have went home, but they did it on their terms. I think Blackpool's level of aggressiveness, mixed in with a tad more discretion is where we want to be in 2011-12.

Posted by Peter H. on 05/27/2011

Love the idea of the Bullies, Daniel. Thanks for all of your efforts throughout the season. I thoroughly enjoyed your blog posts. They definitely helped keep me better connected to the Wolves community, despite being on the Left Coast of the US. Looking forward to your coverage next season!

Posted by Terry F. on 05/27/2011

While I agree that I don't think I'd include Elokobi's as a Wolves Player of the Year candidate, he is certainly a better option at left back than Ward, is less likely to be beaten down the wing, has a good idea of spacing and gets his head to a lot of balls in the box offensively.
He is the best of the back four that Wolves have, and is certainly not a detriment to the team. He's an average Premier League player.
I would be questioning the earlier posters awareness of the game, not the Correspondant. Sounds as if he has a personal ax to grind for some reason.

Posted by Lance on 06/04/2011

I rarely comment here but have enjoyed this blog all year long. And naming the awards "The Bullies" is great. I hated having to hold my breath the last match of the season but this club seems to be in a better position now than the same time last year. And while only one Wolves match was televised here in the U.S. the very entertaining style of football certainly should get them more exposure here on the other side of the pond.

Cheers and kudos for keeping us long time Wolves fans in the loop.

Posted by Dan R. on 06/08/2011

Actually, several Wolves games were on TV here in the US. I watched about a dozen on Fox Soccer, and another 3 on ESPN2.

You just have to get up @ 6:00 a.m. to follow most of the games here :-)

Posted by Justin R on 06/18/2011

I actually get up early every Saturday morning...usually around 7 AM EST to watch the Premier League games. Perhaps ESPN 2 varies it's games across the country, but there were certainly not 3 Wolves games on ESPN 2 where I live. As a matter of fact, ESPN didn't even offer Wolves v Blackburn in the final week on it's internet feed, ESPN 3. I had to find a stream in a foreign language (Russian I believe) in order to watch the match. FSC had a couple, including the pivotal win against Sunderland as the season was winding down, but as someone who catches every TV match ESPN offers, I can definitively say that we didn't get 3 Wolves matches where I live. It was almost exclusively Everton, Arsenal, Tottenham or Man United fixtures.

Posted by Giovanni on 06/19/2011

After the end of 2010/11 season it's time to look to next one. I give you only some names to improve the team: Tomkins, Upson and Joe Ledley. What do you think about?

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