Express & Star

Wolves blog: The boys are back on track

If you’d only listened to the opposition’s views after Wolves’ games this season, you’d be forgiven for voting for Wind as our Player of the Season...writes Wolves blogger Tom Tracey.

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Ben Foster has now joined Jurgen Klopp in blaming nature for defeats to Wolves, after the Mitre ball in the League Cup was blamed last season for Man City’s close call with then-Championship Wolves.

Ben Foster is determined to be Wolves’ wind-up merchant this season, but his “Wo1ve5” tweet paired with Watford’s “Are we the only ones in this country actually wanting to get into Europe?” has made them look foolish.

Yes, they are in the FA Cup Final and we aren’t, but Watford’s tweet especially could come back to bite them if they lose that game and we finish seventh.

To secure seventh spot, Wolves need to beat Fulham on Saturday and hope Leicester don’t win another game (ideally this will happen in their next game away at Man City on Monday).

This will mean we can go to Anfield with nothing to play for other than to cause trouble and bid farewell to an amazing season. Just because Wolves may have no pressure doesn’t mean they can’t dent Liverpool’s title hopes. They will be dreading playing Wolves, no doubt.

The last two results have shown we are over our Wembley hump. Watford was a huge occasion, given recent history between the two clubs and the similarities between our successful seasons.

To go to their ground and play as well as we did shows the utmost character in Nuno’s team. Raul Jimenez was the man you most wanted to score, after he fired blanks in the last few games and took stick from Troy Deeney and Watford.

But when Watford were gifted an equaliser thanks to an uncharacteristic Ryan Bennett mistake, you feared the worst.

A stunning tease of a cross from Ruben Neves set up the mercurial Diogo Jota to finish past a prematurely-moved Foster.

Raul and Jota’s partnership up front has been unbelievable over the past five months. The amount of goals and assists they provide for the team are amazing and there aren’t many better partnerships in the division.

Teams may be more aware of their abilities going into next season, and Wolves may have to tweak their tactics again to thrive, as they had to midway through this season.

Fulham have been resurgent in their past three games since being relegated, gaining three straight victories against Everton, Bournemouth and Cardiff without conceding.

They will hope to burst Wolves’ bubble on Saturday, but Wolves really need to stop the hoodoo and put a team who have conceded a league-high 76 goals to the sword.

Goalscoring has still been Wolves’ overall weakness this season (if you had to pick one), scoring just 46 goals (better than most in the bottom half but the worst in the top half), but we’ve conceded just 44 - fifth best in the division.

If we can stop Fulham at Molineux, our home unbeaten run since 2nd January will continue into next season. Let’s give the team a welcome like they got against Sheffield Wednesday in last season’s final home game, and roar the boys on after the best season in generations.