Our next fixture is the rearranged match away to Wolverhampton Wanderers which has been brought forward because it was originally scheduled for the weekend upon which we now take on the Creative Accountants in the Caribou Cup Final. While this match is an inconvenient distraction in the build up to the North London Derby, it is critical to our title challenge that our entire focus is on leaving the Black Country with all three points.
Our opponents have endured an execrable season to date and hopefully their luck will not change this week. Currently, after 26 matches, Wolves sit bottom of the table in 20th place, with 9 points, 18 points from safety, having won only one game all season, drawn 6 and lost 19, scoring 16 goals and conceding 48. Vitor Pereira was appointed in December 2024 to replace Gary O’Neil and managed to lift them to a final position, last season, of 16th on 42 points, 17 points above the relegation places and one place and 4 points above a small club from the wrong end of the Seven Sisters Road. Sadly for Pereira, his magic wand stopped working this season and he was sacked in early November after his team had lost eight of their first ten Premier League matches, drawing two and winning none. The departures of Ait-Nouri, Cunha and Semedo in the summer window clearly had a negative impact.
Ten days later, Rob Edwards was appointed as his replacement. I found Edwards’ move to Wolves something of a surprise given that he had only been appointed Head Coach of Middlesbrough some 5 months earlier and had led Boro to a strong 2nd place position in the Championship. However, it appears that Edwards had previous ties to Wolves, having played 111 times for the club, had then been its academy coach and, in 2016, interim first team coach for two matches.
It is unlikely that Edwards’ coaching philosophy has changed since these words on his appointment at Boro,
“I want my teams to be aggressive and on the front foot,” Edwards said back in June. “I want us to play with bravery. I want control; I want complete control ideally, but as far away from our goal as possible. Action – that’s what I want.”
Indeed, Rob Edwards has improved Wolves’ performances and marginally improved their results though they failed to show an immediate ‘new manager bounce’ or reduce the gap to the teams above them. Prior to his appointment, Wolves Premier League record was: P11, W0, D2, L 9, F7, A25. Since his arrival, their results are: P 15, W1, D4, L10, F9, A23. Their high spots under Edwards have been a 3-0 home victory against West Ham, sandwiched between 1-1 away draws at Manchester United and Everton. He also gained goalless draws against Newcastle at home and at Forest, away. On top of that they lost only by the narrowest margins at Villa Park, Ashburton Grove (remember our added time winner through reliable old Owen Gole) and Anfield after creditable performances.
A.I. tells me that, in accordance with the quote above, Edwards implements an aggressive, front-foot playing style, primarily utilising a 3-4-2-1 or 3-4-1-2 formation featuring high-intensity pressing, attacking wing-backs for width, and central midfield overloads, aiming for high-control football. The wing-backs act as part of a back five when out of possession as well as functioning as wingers during attacking phases though the Wolves squad may lack the speed and dribbling ability for the quick counter-attacks he desires. As a result, his Wolves teams often adopt a more cautious 5-4-1 or 5-3-2 when forced to sit deeper and I think we can confidently anticipate that a deep block will be a feature of this game.
Wolves are certain to be relegated but they will be playing for pride and I expect a physical scrap. They have a decent keeper in Sá. Mosquera, Agabadou and a couple of Buenos, Santiago and Hugo, may provide defensive muscle as may ex-Spud Doherty. Midfield muscle is provided by a couple of Gomes’s, João and Angel (probably no angel) while Bellegarde or Mané may provide creativity. In the absence of Strand Larsen (now a Palace servant), their attacking threat will be chosen from new signings Arokodare or Armstrong, or old lag Hee-Chan. Wolves struggled to beat Grimsby Town 1-0 in the FA Cup at the weekend but made a significant number of changes from the team that lost at home to Chelsea the weekend before so probably had an eye on this game and will have a few rested legs.
Arsenal sit top of the league, 4 points clear of the Creative Accountants, and should be buoyed by the performance against Wigan by what was largely our ‘B team’. The major positives from that game were the performances of Kepa, White, Mosquera, Nørgaard, Saka at ‘inside right’, Eze, Madueke, Jesus and Martinelli. I suspect that all of those players will be knocking on MA8’s office door asking for a starting place in this game. However, I expect MA8 will choose to revert to most of our ‘heavyweights’ as the game off will have done them a lot of good. The Creative Accountants’ match against Palace must also be rescheduled because of the Caribou Cup Final, but has not had a date set and may well not take place until near the end of the season due to both clubs’ European commitments. We will therefore have played one game more than our main rivals for much of the run in from this point. Thus, winning this rearranged game becomes even more important than winning every other game, as having three extra points on the board and a seven point gap, despite having played an extra game, will give us an extra psychological advantage. Much as we fans have half an eye on the North London Derby, the players cannot look beyond this game until they have cleared this hurdle.
In his press conference, MA8 revealed that White and Calafiori are both fit for this match but Ødegaard is not ready though the boss is ‘hopeful’ that his captain may be fit for the weekend, as he also says Havertz may be, though I suspect the latter news could be ‘mindgames’.
Thus, with the benefit of the weekend’s opportunistic experiment with Saka’s position, I would continue that experiment for at least 45 minutes in preference to rewarding Eze with another start after his improved form against Wigan. However, I would lean towards giving Saka a maximum of 60 minutes game time if circumstances permit. Likewise, despite his MotM performance I would replace Nørgaard with Zubiimendi and replace Eze with Rice, again hoping to give one or both a break at 60-70 minutes. I would start the rested pair, Timber and Hincapié as our full backs, given the recent muscle issues that caused Calafiori to limp out of the warm-up and White to limp off late in the game against Wigan. I hope to see either or both come on late in the game. Despite excellent performances, I expect Mosquera to give way to our senior defender, Gabriel, Martinelli to give way to Timber, Jesùs to give way to Gyökeres and Kepa to give way to Raya. Thus, I expect a starting XI of:
Raya
Timber Saliba Gabriel Hincapié
Saka Zubimendi Rice
Madueke Gyökeres Trossard.
I think we will see as tight a game as we saw at the Grove but a clean sheet would be nice, so I’m going to predict a traditional 1-0 to the Arsenal though I could easily get used to being 4-0 up after 28 minutes and seeing the game out without any more muscle strains. Sadly, that I don’t expect.
Enjoy the match, Holics from whichever vantage point you choose.
