With a third of the season gone, Wolverhampton Wanderers sit in 18th place in the Premier League and things are not looking good.
The problem is clear for anyone paying attention to see, and it’s not, as has been the case in the last few seasons, in inability to score goals. We’ve scored twenty-two goals. That’s more than every team below and eight and the team in sixth (who, ironically, are managed by a certain Portuguese who used to be the messiah in these parts).
It’s the defence, stupid!
In just thirteen games, Wolves have conceded thirty-two goals. Thirty-two. Let that sink in. That’s three more than Arsenal conceded in the whole of last season.
That’s insane.
It’s five more than any other club in the division.
It’s almost two and a half goals per game!
It’s incredibly difficult to win games if you are conceding two or three goals a game because you have to score three or four goals per game.
To put into context how bad Wolves’ defence is, at the current rate, we will concede ninety-four goals by the end of the season.
Last season, the three relegated teams conceded seventy-eight, eighty-five and one-hundred-and-four.
I’ve been back through a decade or so of Premier League tables and can’t find a team that’s conceded that many goals and survived relegation. The most goals I’ve seen a team concede and survive is seventy.
The long and short of it is that if Wolves do not sort out their defence, they will be relegated. It’s that simple.
And it’s becoming increasingly clear that Gary O’Neil does not seem capable of sorting out the defence.
Sorry, Gary, you’re a nice chap, but it’s time to go.
