Dave’s Ramblings – Wolverhampton Wanderers
Well, it’s Saturday. The sun is up, the kettle’s on, and I’ve waded through approximately 47,000 different opinions about the ArseNIL game. According to the Book of Face, we were either tactically revolutionary or a footballing crime scene. There is no middle ground. Naturally.
The facts, unfortunately, are these: we lost. So now it’s time to do what we have done since the dawn of time, go to B&Q, get some wood, build a bridge, and get spectacularly over it. Liam rolled the dice, tried something different, and it didn’t quite land. It happens. On another day, it might’ve been hailed as genius and he’d be getting knighted outside the ground, possibly even a statue. Football’s funny like that.
Right now though, there’s no point crying into our scarves (and they best not be half and half!). The only game that matters is Wolves. And yes, radical idea incoming, we must get behind the team rather than setting fire to the bridge we have just built.
And here’s the truly unhinged part: despite this absolute emotional rollercoaster of a season, the thrills, the spills, the why-do-I-do-this-to-myself moments, we are still very much alive in THREE competitions. THREE. Not one. Not mathematically still possible if five teams are docked points. Three actual competitions.
So today, I’m choosing optimism. I’m drinking from the glass that’s half full, possibly topped up, and maybe even garnished with a little umbrella. I suggest you grab one too. Let’s see how it flows.
Tomorrow’s headlines will obviously focus on Cold Palmers hat-trick, which is fair enough. Before today he’d scored four goals all season, then decided to almost match that in the first 45 minutes.
Yes, yes, I know… the first two were penalties, so they don’t really count, according to people who have never taken one under pressure in their lives. Truth is though, penalties still need scoring, and Palmer took both like he was popping out to post a letter. No fuss. No drama. Just cold vibes.
And that’s when it became clear. The old Palmer hasn’t gone anywhere. He hasn’t vanished. He hasn’t regressed. He’s just been hiding. Probably behind the sofa. And unfortunately for everyone else, he’s remembered where he left himself.
Officially, this was a football match, though for long stretches it looked more like a low budget remake of Waterworld. The conditions were so monsoon like, I half expected the referee to abandon the game or issue each of the players a snorkel.
It was that wet I’m convinced one of our shots on goal was deflected by a submarine surfacing briefly in the penalty area. It nodded the ball wide, and quietly disappeared back into the floodwater.
Both penalties came after João Pedro was fouled. the second one was delayed by a VAR check on whether the ball was offside or just floating.
I did feel a little sorry for Wolves at first, because they started much stronger than us. Lots of energy. Plenty of bite. Real fight.
Sadly for them, all that effort translated into absolutely no danger whatsoever. Like the big bad wolf, they huffed and they puffed. They snapped into tackles… and then politely stayed well away from our goal, as if there was a restraining order in place.
38 minutes in and Cucu went on one of those adventurous little runs that frequently end with him being shouted at, except this time he actually crossed it well.
The ball was then converted with extreme prejudice by Palmer for his third, completing his hat-trick leading to plenty of Wolves fans deciding to head for home early.
To a certain extent you can understand it. At that point, Wolves, who hadn’t scored a league goal for a month, looked less like a team plotting a comeback and more like a group remembering they once enjoyed football as a hobby. Hope wasn’t just gone, it had packed a bag, left a note, and blocked the club’s number.
However, for the home fans who were brave enough to stick around, either out of loyalty or because their seat was too wet to stand up from, the second half did offer a glimmer of hope.
About ten minutes after the restart, they pulled a goal back. Nothing dramatic, just enough to remind everyone that supporting Chelsea is, unfortunately, never completely straightforward.
And that’s when it happened. We didn’t panic exactly… but we did develop the footballing equivalent of the wobbly shopping trolley wheel. Suddenly, every pass felt a bit nervy, every clearance went anywhere except where it was supposed to, and confidence briefly went out for a cigarette and didn’t come back.
Thankfully, the shopping trolley was quickly repaired, the rogue wheel was subdued, and no further structural damage occurred.
A few people around me were unhappy that we didn’t go on to score five, six, or even seven, as if we’d ordered a rout and the kitchen had messed it up. Personally, I’ll cut Wolves a tiny bit of slack. They’re not quite as catastrophic as they were, and I’m more than happy to simply take the three points and walk away without further emotional trauma.
That makes it four league wins on the bounce, which feels suspiciously like momentum. We’ve got two more games coming up in the league that we really should win, football gods permitting, before we return to the EasyJet Arena for Part Four of our epic against ArseNIL.
And honestly? We are well overdue a win. Statistically. Emotionally. Cosmically.
My takeaways…
I’ve always enjoyed our little away days to Wolves, and I’ll genuinely miss them. Not because they’re good, obviously, but because there’s something comforting about a near guaranteed three points and a decent pie. Well that and it’s an easy place to get to and park at.
Sadly, this season it looks like Wolves are finally doing what they’ve been flirting with for a while… going down.
And let’s be honest, they’re not just relegation bad. They’re bring a packed lunch for the Championship bad. The sort of bad where survival next season becomes a dream rather than a realistic aim.
If you doubt that, just ask their manager, Rob Edwards, a man with such gravitational pull he managed to drag Luton down two divisions before being politely shown the door. Giving him the Wolves job feels less like a football decision and more like a hidden camera show.
I genuinely don’t understand why, when there was absolutely no colour clash, we decided to wear that kit today. I like us in blue. Because blue is the colour. This isn’t complicated. We have been singing the song long enough!
The only explanation I can come up with is that whoever’s in charge of washing the kits has a side hustle. Possibly shares. Definitely a deep personal relationship with Vanish. Because after today, those shirts are going to look like they’ve been used to resurface the pitch.
Today, Cold Palmer made history on two fronts, just in case anyone thought he was done for the afternoon.
First, he became the only player in Premier League history to score three first half hat-tricks. Not three hat-tricks. Not three first halves. Three hat-tricks before the oranges come out.
Second, he’s now scored more Premier League hat-tricks (four) than any Chelsea player, which feels slightly unfair on decades of very good footballers who apparently didn’t get the memo that you’re allowed to do this.
So yes, people talk about form. Form comes and goes. Form has off days. Class, however, turns up early, finishes the job by halftime, and then starts rewriting club history for fun.
Onwards and upwards, Dirty Leeds next. Let’s hope the rain has given up by then!
UTC 💙
Dave M
