Promotion Profiles – Wolverhampton Wanderers

By: Wayne Farry | May 14th, 2009

During another of my many moments of having little to do, I had the idea that it wouldn’t hurt profiling each promoted side that will soon grace the Premier League. We know two of those sides already, the two automatically promoted sides Wolves and Birmingham. We recently found out who will compete in the Coca-Cola Championship Playoff Final; Sheffield United (who beat Preston NE 2-1 over two legs) and Burnley (who ramshackled Reading 3-0 over two legs), so once we know who wins that game on 25 May at Wembley I’ll do a detailed profile of that team too.

So I feel it’s customary to start with the Championship winners, Wolverhampton Wanderers (thought I’d go with the Wolverhampton coat of arms as the main pic, as opposed to the Wolves crest, just to show some solidarity to Toby in the bloggers’ battle against money-hungry clubs!). It makes sense, as they finished first in their league and were the best side throughout. And to be fair, at the moment of publication, there are only two options so it was gonna be either Wolves or Brum.

Wolves eventually won the Coca-Coca Championship convincingly after a somewhat mixed season. They raced to the top of the league early on and looked unbeatable. They did, however, have periods of inconsistency, even going the whole of February without a win, drawing two and losing three of their five matches during that month. From March onwards though they got their act together, winning eight of their eleven remaining games.

They return to the Premier League for the first time since the 2003/04 season, one of disappointment lit up by some surprise results, such as the 1-0 win against Man Utd at Molineux, courtesy of a Kenny Miller strike.

Here’s a brief point-by-point profile Wolves and some stats from the 2008/09 season. Hopefully it’ll help people who are less than familiar with Wolves.

Founded: 1877
Stadium: Molineux
Capacity: 28,525
Owner: Steve Morgan
CEO: Jez Moxey
Manager: Mick McCarthy
Club Captain: Jody Craddock
Team Captain: Karl Henry
Key Players: Sylvain Ebanks-Blake, Michael Kightly, Andy Keogh, Wayne Hennessey
2008/09 Top Scorer: Sylvain Ebanks-Blake (25)
2008/09 Top Assists: Michael Kightly (21)
2008/09 Most Apps: Kevin Foley (47)

2009/10 Home Kit

2009/10 Away Kit

What The 2009/10 Season Holds For Wolves

The upcoming season looks bright for Mick McCarthy’s Wolves team. The Championship winners tend to be the most successful out of the promoted sides. Reading finished eight in the EPL in 2006/07 after winning the Championship in 2005/06 season. But there have been some less successful season for the Championship winners. This season, for example, West Bromwich Albion have been rooted to the of the league almost all season, despite being promoted as Championship winners.

The main thing that Wolves need to focus on is signing quality, not quantity. It’s about buying only the right players, not the right amount of players. But they should be in safe hands with Mick McCarthy, who was relegated with Sunderland in the 2002/03 season after buying some less than impressive players. He knows the pitfalls of promotion from the EPL and should know what not to do.

Kightly and Ebanks-Blake, two players who’ll be key to Wolves’ EPL campaign next season

He knows his best team, and he knows the players to base his EPL team around. The ones that a spring to mind are winger Michael Kightly, striker Sylvain Ebanks-Blake and goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey. There are others that will be pivotal to their success but he will know that Ebanks-Blake and Kightly will be very important to staying up. If he can get in some top-flight experience to go along with his young talented squad they should be quite confident going into the new season.

After a few seasons of near-misses, Wolves have finally come back to the Premier League and there’s no doubt that Mick McCarthy and his young team will be doing everything in their power to stay there for as long as possible. One way or another, it’s going to be a very interesting season for them.