Section:GDN 1N PaGe:35 Edition Date:190812 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/8/2019 18:10 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Monday 12 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •
35Pack trackers
Hungry Wolves can
beat down top-six
door but Europe
may hold them back
O
nce more unto the breach. A new
Premier League campaign is under
way, but unlike at the outset of more
recent August dawns, the dreary
hegemony of the Big Six elite looks
heartwarmingly under threat.
Last season, the current top-fl ight
grandees fi nished as expected: the
thoroughbreds of Manchester City galloping fi rst past the
post, winning on the nod from Liverpool. Meanwhile,
back at the furlong pole, Chelsea, Tottenham , Arsenal
and Manchester United duked it out for the minor
placings – so n o major shocks there.
Chief among the also-rans, ahead of vastly more
experienced rivals, came Wolves. New to the Premier
League, they were not so prone to a tug of the forelock
that they did not biff and bloody a few aristocratic noses.
To much surprise, they took an impressive 16 points
from those teams who fi nished above them, gaining
many new admirers in the process. Between the league
and FA Cup, they registered victories over all apart from
Manchester City, before smiting the champions in the
recent Asia Cup. A meaningless pre-season friendly it
may have been, but for the purposes of this column its
importance simply cannot be exaggerated. Wolves are a
team who mean business.
Having seen them achieve success beyond their
wildest dreams last season, their fans can now be
forgiven for hoping for even greater things to come.
Chelsea go into the season under a transfer embargo,
with an inexperienced manager whose credentials are
open to question. Despite yesterday’s good result, OleGunnar Solskjær has of late had about him the haggard
look of a man who has been asked to mind mice at a
crossroads. Both teams look vulnerable while Wolves,
with their astute owners, talented young squad and
charming, streetwise manager look reasomably well-
placed to take advantage of any high profi le stumbles.
Last season, they harvested one more point from their
matches against teams in the top half of the table than
those in the bottom, pulling off the remarkable feat of
losing at home and away against Huddersfi eld Town.
While the Premier League’s better sides may now have
fi gured how best to cope with Nuno Espiríto Santo’s
counterattacking style, he and his players will almost
certainly be better equipped to overcome the kind of
inferior teams who robbed them of so many points last
time. Their squad has been bolstered and their prospects
look bright, but there is one signifi cant snag.B
ack in Europe, they have one foot
in a play-off for the Europa League
group stages. These are exciting times
at Molineux, but while Nuno insists
his team’s fi rst foray into European
competition in 29 years will have no
impact on their top-fl ight form, recent
history suggests it will. Two seasons
ago, Sean Dyche led Burnley to a seventh place fi nish in
the Premier League, earning a European berth. Despite
failing to advance beyond the qualifi ers, they fi nished
the subsequent league campaign with 14 fewer points
than in the one before. It could be argued they had
hugely over achieved the previous season and were
simply returning to Burnley “mean”, but they are not the
only side whose league form has nose dived while trying
to cope with the distraction of Europe.
A year before, Everton played 10 Europa League
matches, before ending the league season with 12 points
fewer than they had won during the campaign in which
they booked their passage to Europe. Prior to that,
West Ham and Southampton buckled under the strain
of playing at home and abroad. After qualifying for
Europe in 2015-16, both clubs fi nished the subsequent
Premier League campaign with 17 points fewer than
their previous tallies. It is the disruption of European
qualifi cation rather than the number of games teams are
forced to play that seems to cause problems.
The previous season, Southampton had proved a rare
recent exception to the detrimental eff ect qualifi cation
for the Europa League has on teams from outside
the traditional Premier League elite. In 2013-14, they
fi nished seventh with 60 points and subsequently went
out to the Danish side Midtjylland in their attempt to
make the group stages. They ended the subsequent
league campaign in the same position but with three
points more. It can be done, but it is clearly more diffi cult
for clubs with squads lower on quality and numbers than
those of the traditionally Big Clubs.
Wolves have proved their class and on the face of
it appear well-resourced enough to cope with the
additional demands of European football without letting
it aff ect their assault on the top six or – whisper it – four.
However, it is no secret Nuno prefers working with a
compact squad and a settled team. Last season, it did
not go unnoticed that he played the same starting 11 in
the Premier League in his opening nine games. Should
they make the Europa League group stages, one suspects
a more fl exible selection policy will be required. Last
week, his team undertook a 6,370-mile round-trip to
Armenia, where they swatted aside FC Pyunik in the fi rst
leg of their third-round qualifi er , but showed no adverse
eff ects on the subsequent 126-mile equivalent from
Molineux to Leicester’s King Power Stadium in a state of
aff airs that suggests the early omens are good.
There is an episode of Friends in which Ross is torn
between two ladies who love him and Chandler jokes
about the dilemma in which his pal fi nds himself. “Oh,
no!” he sneers. “Two women love me. They’re both
gorgeous and sexy, my wallet’s too small for my fi fties
and my diamond shoes are too tight!” Wolves now fi nd
themselves on the horns of a similar dilemma. Our
thoughts and prayers are with them at this diffi cult time.Barry Glendenning
▲ Wolves look ready
to take advantage
of any high-profi le
stumbles under their
streetwise manager
Nuno Espírito Santo
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