Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Norwich City
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Today’s secondary featured game is the English Premier League game in the Midlands between relegation battlers Wolverhampton Wanderers and newly-promoted Norwich City.
Home games are bread and butter for Wolves. Without them, they’d have been relegated last season and Mick McCarthy knows it, hence him looking so worried at the start of the season when Wolves couldn’t win at home. In my view, he didn’t strengthen this side enough pre-season and it could end up costing them but we’ll see.
To further my point, however – Wolves signed Fletcher and Doyle when they saw that firepower was a problem and both strikers have been really good signings for Wolves. McCarthy rarely makes bad signings for Wolves, in my view, and those two are great examples. They play a very expansive game, Wolves, and thus the ever-improving skill of winger Jarvis and the unyielding tenacity of Stephen Hunt allow Wolves to be a threat most of the time. You know, you can pick flaws some of Wolves’ players but they all fit into this squad and they all work hard. However, Wolves have gone through pre-season by signing just three players, which isn’t enough, I feel. Johnson is a great signing, as is O’Hara (who was impressive on his loan spell last season) but is it really enough? I think they needed to accept a lesser quality of player to bolster their depth and that lack of depth I feel will hurt them this season. Sometimes players just like to see new players at the club to keep them inspired, which is the exact problem that Everton have at the moment, for example. So yeah – Wolves aren’t as well off as last season but things could be worse I suppose.
At Molineux, Wolves are not easy to bet; ever. I don’t care what their record this season shows – in my book, you have to play very well to win here. They will battle for every ball and make life uncomfortable for their opponents. Their problem this season has been shipping stupid goals and a fine example of that would be Wayne Hennessey’s blunder last match. You know, Wolves can’t afford to lose games at home and McCarthy should motivate them more than enough here as a result.
With the above in mind, I do think that Wolves will score. They’ve got more than enough in attack to trouble Norwich and this is a must-win game for them so a goal or two for the feisty hosts should be on the cards here. However, Norwich City themselves may have some input on the final score that Wolves won’t be too pleased to see!
We made some profit by giving Norwich a +1 Asian Handicap at Everton at weekend because we anticipated that Norwich would attack and score at least once and if they did that then Everton shouldn’t outscore them. That logic worked well, although it must be noted that Everton did quite well and could have scored a couple of goals had it not been for the heroics of Norwich goalkeeper Ruddy. As strange as it might sound, Wolves have more firepower than Everton and I think that they will beat Ruddy at least once tonight, if not twice. Norwich throw caution to the wind when it comes to defending because they’re no good at it and thus Norwich keeping a clean sheet against anyone would astound me.
I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again, though – credit must go to Paul Lambert for the amazing job he’s doing at Norwich. They’re motivated and creative for every single game that they play in and they fear no side. Norwich City are 9th in the table right now, which is an amazing achievement in my books because this side is composed almost entirely of Championship quality players. They play good attacking football though and they play to their strengths, which I respect them for a lot. Norwich play a lot better in away games than their record suggests; only their hideous record of goals conceded harms their ability to take points on the road.
However, when it comes to goalscoring, this side is very high up in my estimation because they’ll always find a way through whether it’s through a Holt header, Morrison closing down, or Hoolahan creating something from nothing. I fully expect Norwich to score at Molineux tonight at least once because they’ve only failed to score once on the road this season – in a 2-0 loss at Manchester United – and they should have scored at least twice in that game, I promise you! Having been at that game, I was a bit disappointed to see my team being matched by a side that’s only just been promoted but that’s again testament to Paul Lambert’s superb job at the club.
Therefore, my call here is over 2.5 goals. Both sides should score in this game and given the importance of it for Wolves and the counter-attacking skills of Norwich, going over 2.5 goals at 4/5 really appeals to me tonight.
Verdict: Over 2.5 goals at 4/5.
Tuesday’s Picks
My tips:
As ever, please find my value tips listed below in no particular order:
Blackburn Rovers vs Bolton Wanderers – home win at 11/10.
This is one of those derbies that…well, nobody is looking forward to. I know a decent amount of fans of both sides and both sets of fans are unhappy with their team. However, they’re unhappy with their respective teams for different reasons and those varying reasons do play a part here in my tip.
Blackburn are unhappy because they think that they should be a more “comfortable” Premier League team. They don’t like their new owners and they take their frustrations out on boss Steve Kean. I’m not a big advocate of their Scottish boss as I think that there are better managers but say what you will about him – he gets his side motivated. He can’t do much about the quality of the side without the necessary money but I think he does a decent job with what he has.
Bolton boss Owen Coyle does well with what he has too. I like his approach a lot – his sides play attacking football and are generally entertaining. However, there’s a huge flaw in his style and that is that when times are hard and they have to dig in away from home because form is bad, they simply do not have a “Plan B”. Look at their contemporaries – Wolves, WBA, QPR etc. – they can all go away from home, play a dour and defensive game and occasionally grind out a result if they need to. That helps to provide a bit of momentum for the following league game but Bolton do not have that luxury as they cannot defend. Subsequently, their morale is horrendous because they’re shipping so many goals and not scoring any, which is a horrendous combination!
Make no mistake here – both sides are a bit shit. There’s no massive quality advantage here. There’s one big advantage that Blackburn have over Bolton, though – they have Yakubu in-form and when he is in-form, he just bangs goals in for fun. He’s a curious player, Yakubu – he looks like he can’t be arsed sometimes but full credit to him at the moment; he’s working his backside off for his team and he’s reaping the rewards.
Yakubu gives Blackburn a goal threat and Bolton should be concerned here. They’re still missing two instrumental players in Holden and Lee in midfield because it removes the core of their midfield and thus the likes of Klasnic don’t get the service that they need. Klasnic is a good striker but he’s feeding off scraps! Blackburn do have goal threats and I think they’ll outscore Bolton here, especially with their Championship-esque defence looking frighteningly bad at times. Just imagine how it’ll look when Gary Cahill leaves in January!
Anyway – for me, Blackburn at 11/10 is well worth it here. I expect a scrappy derby with plenty of cards but I can only see Blackburn outscoring a really poor Bolton defence tonight.
Verdict: Blackburn Rovers to win at 11/10.
Vaslui vs Rapid Bucharest – home win at 6/5.
I’d like to have some team news prior to tipping on this game but I’ve not been told any, unfortunately.
However, I do like Vaslui here. Vaslui show up against the big sides; it’s the little sides that they put in half-assed displays against. Vaslui’s home record against the heavyweights of the division is very convincing and they’ve got the firepower in Adailton, Wesley, Sanmartean etc. to beat any side in the Liga. They’re going to be disappointed to be out of the UEFA Europa League, of course, but this is the perfect game for them in the sense that they motivate themselves much more for this type of game and thus I expect a strong Vaslui display tonight. When Vaslui show up, they win; that’s my approach.
Rapid are a good side and won’t be easy to break down but they’ve had a tough few weeks and it’s beginning to show. They were a shade unlucky to lose 2-1 at PSV Eindhoven mid-week but some first-team players were playing, which isn’t ideal for them ahead of this big game against Vaslui. Rapid’s problem has been goalscoring this season, oddly enough. Their home record doesn’t show it but they don’t have a good goalscorer in their squad, in my view. Surdu is hit-and-miss, Pancu is getting old (although is still talented), and their former star striker Cassio is a shadow of his former self. Now, like I said, this doesn’t show in their home games but it really does in their away games. This side has failed to score in four out of their last six Liga away games and considering that they’re currently one of the best sides in Romania, that record is simply not good enough and will cost them their title challenge unless they improve.
If Rapid don’t score here, they’re going to lose, in my view. That’s pretty much what I envision happening, too. Vaslui are more than good enough to get a goal or two here and Rapid just don’t look capable of matching the firepower of their hosts in this game so the home win at 6/5 really appeals to me tonight, although again, I would prefer to have seen team news prior to giving this tip!
Verdict: Vaslui to win at 6/5.
As ever, if there are any explanations required then please feel free to post a comment! For the remainder of my thoughts on today’s games, see below, although I feel compelled to write that the below are not necessarily my tips but merely my thoughts to prevent endless questions about my thoughts on certain games!
Chilean Primera Division:
Cobreloa vs Colo Colo (5) 1-2
English Premier League:
Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Norwich City (5) 2-2
Blackburn Rovers vs Bolton Wanderers (7) 2-0, at least one red card in this game
French Ligue 1:
AS Nancy-Lorraine vs Olympique de Marseille (6) 0-1
Italian Serie A:
Siena vs Fiorentina (6) 1-1
Cagliari vs AC Milan (7) 0-2
Romanian Liga:
Vaslui vs Rapid Bucharest (6) 1-0
Enjoy your free betting tips!