Wolves first ever Premiership fixture will commence at Ewood Park, Blackburn, Lancashire on Saturday 16th August 2003 at 3pm.
It’s been a long time in coming, with the most elite domestic league having made do without us since 1992, but certainly it’s better late than never.
After a seemingly short summer, the most eagerly awaited football season in modern times returns for the boys in gold and black.
Unfortunately some of the heroes of last season’s promotion campaign won’t be on the pitch to partake. We will miss the services of Super Jo, King Kenny and Sparky who would have been surely in the first choice starting eleven.
We will also see the first competitive appearance in a Wolves shirt for Steffen Iversen, Jody Craddock and Silas. Others will look on from the bench hoping to get a flavour of what to expect in the following 37 games.
So what’s going to happen?
Well I think the 4,000 Wolves fans in the way end will hopefully be in a party mood in the summer sunshine. The presence of a designated ‘away boozer’ will crank up the adrenalin and excitement and quell the fears of what is to follow.
When Incey leads the team onto the pitch the noise and excitement will be as good as at Cardiff in May.
From then on it’s in the selected 11 players to do us justice and give as good as they get to try and get us off to a promising start.
If we produce the sort of one-off performances that we saw last season, then we are capable of surprising Blackburn. For our hosts, they will have seen the opening day fixture as a ‘preferable’ start compared with some of the more daunting opposition that will populate the top few places in the final standings. However, complacency could replace expectancy and they could be left with egg on their faces.
For us, well we are not expected to win. I think the majority of the fans don’t hold high hopes for this particular fixture but it will give us more of an insight into how near we are the pace and skill level of the division.
Who will play?
I think Jones will opt for a 4-5-1 formation that he used in the later stages of last season when on our travels. He’ll go for containment and a solid shape to let the team pick up the pace without finding the game beyond us.
My gut feeling is for a starting line up of:
Murray
Irwin – Craddock – Butler – Naylor
Camara – Cameron – Ince – Silas – Cooper
Iversen
With the confirmed absence of Kennedy, Cooper fits the bill as he’s match fit however, he did play in the Man City reserve match which has previously excluded players from the first team starting line up. Another niggle for Newton may see Camara make the starting line-up. For others like Blake it’s too soon. Ince will play in front of the back four and Cooper and Camara will be asked to track back to cover the fullbacks.
Iversen will get support from forward runs from Cameron and Silas and hopefully won’t become too isolated. It’s important that Iversen can link up with the midfield too relieve the inevitable pressure that the defence will find themselves under.
We also need to make Blackburn work for any goals they may score. No defensive mistakes Mr.Butler please! Last season Blackburn were held to an opening day 0-0 draw with Sunderland so there is hope.
With Blackburn lacking the creativity of Duff and Dunn it will be interesting to see where they are going to get goals from. With Souness looking to bizarrely add Jason Roberts to his forward line perhaps they are not going to be the same side that finished in the final UEFA Cup place last season – fingers crossed!
My prediction?
Well, it’s going to be a great and memorable day out but I think the absence of too many key players and, some who will start lacking match fitness, it’s going to be too early for us to make a mark.
I think Blackburn will struggle to open us up, but I think they will eventually, and go onto win 2-0, which, would be no disgrace.
However, with the Charlton fixture a much more reasonable prospect, don’t get too down before you’ve seen us on our own patch. I’ll be there; I’ll bring you a full match report over the weekend.
Wolves-mad in the Premiership 2003.
E-mail me with any comments or feedback to: dave@wolves-mad.co.uk