Bom Dia! and welcome back to Molineux, where after a great start, Nick and his increasingly-Portuguese Wolves squad have slipped out of the playoff spots after a few bad results. Can they bounce back as they near the halfway point of the season?

Here’s the current state of play. We’re a point outside the playoff spots after a terrible end to last week, where we suffered four consecutive defeats. There is however a 10-point gap between us and 9th place, so it could be worse. Let’s hope for better things this week…

We start at Stoke with our best performance in a while (the bar is low). There’s a Thorne between two Bully goals, and a man of the match display from big Neville Southall, but today is our day, and we can even afford to miss a penalty. Just what the doctor ordered.

Time for our first Black Country derby against struggling West Brom. Bully gets us off the mark and Sérgio doubles our lead before The Albion show that they’re still in the Hunt. Our defence stands firm and we secure the local bragging rights. Back-to-back wins send us 4th.

We’re not content with a three-goal lead at Swindon, and let them score two in as many minutes just to make it interesting. Thankfully, The Frog and a second for Bully give us more daylight before a late Ndah consolation. And just like that, we’re back up to 2nd!

And then Forest remind us that we’re not out of the woods just yet. It’s no surprise that Van Hooijdonk buries his first chance, although it’s only his 6th goal this season. By the time The Frog gets a consolation, the damage is already done, and we sit 4th at the halfway point.

So, back to the start we go. The Tractor Boys are clearly out for revenge, and they’re in front just before half time. Richard Wright does what Richard Wright does, but Dougie is on target half an hour earlier than normal and the points are shared, probably a fair result.

A few wins are enough to get me back in the board’s good books, for now…

The squad was full, but we’re in desperate need of a central midfielder. I’ve been rotating Cavaco, Dougie and Bully in that position up until now, but with no success, so I pay £28k to release Don Goodman, and then fill his space with this lad from Pacos Ferreira for £600k.

Pinto goes straight into the side and assists two of our three goals in a pathetic performance at 2nd-from-bottom Bury. Adie Mike really is starting to get on my tits now. I expect the board to say abysmal result, but they decide the best punishment is to say nothing at all…

I’d like to take a quick break from the action just to say that never in my 27 years of playing this game have I ever seen Sol Campbell sign for Aston Villa, and for such a low fee as well…

Back to it, and we lead Bradford from the spot against the run of play after riding an early storm, and Bully makes it two before The Bantams deservedly pull one back. We look to have thrown another lead away, but Coelho channels his inner Dougie to snatch the points.

The Frog puts us ahead at lowly Crewe, and is our best player on the pitch until he gets injured and then they equalise. We waste chance after chance and inevitably pay the price and go behind. Dougie rescues a point from the bench, but it’s still a shite result. Boo.

I’ll admit I saw this coming, and it makes our win at the Riverside seem like a fluke. That said, we have 9 shots on target but there’s just no beating Mark Schwarzer today. Despite the hammering, there’s one man who remains unfazed and resumes his business as usual…

After our less-than-consistent league form, the FA Cup comes as a welcome distraction. I make a couple of changes, but it makes no difference whatsoever, and it’s another 90 minutes of wastefulness up front and dire defending as The Blades cut us to ribbons and send us out.

City are similarly unsympathetic, with 29 shots at our goal. We get a couple back in quick succession, including a first of the season for Luís Fernando, but the gap is just too big. As a certain Mr. Pochettino said not too long ago… “When we are bad, we’re so, so bad”…

We’re immediately down to ten men against QPR, and are more than a tad fortunate after they have not one, but two goals disallowed, so a draw doesn’t seem like the worst result considering the circumstances. On the positive side, it’s our first clean sheet in 16 games… 16!

Bobby Gould actually resigned from the Wales job in this save, rather than giving the Welsh FA the usual satisfaction of sacking him, so it’s nice to see him back in management, even if he couldn’t have picked a worse club to join…

We end the year with our first win in 6 games at Port Vale as Bully and Coelho get the new year celebrations underway. It’s also a good day at the other end as we keep our 2nd clean sheet in a row! The win takes us back into the playoff spots. Could things be on the up at last?

We lead early in the West Midlands derby, until Birmingham, who are also in playoff contention, turn the game on its head with half an hour left. But late goals are our forte, and we catch them up on the final Furlong to make it a Desmond and earn a valuable point.

We’re instantly behind at Fratton Park, and have to wait until almost the hour before Coelho scores for the third game running, and Pinto gets the winner 2 minutes later. It’s a good win all things considered, and it keeps us in the playoff spots with 13 games remaining.

So we end the week a place better off than where we started it. We’re 4 points adrift from Birmingham above us, and a point ahead of Stoke below us. The Potters do have a game in hand on us, but we still have to play them again yet towards the end of the season…

Do come back next week for the season finale, where we face a tough run of games including the top two, Sheffield United and Sunderland, and the two below us, Stoke and Norwich, which should be fun. We must finish strongly if we’re to stand any chance of getting into the Premier League at the first attempt. Adeus!