Bom Dia! and welcome once again to more Friday frolics with Nick and his squad of Portuguese Wolves, who after making a great start to their second season in the Premiership, have been going through a blip lately. Can they sort it out this week?…
Despite sliding from 4th to 9th last week, we’re only 6 points off 2nd spot, so it’s not actually as bad as it sounds. Let’s see how many places we can climb with just 16 games remaining…
We start by getting knocked out of the FA Cup at the hands of Sheffield United, as José Veiga has a debut to forget in our goal. There’s no shame in conceding a Tom Youngs strike, but I’ve no idea who the other bloke is…
Old Trafford has been a surprisingly happy hunting ground for us so far, but despite being 10th, United are in no mood to be messed around, and lead after 5 minutes, but we battle back and leave with a well-earned point.
Oddly, we have a 3-week break with no game before facing league leaders and midlands rivals, Aston Villa. We look to be heading for another good point, only to come unstuck at the end and leave with Niel points…
The recent slump hasn’t gone unnoticed by the board, and after being in the Premiership for just under two seasons now, apparently 8th place is no longer good enough for them…
But just as all is starting to look lost, things finally take a turn for the better in front of a record 36,997 spectators against 4th-placed Leicester, thanks to Pauleta, who gives us a 1-0 lead to sit on for the remaining 87 minutes…
We follow the narrow win over the foxes with another against rock-bottom Spurs, where the usually invincible Ian Walker has a rare off-day and is surprisingly easy to score against, as Capucho and Pauleta do the damage.
European football returns after a 3-month break, and we make it three wins in as many games with a solid away performance on Tyneside to put one foot (or paw, seeing that we’re Wolves) in the UEFA Cup semi finals…
A visit from Wednesday is all about the fours… Pauleta scores for the fourth game running to set us on the way to a fourth win in a row, but despite a red card, the visitors equalise four minutes from the final whistle. Four f*ck sake!
The points are shared again in a rescheduled midweek catch up game at Elland Road, which extends our recent unbeaten run to 5 games, but I’d rather the two extra points. This Cassin bloke is really starting to p*ss me off…
A dismal stalemate at Stamford Bridge with 17th-placed Chelsea follows, thanks mainly to Mickael Landreau again, but it’s not all doom and gloom as the point lifts us to 6th place…
My keeper’s fine form is finally rewarded with a call up to the national side, well done Miggy.
And carrying on the four theme, Newcastle take the lead in the fourth minute, but we grab a late equaliser to make it four draws in a row and progress to the last four of the UEFA Cup…
Our reward for despatching The Toon is a quarter of a million and a semi with Real Madrid. Oh joy…
Liverpool end our unbeaten run in a match that’s all done and dusted inside 7 minutes. It probably should have been a heavier defeat, but our keeper is man of the match and most of the defenders have 8/10, which says it all…
The arrival of Veiga means that I now have four keepers, so I say a permanent Ciao to Cao.
And Hugo Porfirio, who has quite frankly been useless, has the choice between Southend, Carlisle and Chesterfield, and opts for the latter…
There are no deadline day incomings, but I decide to let Manarte leave as we’ve got a lot of strikers, with Alexandre doing well out on loan and staking his claim for next season…
We’ve enjoyed playing Newcastle lately, and in our third meeting with them in a month, Pinto marks his return from injury with a goal, and his midfield partner in crime joins him on the score sheet to take us up to 5th in the table…
I was frustrated after all those draws, so this is a nice surprise…
To the UEFA Cup semis then, and our trip to the Bernabéu goes about as badly as it can, the only silver lining being two away goals, which may or may not come in handy depending on how many we let them score in the second leg.
We’ve never managed to shake off our ability to throw in pathetic performances against the bottom teams. Scoring two against 15th-placed Barnsley would have been great if we didn’t give them a 3-0 head start. The Little Tykes…
We wrap this week up at Craven Cottage, where we take the lead somewhat against the run of play, and the hosts are deservedly level in no time. Try as we may, we just can’t find a winner, and it’s two more points dropped…
So here’s the table after all of that, and after a winning a few and climbing up to 5th, some poor results have seen us drop back down to 9th, where we started this week. We’re only two points outside the European places with four games left though, so all is not lost yet…
A quick look at the squad before we go, and after a few sales, we’re down to my preferred size of 26, with most of the youngsters out on loan getting valuable experience…
So that’s it for another week. Join me again next week for the final 5 league games against Bolton, Birmingham, Arsenal, Coventry and Sheffield United, as well as that second leg with Real Madrid. It’s also a World Cup summer, so we’ll be following Portugal’s progress in Japan to pass some time in the close season. See you then. Adeus!
