Welcome Back Ned

ON Saturday, Nenad Milijas made his first League start since last January, a 0-0 draw at Molineux with Liverpool.  He was then left out of the following game at Hull, a decision I didn’t agree with at the time, and since then has had to make do with sporadic substitute appearances and League Cup games.

He travelled to the World Cup with Serbia, was withdrawn in the defeat to Ghana and didn’t reappear.  His return to Molineux was marred by rumours of poor fitness, and he hardly stood out in the couple of League Cup games he was allowed to play in.  In the space of nine months he had gone from midfield creative force for both Wolves and Serbia to an afterthought, seemingly behind Karl Henry, David Edwards, David Jones, Michael Mancienne and Adlene Guedioura in the pecking order.

And then, Karl Henry’s blood goes to his head at the DW Stadium as he ploughs through Jordi Gomez.  Mancienne picks up the baton against West Ham, and does reasonably well.  But, he can’t play against Chelsea, his parent club.  All of a sudden, we have a massive gap in front of the defence.  Maybe Kevin Foley will fill in there?  Maybe, had Jody Craddock been fit, Richard Stearman would have played at right-back, allowing Foley to move into the middle.  But he wasn’t, so Stearman continued in the centre of the defence.  Just who would answer the call to play in midfield?  Step forward the Super Serb.

The most noticeable thing about Milijas’s performance on Saturday was how deep he played, allowing his partners in midfield David’s Edwards and Jones to push further forward in support of lone-frontman Kevin Doyle.  He may not be the toughest of tacklers, but as I said here, the art of the defensive midfielder is not in his tackling, but in his positional play.  He made three interceptions in midfield; Edwards and Jones didn’t make a single interception between them, the entire team only made fourteen.  To put that into perspective, Michael Essien, Jon Obi Mikel and Yuri Zhirkov only made four interceptions between them.

And then, there was his passing.  We all knew Milijas is undoubtedly the best passer of a ball at the club.  On Saturday, he successfully completed 57 passes out of 57.  If you see any stats saying he made 57 out of 60, they are incorrect- the three times he did give the ball away were crosses and a corner.  What also made a difference were the positions where he received the ball.  Where previously, the defence were more than happy to knock the ball long aiming for whoever happens to be playing on the right-side of midfield to flick on, on Saturday they were giving the ball into Milijas.  It’s no wonder we managed to keep possession, and in fact had more possession than Chelsea.

Just to show the influence that Milijas’s passing had on the rest of the team, here are a few stats:

- Wolves passing v Chelsea: 406 completed passes from 463 attempts (previous season best: 281/360 v Aston Villa)

- Chelsea passing v Wolves: 376 completed passes from 446 attempts (previous season best: 491/555 v West Brom)

- Nenad Milijas passes: 57/57

- David Jones passes: 70/80 (previous season best: 43/54 v Aston Villa)

- Christophe Berra passes: 32/32 (previous season best: 15/16 v West Ham)

Although Milijas only played one successful pass into the penalty area, he allowed our attacking to build in a different way.  Safe in the knowledge that it was unlikely that Jones or Milijas would concede possession, the likes of Edwards, Matt Jarvis, Jelle Van Damme, and later Stephen Hunt, and even the fullbacks Foley and Stephen Ward could push forward without having to worry about chasing back when the ball was lost.  Jarvis had the license to give Ashley Cole a very difficult game, and with slightly more luck in the penalty area, could easily have come away with one or two assists.  We all know that Milijas has dynamite in his boots, and he was slightly unfortunate that all of his five shots were straight at Petr Cech, who later admitted that it was his busiest match in a Chelsea shirt.  Seeing as we had comfortably the least amount of shots in the Premier League before Saturday (I’ve not seen the revised stats yet), it was nice to see players not afraid to hit a few shots.

Any worries about him not lasting 90 minutes are now gone.  Saturday could well have been the first game of the rest of Nenad Milijas’s career.  With Karl Henry due back on Saturday for the home game with Manchester City, I would love to see a double pivot of Henry and Milijas, allowing David Jones to push forward.  Two passing midfielders, with the possibility of Matt Jarvis and Stephen Hunt could mean that our previous problems in front of goal are a thing of the past.  I’m not going to get too excited just yet, not with our current run of games, but I’m starting to believe that we’ve got the players to give us an ample chance of getting out of this mess.