A Year Is A Long Time In Football

On the one hand, Glenn Hoddle must be thankful of the breathing space that gives his medical staff time to patch up his bruised and battered threadbare squad. On the other he will be ruing the 2 week lay off that has come just as his men are finding their teeth.

And find their teeth they must. Almost a year to the day that Dave Jones was sacked, Wolves find themselves in more or less the same place they were when Jones paid the ultimate price for a faltering start to the season, a fact not lost on the Molineux faithful.

So if there has been little change in league placing. how far forward have the club come in the last year?

Behind the scenes, The Compton Training Ground development is finally finished, and it was well worth the wait. The £3.3m state-of-the-art training complex opened this week with much media interest. 10 years in planning, The Jack Hayward Training Centre is a top quality facility with amenities usually only found at a handfull of top Premiership sides. Glenn Hoddle commented that it outshone the (old) Chelsea facility, and was even better than those he enjoyed at at Monaco. We have Prozone, the computerised graphical statistics program installed, after Hoddle had convinced Jez Moxey and tHe Board of its worth, and communication between the club and fans is much improved.

So yes, the club has moved forward in the last year. But success is judged on the pitch, not in the backroom.

Last November we had a depleted squad, seemingly at sixes and sevens with the Management. and moral was low both on and off the pitch. In contrast we now have a squad of players all dedicated to the managers grand plan, but whose only consistency, is their inconsistency.

Performances may be irratic, but the style of play Hoddle has brought with him can only be seen as an improvement. We havent had the most shots on goal in all divisions by chance, although failiure to convert an acceptable percentage of them is a constant. source for concern.

The squad we have now is virtually the one Jones left in place, with Hoddle yet to make wholesale changes.After the capture of former Celtic Captain Jackie McNamara for free, fans waited with baited breath for the clubs next big name signing. And they waited. And they waited, and finally Darren Anderton arrived on a free from Birmingham City. But this apparent inactivity shouldnt have come as a total surprise to anyone. Hoddle maintains a high risk transfer strategy, identifying a main target and pursuing it, rather than a general scattergun approach, and also likes to conduct discussions in absloute secrecy. He has also stated that the type of player he will be looking for on loan will more than likely be at a Premiership side, and that they may be the least likely to release the players he wants.

So far the loan additions he has made, have been good aquisitions. Rohan Ricketts turned his loan into a permanent move, Gabor Gyepes has settled in well, and Stefan Postma is showing why Hoddle brought him here, but the highest praise must be reserved for his last loan signing, Tom Huddlestone.

Although initially only for a month, Huddlestones arrival came at a crucial time when further failure to win games could have been catastrophic and instantly showed why Spurs paid 2.5 mill. for him. He also showed that perhaps quantity is not always better than quality, and that some things are worth waiting for. In his short stay he has turned the midfield into a cohesive unit, confident going forward, and comfortable protecting the back four.

All good so far.

There are however still areas that leave fans with very real concerns. 

Hoddles men still have an alarmingly poor record in front if goal. Under Jones, an inability to convert penalty kicks was an albattross Wolves couldnt seem to lose. Under Hoddle the problem has moved even closer to goal and now sits inside the 6 yard box. We have the same goals scored as this point  last year, but with more than half of those coming in 3 fixtures. From a team creating more chances than any other, this simply is not good enough. Injuries may have played a part in this, but so did they for Dave Jones' side who were in the position of promoting a young Leon Clarke to the first team almost straight from the Academy.

Attendances, the lifeblood of the club have seen a 15% downturn, ammounting to a shortfall in revenue of around 2 million pounds. Not something to be proud of, and a sobering glimpse of the future should Wolves not gain promotion this term.With no more parachute payments and no bottomless pit of Bahamian based money cutbacks would have to be made and any redevelopment of Molineux would be put on hold. Many fear that this may spark the kind of freefall fans had hoped never to see again, one that this time could be doubly difficult to climb out of.

On balance, the report is a positive one. The club are in a much healthier position to get promoted now than this time last year. Confidence has returned to the squad, that on paper and at full strength is still one of the best in the division, and improvements have been made to facilities to  make us a more attractive proposition to potential signings. If that can pe proved in the January transfer window with the aquisition of a consistent goalscorer, there is every reason to believe that Wolves fans can once again look forward to seeing top flight football at a club once considered the best in the europe, if not the world.