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1980’s Novelty hits, traffic lights and possibly a mention of some football – though we wouldn’t bank on it. Yes it’s another Preview Percy , er, preview...

Next up its up the M1 and M6 we traipse to the oddly-named Molineux where our hosts will of course be Wolverhampton Wanderers. Kick-off on Tuesday is at 8pm and, as far as I can see , there is no official televisual coverage hereabouts though no doubt those of you from climes foreign will have access to some sort of feed.




So Wolves then. Since the turn of the year they’ve played 10, won three, drawn one and lost six. The wins came at home to Villa and a brace of wins down on the south coast away at Bournemouth (1-0) and, yes you have guessed it, at Southampton where they picked up the obligatory three points in a 2-1 win before the break.

The draw came at home to Everton whilst they lost at home to Forest, Arsenal and Fulham and away to Newcastle, Chelsea and Liverpool where PGMOL finally admitted that the laws of the game don’t apply to Liverpool when they overturned a blatantly incorrect penalty decision but somehow forgot to issue a yellow card to Jota, whose dive was as big an embarrassment to the game as the club he plays for.

Now that sort of form isn’t great, but it should be pointed out that it is likely to be good enough this season where the bottom three seem to have been set adrift. The 26 points gathered by Wolves from the 29 gamed played so far has left them nine points clear of both Ipswich and Leicester and 19 clear of Southampton who are in danger of being lapped.

Immediately above them are us with an eight-point gap being the difference. So in those mini divisions of which pundits are so keen on talking, they are probably in a mini-league of their own.

Like us, they have had a replacement manager over the course of the season. Just before Christmas Vitor Pereira replaced the perennially not-very-cheerful former Hammer Gary O’Neil with them in 19th place, his debut match being a 3-0 defeat of Leicester.

Since then, Leicester’s form has plummeted faster than shares in Tesla and the 10 points they have gleaned have all but assured them a place in the top flight next season, barring a major reversal of form. That being target one for Pereira he brought in three players during the January window.

Daisy tells me that they spent £16.6m to bring in central defender and 1984 novelty hit for Black Lace, Emmanuel Agbadou. Daisy commented that, whilst the signing of the Ivorian international was clearly designed to strengthen a struggling defence, the success of Black Lace was inexplicable given that nobody knows anyone who actually bought that infernal record.

The second winter arrival was another central defender in the form of Nasser Djiga. The Burkina Faso international arrived for £10m from Red Star Belgrade. The defender made his way from Africa via Basel, though he made little impact there and spent time out on loan, firstly in France with Nimes and then at Red Star.




It was only in Serbia that the player began to get regular game time and Red Star elected to make the deal permanent. Nine months later the Serbs cashed-in as Wolves got knocked back on a couple of signings and Djiga made the journey from Serbia to the Black Country on deadline day.

They completed an African hat-trick with the signing of Zimbabwean central defender Marshal Munetsi from Reims. He pitched up in France after four years in South Africa, his last club there being Orlando Pirates. The fee paid to Reims was another £16m which makes the Zimbabwean national side skipper the most expensive player from that country.

One big miss for them will be Brazilian forward Matheus Cunha. Cunha threw a major wobbler at the beginning of March in the 5th round of the cup against Bournemouth. Having been pulled up offside Cunha elected to show his displeasure by sticking the nut on Bournemouth’s Kirkez.

That got him a three-match ban for starters, the FA adding another game as a result of the player having to literally be dragged down the tunnel. He is by far and away their top scorer this season, having got 13 of their 40 league goals this season.

Let’s move on to the Wild And Wacky World Of Association Football. And it was an interesting international window as Scotland managed their usual self-destruction in the Nations League type thing, getting them relegated to League B, whatever that is.

Meanwhile, Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad was a bit odd. Jordan Henderson’s reappearance was credited to the squad needing his “qualities”, those qualities presumably not including his apparently flexible view on minority rights which appear to depend on who his paymaster is at any particular time.

Of course when it didn’t work out in Saudi his principles were such that he postponed a return to the UK, jumping at the chance to play for Ajax in a deal that had absolutely nothing to do with the rather large bill he might face from HMRC if he came straight back to blighty.

In other Liverpool-related news their support – who, as is traditional when they lose a Cup Final, legged it within nanoseconds of the final whistle of their hilarious League Cup Final defeat to Newcastle, seem to have come to the same conclusion as the rest of us, namely that Terence Trent Darby isn’t the “greatest full-back in the world” after all.




That was always one of the more ludicrous claims from Klopp and one that seems to have been negated on Merseyside now it’s become open knowledge that he has been talking with Real Madrid. Maybe one of Liverpool’s underworld community needs to have a quiet word as is their wont on occasions like this, eh Gerrard?

And so to us. Well last time out all those weeks ago we drew 1-1 with Everton. There was a game that ought to have been won. Tomas Soucek is becoming to Everton what Lukaku was to us when he played for them and it was another decent finish for the potato-salad kid.

However we still have this tendency to invite opponents on to us once we have gone a goal up. Now nobody’s saying we should go all gung-ho when we have the lead but as an old skipper of mine from my playing days used to say “let’s play in their half”.

The longer the game went on the more likely an equaliser seemed to be. And so it came to pass. Indeed, we were only a bad finish away from coming away with no points at all. Something to work on Mr Potter.

Still a point’s a point and all that. On the injury front Antonio continues to progress well whilst it will be another month or so for Summerville. The good news is that Coufal and Fullkrug are both likely to be available for the first time in aeons.

Which brings us onto the prediction. The two clubs have a lot in common. Julen Lopetegui, change of managers, wayward (allegedly) Brazilians etc. However, I think the loss of Cunha will be a major factor in this one. We’ve won our last three against them and I think we will have enough to make it four on the trot.

So the £2.50 I was going to spend on sending a photo of the Liverpool players getting their runners-up medals up to Merseyside to show them what they missed, will instead go on a wager with Mr Winstone’s turf accountancy business on an away win. Let’s say 2-1 to us shall we?

Enjoy the game!




When Last We met At Molineux : Won 2-1 Premier League April 2024

File under “eventful”. The home side took the lead in the first half when Emerson gave away a penalty. However, parity was restored when some chap called Kilman handled the ball and Paqueta stuck away the spot-kick. Ward-Prowse then gave us the lead – and ultimately the points – scoring direct from a corner. Fun and games were still to come at the death however as Kilman had a late goal ruled out, a Wolves attacker being stood an inch in front of Fabianski blocking the ‘keeper’s movement from an offside position.

Apart from that, nothing happened.

Referee: Tony Harrington

Referee who hasn’t quite grasped the concept of a “minimum” amount of time to be added on – in our season-opener against villa he announced seven minutes of stoppage of which the ball was actually in play for 3 minutes while we waited for the opposition to take goal-kicks. Took charge of the corresponding fixture last season so won’t be popular at Molineux.

Danger Man: Jorgen Strand Larsen

Norwegian international who is second in the scoring charts to Cunha.

Percy and Daisy’s Wolverhampton Fact Of The Week Type Thing

Apparently the first set of automatic traffic lights in the UK were installed in Wolverhampton in 1927. 3 seconds after being switched on a smug git on a bicycle went straight through a red on the grounds that he was a smug git on a bicycle.

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