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Next we trek up to the West Midlands where we will be hosted by Wolverhampton Wanderers. Kick-off on what I believe will be Saturday, but don't quote me on that, is at 3pm.

Now, the usual route up there by train involves leaving from Euston. However, engineering work around the Milton Keynes area will mean a replacement bus for part of that journey, so leave extra time or consider alternative routes. Perhaps including Marylebone?




So Wolves, then. Well they've had a first half in which, to paraphrase Emperor Hirohito's famous use of litotes, "The season has developed not necessarily to their advantage".

Their draw at Old Trafford the other day increased their points total by 50% and brought to an end a run of 11 defeats on the trot. Following the amassing - and that's probably the wrong word - of their two other points - a 1-1 draw at Tottenham and the same result at home to Brighton.

All of which has left them bottom of the pile with three points from 19 played. That's 11 points behind us and 15 points shy of Nottingham Forest, who are sitting in the last of the safety spots.

This has had a bit of an effect at the top of the club. Chairman Jeff Shi finally accepted some responsibility for the club's position and resigned just before Christmas. So it is possible, just saying.

This hasn't, however, resulted in a change of ownership. Shi remains involved with the club's Chinese owners Fosun International as does Shi's interim replacement as interim chairman, Nathan "no relationship" Shi.

Shi version 2.0 has restated Fosun's commitment to the club. A comment perhaps not the most welcome statement from an incoming chairman that the Molineux faithful were hoping for. Still, they can always take comfort from the fact that at least they're not Tottenham.

Now our issues here with the broadband and Sky's inability to provide a service they were being paid quite handsomely for has now reached the stage of legal action, so I should probably limit to my comments by saying yet again, Daisy has been prevented from her usual extensive research into their new signings this season.




Suffice to say that the exercise of a €30million option to buy the hitherto on-loan Jurgen Strand Larsen from Celta Vigo doesn't seem to have paid the dividends that they might have expected from the player's initial 14-goal season - in particular considering his return this term of one league goal from 11 games, they might actually be regretting turning down a bit of £55 million for the player from Newcastle.

On the injury front, Toti Gomez (thigh),Marshall Munetsi (calf), Jean-Ricner Bellegarde (thigh), Rodrigo Gomes (groin) and Leon Chiwome (knee) are all definitely out for our hosts.

Time then to move on to the wild and wacky world of Association Football. And the world of football took time out from laughing at Tottenham to return, as is traditional, for a brief giggle at Chelsea, who parted company with Enzo Maresca, neither party appearing too upset at the divorce.

Of course, it's not unusual for Chelsea to change their manager. They do it with the same regularity as the average Tottenham fan changes their underwear.

Still on Chelsea, it was recently reported that the money paid for the club has still yet to make its way to the Ukrainian recipients specified in the deal that took the club out of Russian mafia-financed ownership. Next time one of their self unaware moron supporters tells you that we "sold our soul, just remind them at least we had one in the first place.

And so to us. Stop me if you heard this before but this was yet another point where there should have been three on the table. We saw the good, the bad and the ugly from Lucas Paqueta, his pass for Bowen's goal was reminiscent of the ball he played through to the same player in Prague.

And he was his usual, reliable self from the spot for the penalty, though that daft run up is still a worry to me. In between, of course, he gave away a ludicrous penalty and whenever the ball was played to him, it was a toss up whether he find a teammate or an opponent.




On the brighter side of things, the game did see a solid comeback from young Ollie Scarles, and the generous applause he received when he got things right was kind of heartwarming.

Referee, of course, was worse than ever, Salisbury nearly forgetting a blow for Welbeck's second touch off the crossbar. This sort of thing that was always question number one in those 'You are the Ref' cartoons in those football magazines I read as a kid. It was almost if someone had to remind him through his earpiece.

As for the penalty that we were given, he appeared to be the only person in the ground who thought Dunk's save wasn't a penalty. And the time spent in front of the VAR screen must have been spent in trying to find an excuse for not giving the spot kick in the first place. As for his decision to award only a yellow card was questionable in the extreme.

Given that Kavanagh, who had such a nightmare against Fulham, was somehow promoted to the UEFA list last week I can only presume that so-called select group places are now done by virtue of some sort of lottery. Or maybe a competition on the side of a cornflake packet?

Team news and for the 60th time or thereabouts, we've signed a striker - hurrah! In an unusual departure for the current regime, at 22 Pablo is actually well short of drawing his pension, so we'll have to pay his full wages rather than sending him to the Post Office for a top up every week.

He signed in time to go into the squad for Saturday although one suspects he's more likely to get a run out from the racing car seats than a start. Other signings are reportedly on the way and I think I'll comment on those of them when they arrive.

However, it almost seems like our chairman has finally tweaked that his investment will dwindle in value should relegation happen.




Through the out door goes Niclas Fullkrug who has signed from Milan, ostensibly on loan, although few expected to make the return to London when the loan spell is complete.

One wishes him a bit more luck than he had with us, what with him getting injured pretty much within seconds of arriving and never quite getting fit enough to get a sustained run in the side. Again, there'll be others on the way out, but again, I think it's probably better to wait until those moves happen.

On the injury front, Jean-Clair Todibo had a tight groin that truncated his participation the other night and that's left him 50/50 for this one. Malick Diouf and Aaron Wan-Bissaka are still in Morocco, though Igor Julio will be about having sat Tuesday out due to being league-tied.

So at this point, I shall move on to the prediction. Under normal circs, we ought to be thinking of this as a shoo-in for three points. However, there are a couple of things bugging me on this one.

Firstly, this habit of turning three points into one and one into none is getting far too prevalent of late. Then there is the fact that we haven't actually played them in the Premier League yet. This gives rise to the potential of our old reputation of being sequence-busters raising its ugly head.

So it is with no little trepidation that I will go for us to pick up a nervy three points this time around. So please, Mr. Winstone, if you can place the £2.50 I was going to spend on a new calendar to tell me what the Hell the day is today and take it and put it on a 2-1 win to us.

Enjoy the game!

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