It’s been real. It’s really been real. It’s been a career high. Wolves are not very good at the moment and Sheffield United are very bad indeed. So that means it’s goalless.
45 min: Sheffield United attack, and are thwarted by Podence having a nibble at Osborn. The free-kick is cleared. One minute is added on. That’s too long, to be honest.
43 min: Should Wolves be doing better against a rock-bottom team surely headed for relegation? The answer has to be yes.
41 min: David McGoldrick holds the ball up so well that he turns back on himself. He’s a likeable player, but an attacking player without attacking instinct. They used to say that type of thing about Emile Heskey, but Didsy makes Emile look like Pippo Inzaghi when it comes to selflessness on the ball.
38 min: This game is living up to its low billing, it has to be said. The statman on the TV tells us that Wolves have not scored in the first half in 76 matches of 107 in the Premier League so what were we expecting?
37 min: Brewster takes a hell of a whack and Ait Nouri seems to go over the ball. There are howls of protest. Brewster is booked, while Ait Nouri went over the ball. That looked a red for the Wolves player and yet VAR waved it on. That was odd.
35 min: Moutinho carves in a free-kick and Blades clear. It’s all Wolves, and the home team don’t seem to have any interest in countering.
33 min: Ait Nouri, cutting in from the left, whacks one with his right. A save from Ramsdale, and one that warms his hands.
32 min: David McGoldrick, another striker accused of doing his best work outside the box, turns away from goal instead of shooting.
30 min: Podence has been neat and tidy in midfield, and he’s been a rare ray of sunshine for Wolves in a season that can be cut down the middle - pre-Jimenez injury and post-Jimenez injury. Traore nods the ball down and Podence launches one from distance it flies over. Blades are there for the taking.
28 min: Wolves try a pretty pattern. They could do with a striker who gets up front but Willian Jose seems to be one of those strikers who has run out of the confidence to actually get in the box and play “centre crash”, as they used to call it in the north west.
25 min: A Rhian Brewster shot, picking up on scraps on the edge of the box, but he gets zero power on it and a deflection to boot. 26 matches this season, no goals. It’s been a tough season for him.
24 min: Wolves haven’t looked much like scoring, beyond that piece of Boly improv.
21 min: Blades are, to remind you all, 19 points from safety, with only 21 to play for. It’s been as bad as a season as Swindon 1994, Derby 2008, Ipswich 1995, Sunderland x 2 (2004 and 2006?), and that Fulham one where they had about eight managers and rounded it off with Magath (2014). There must be others. But that sense of being down after just a few matches has been suffered by a select band.
19 win: Wolves have a corner, Conor Coady roams forward. Saiss goes to the near post. Then another corner comes. Ait Nouri takes from the left, then Boly tries a backheel before Ollie Norwood heads it away, off the bar and into the arms of a grateful Aaron Ramsdale.
17 min: Nuno not happy when Willian Jose decides not to release the ball when Traore is bombing on. Though the football is tepid there’s a lot of shouting from the sidelines and on the field. Everyone’s a pro.
15 min: Paul Heckingbottom, a man hired to drive the bus off the edge of the cliff, chews away on the sideline. The inevitable has not happened yet.
13 min: Traore fell heavily to the floor. There is a brief worry that he has damaged his shoulder, an injury he has suffered from before. Thankfully, he’s fine. No real damage.
11 min: Wolves resume their passing metronome until the ball hits the ref. That now means that the play stops, under rules brought in last summer. Howard Webb always used to get in the way of the ball. He’d never have become a World Cup final referee if that had been the rule.
9 min: This game could hardly be said to have been played at a breakneck pace. One for the purists, not the neutrals as Kevin said below. Wolves have started to dominate possession.
7 min: Traore send wide by a nice pass by Moutinho, but across comes Kian Bryan to stop the danger. Enda Stevens picks up a knock but seems OK to continue.
5 min: Wolves’ turn to pass the ball round tepidly. There’s not much adventure out there. Coady plays a long pass to Traore who is found to be offside.
3 min: An early Blades corner, won by Baldock. Wolves really sitting back here, a classic rope-a-dope from Nuno or are his players on the beach?
2 min: It’s all Blades at the start, passing it around like Barcelona, though without actually attacking the Wolves goal.
1 min: The players take the knee and away we go with an early Sheffield United attack...
Kevin Porter cuts across me. “ It might suit your purpose in mustering up some enthusiasm from the casual neutral MBM watcher (pull the other one though, there are zero neutrals interested in this match) but Nuno is still God as far as us Wolves fans are concerned. It’s bordering on insanity even to suggest his position might be in the slightest doubt.”
I’ve been called worse, but we have all seen a popular manager lose his touch, and those in charge take steps that fans may not agree with. That one of those in charge is the agent who Nuno met when he was a reserve goalie and the agent was a DJ means it’s unlikely but stranger things have happened. Also, Spurs need a manager soon, too...
Paul Heckingbottom speaks to Sky Sports.
[Relegation]’s been a noose round everyone necks for a long time. Forget about that. The only thing we can control is how we behave on and off the field.
Nuno speaks to Sky Sports.
We must improve. The absence of important players we feel, we miss them, the other options we have, we totally trust them. It’s a tough game. It’s always been tough playing against Sheffield United, and we expect another one.
Some Sheffield United news, as reported last night: Prince Musaad Bin Khalid Al Saud, their chairman, stepped down. With Chris Wilder gone, the Blades who go down to the Championship will be a very different club.
This might end up being a very bad night for Blades, but at least they haven’t just blown the chance to win an unprecedented quadruple.
For Wolves, there are two changes for Wolves from their win at Fulham. Willy Boly is back after Covid-19. Joao Moutinho is selected in midfield as Ruben Neves is quarantined. Pedro Neto will be out for the foreseeable with a knee injury.
Wolves (@Wolves)
Here's how Wolves line-up for tonight's @premierleague fixture against @SheffieldUnited. #WOLSHU
April 17, 2021
For Blades, Rhian Brewster, the big-money signing who really hasn’t worked out, gets a start as Ollie Burke drops out. John Lundstram, one of the stars of those bright and shiny early days in the Premier League is shunted out as Kean Bryan comes in.
Sheffield United (@SheffieldUnited)
Brewster & McGoldrick lead the line!
Here's how the Blades line-up for today's game at Molineux.#SUFC 🔴 pic.twitter.com/ta6s4s0Qqw
April 17, 2021
Wolverhampton: Rui Patricio, Saiss, Coady, Boly, Nelson Semedo, Dendoncker, Joao Moutinho, Ait Nouri, Daniel Podence, Traore, Willian Jose. Subs: Hoever, Silva, Gibbs-White, Vitinha, Ruddy,
Richards, Kilman, Otasowie, Corbeanu.
Sheffield United: Ramsdale, Ampadu, Egan, Bryan, Baldock, Fleck, Norwood, Osborn, Stevens, Brewster, McGoldrick. Subs: Lundstram, Mousset, Lowe, Burke, Jagielka, Foderingham, Bogle, Brunt, Gordon.
Referee: Robert Jones (Merseyside)
This is where the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper in the West Midlands. Newcastle’s win earlier today means Sheffield United simply have to win to prevent the inevitable happening this weekend rather than next week. A draw will also delay the pain. We are in that part of the season when things become ‘mathematically impossible’, rather than hugely unlikely; that has been the case for Blades escaping relegation since a first ball was kicked in September.
Paul Heckingbottom has been dealt the toughest of hands at Bramall Lane, only proving perhaps that the problem was not, in fact, Chris Wilder, who most people (including this writer) still think of as Blades manager in the manner many people still think of Kevin Webster being married to Sally.
Wolves might be the just the opponents to delay the drop, as a team just two places above United in the form table. Doubts circle over Nuno Espírito Santo, one of football’s nice guys, and someone who it would be wrench to say goodbye to. In mitigation for everyone’s friend, Wolves have suffered a horrendous list of injuries to a thin squad.
So, an evening of scintillating football cannot be promised but there may well be a tearful ending and a grimy fate awaiting at the end. And that’s always fun.
Kick-off is 8.15pm, join me.
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