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Moxey hails McCarthy’s achievement
Tuesday 4th May 2010, 11:30AM BST.
Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey has saluted boss Mick McCarthy for the “remarkable” achievement in bucking the trend in the Premier League’s spending table.
Moxey, who will pay tribute to the manager and his players at tonight’s gala end of season awards dinner at Telford International Centre, has long held the theory that clubs’ level of expenditure equates to a parallel position in their finishing position at the end of the season.
But McCarthy led the team to survival – and what could still be a 14th-placed finish – with what is believed to be the second lowest budget in the Premier League behind relegated Burnley. The Wolves boss spent around £18million on 11 players over the two windows following promotion 12 months ago.
The club are well behind relegated Hull and Portsmouth when it comes to wages – a point emphasised by McCarthy after the 3-1 defeat to Pompey at the weekend who believed that their front four players earned and cost more than his entire team.
Moxey said: “We’ve been very prudent in running our business and our achievement is underscored by this table of wealth against table of expenditure.
“Over a period of three or four years whoever spends the most normally finishes at the top. Whoever spends the least normally finishes at the bottom.
“We’ve bucked the trend and that’s down to Mick, the players and everybody working together towards a clearly defined target.
“I can’t speak more highly about the job Mick, Terry Connor and all the backroom staff have done. I think it’s remarkable.
“The achievement is not because we’ve spent more than others on players’ transfer fees and wages – on the contrary.
“We’ve done it very sensibly.”
Moxey acknowledged the players have adjusted to the Premier League as they have gone through the season.
He said: “I think this team has got better as the season has unfolded, which to me is the mark of a really good team and manager.
“We had lost one in our last eight games before Saturday and that was against Arsenal at the Emirates who scored in the 95th minute.
“We didn’t start like that but we’ve got better.”
Moxey was the prime mover in McCarthy’s appointment almost four years ago but has struck up by far the best relationship with the 51-year-old of any of the four managers in his decade at Molineux, and now rates the former Republic of Ireland boss the best the club has had in 30 years.
But the chief executive believes the stability at the top which has been allowed to flourish under owner and chairman Steve Morgan is the key to Wolves’ success.
He said: “It’s all about trying to help Mick and get the right team together to be as successful as we can possibly be. Stability is a major part of everything, because it’s such a difficult job.
“It’s not like any other business – you publish your results every Saturday when you have a game. If it doesn’t go well we have to deal with the press and media, because of the interest of the supporters.
“There are so many differences in football than anything else so stability, good communication and everyone being on the same page is paramount.
“There’s no other agenda here. We haven’t got an owner who is looking to do something which is not in line with what the manager wants. We haven’t got a chief executive trying to do something which isn’t in line with that the manager wants.
“We haven’t got a manager who is trying to do something which isn’t in line with what the club is all about and how we are trying to do things.”
McCarthy enjoys the trust from above that he gives his own players.
He said: “It’s being comfortable and trusting each other and trust is a vital part of it. I need that trust from above like I trust my players and I get that.
“It really is about being comfortable in your own skin as well and not being paranoid. It’s about realising everything is being done is done for the club because we all get the benefit of it.
“If anything is thrown into Jez or Steve or me, we’ll all discuss it.”
The manager is convinced that stabilising the club in the Premier League allied to careful spending is the key to Wolves’ development over the next few years.
He said: “Go back to Charlton under Alan Curbishley and how many years he did it – I’m sure he wasn’t going mad with the dough. Stoke have done it comfortably this year. Teams have done it.
“I’ll just follow the process of having the players in and working with them with TC and the staff to get the best out of them.”
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Sign: NICKY MAYNARD NOW !!
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Now lets not get our hopes up for next season. We need to do a ‘Stoke’ or a Brum. lets not start thinking of Europe and the rest. Survival next year must be the target but hopefully we can secure this well before the seasons end.
The three M’s have done great and I hope the players are due a very big bonus because they really deserve it for their tenacity, their guts and their spirit.We the fans are proud of the lot of them and I hope they know that.
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A big pat on the back to all concerned for this season. They’ve stayed calm in the face of the adversity generated by tens of thousands of us fans at various points throughout the season. I for one wanted McCarthy sacked after the Palace game and also suspected nearly all season that moxey’s wage structure would ultimately cost us dear. However, they’ve proved many of us completely wrong. The important thing now is not to spend too long patting each other on the back and move forward as I believe that the premier league will be a far stronger division next season. We need to improve the squad significantly while maintaining the workrate and team ethic that has been true of us this season. Not an easy job but (I never thought I’d say this but) in the 3M’s I trust!
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One swallow does not a summer make. More of this mutual back slapping and I think I am going to throw up. Leaving the euphoria to one side, congrats again & the reality is if we don’t spend, we will have to bore our way to survival. If we do, we may survive and entertain the fans,however we may still worry about our finances, the economic future is bleak and uncertain. It’s a bit of a tightrope walk and I’m sure Moxey and Mick are aware of it and will do the best they can.
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I would not broadcast at this moment in time, when we are looking to find more quality signings, that we pay the lowest in the league. Let players find out what the club is about first, then they might be willing to accept less, if they buy into the ethos of the club.
Hopefully one day soon, pay will not be an issue, because we are at the top half of the league, year in, year out.
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I would just like to echo those sentiments and to spread the praise further to Both Messers Moxey and Morgan. We have achieved something huge this season and the scale of that achievement should not be underestimated.
Amidst a backdrop of clubs in massive debt and administration cases gathering by the week we are one of only a select few clubs who operate as a fully functioning and profit making business. Other clubs actually talk of ‘doing a Wolves’ as our club now stands as a model for good practice and Premier League survival.
I know there will be folk coming on these threads with unrealistic expectations and decrying the fact that we haven’t won the league and we have missed the signing of Lionel Messi but lets get real we are in an awesome position to kick on and secure our long term Premiership future and hopefully achieve further honours to add to our illustrious past.
Well done to all at the club!
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Both 2 & 3 have hit the nail on the head. I would just add the words “Hardwork and Committment” to the many attributes that have kept us in the Premiere League.
Well done to all those concerned!
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Lets not get carried away the Wolves did very well to get the points needed to say up. They played good football and mostly went out to win games, but as other teams have found out that in the premiership playing good football and looking the business don’t count for nothing if you get diddly squat out of a game points wise. This I think Mick realised later on in the season, and cut his cloth accordingly, no more being his usual stubborn self and sticking through thick and thin with the 4-4-2 formation which looked pretty but against the majority of established premiership teams you eventually get turned over especially if your forwards are not doing the business. As Mick said on tv recently they had to get as many points as possible anyway they could even if the fans didn’t like it. I think next season is going to be a lot harder as some teams who took it for granted that they are established premiership teams got a shock and found themselves fighting near the bottom of the table for majority of the season. So Mick will have his work cut out trying to get players in of better quality than he already has, because ever team will be trying to do the same and lets face it no premiership class player wants to come to the Midlands, they all want to be in London or up North, the Midlands is like no mans land during WW1 stuck between the poncy chav southern clubs and the mega cash cow northern clubs(Man City in perticular). Lets hope all the Midland clubs do well next season and with a bit of luck either Notts Forest or Leicster get promoted so there will be loads of local awaydays and maybe just maybe the dinosaurs who run the FA might find out just where the Midlands is. How many Midlands players have been in the England team on a regular basis. it’s probably going back to the 70′s / 80′s that we had an England player with more than 30 caps.
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Enough of this brother in arms business, we all know that jez does a thankless job that none of us will be happy with from time to time.Compensated by a huge pay packet!!!!
The time to reflect on your own performances is at the end of your reign when we the fans hail you as a sucess or failure. As it stands, you both are doing a fine job, just get the players in for next season before there is a queue of clubs trying to secure there services.
PS, off load 5-6 of the players you brought in last season, they are just not good enough.
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There is no doubt that the success of Wolves progressing from the Championship to retaining our status in the Premiership is down to teamwork both on and off the pitch.
Too often we hear of stories that the manager is unaware of players being bought or sold without his knowledge. This only leads to distrust and ultimately discontent within the whole club.
As long as this unity exists between the 3 M’s, I feel sure that Wolves will progress further in the years to come.
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I don’t think this spending policy is anything to be proud of Mr Moxey.
When you analyse it, we have only signed three 1st team players (Doyle, Hanaman & Zubar). The rest were squad players (at best).
We need 1st teamers to come in. We would have been far better off spending the £18 mill on 3 or 4 players who would get straight into the 1st team. Squad players we have aplenty.
Quality is needed. But with the new prolonged parachute payments is the pressure off if we go down?
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Wolf72 can I just remind you that sometime ago Mr Moxey stated in the Express & Star that “if we get promted this season we will be taking a leaf out of West Brom’s book and trying to stay a solvent club the way West Brom have done during their premiership seasons” I think you will find.
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dont sell doyle because he is the one who kept us up
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I think next season of will again be one of struggle although I would be very pleased if we could get to something like 43/44 points. That will be progress. This season the team and management deserve all the praise they get. I was extrememly proud of the absolute commitment, fight and guts shown by the team- particularly in the games against Everton, Spurs and Arsenal away amongst others. It must go down as the most successful season since 1980 in my book. Look forward to 4 or 5 quality signings in the summer- but they must demonstrate the same attributes as this season. Roll on the carnival on Sunday !!
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I didn’t think we would survive and I’m not the greatest admirer of McCarthy so pleased to be proved wrong.
Does that mean I think it’s been a great season or something to be celebrated with the euphoria appropriate to winning a trophy or getting promoted? No I don’t and that doesn’t make me miserable or misguided either!
It’s worth reflecting that even if we do win on Saturday, with a points total of 38, we would still have been relegated in 2004 which, apparently, was a disastrous season compared to this one!
The only reason we have survived with 2 weeks to go has been the abysmal quailty of Hull and Burnley and Portsmouth’s off the pitch problems. Finishing above them is no great shakes – and that may still be where we finish!
The buys have been mostly abject apart from Doyle who has been brilliant and Zubar both of whom have performed at a level you might reasonably expect given the price paid for them.
Most games we have been involved in have had little in terms of quality but this has been forgiven because of the Holy Grail of staying in the League. Our goalscoring and home records are rubbish.
We have all conveniently forgotten what the 3 Ms said at the start of the season. Rather than fighting for mid-table position, we’ve battled for survival since Christmas – playing most games like a Championship side battling against the Premiership in a cup tie.
It’s been effective and we’ve achieved safety but it wasn’t what we were promised at the outset, it ain’t that big an achievement and it wasn’t a lot of fun.
It’s ok but could do better!
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11- when you anlyse it, almost all of our players apart from cradock, have been signed by Mick. , which means that in just 4 years, we have gone from a club looking at releagtion to league 1, to a club who have suvived in the premier league, mostly down to the astute signings that Mick and jez have made in recent years.
I do agree that we would have been better off spending more money on fewer players, but quality players. But i would be proud of the signings that the club has made in recent years, as most of the signings are the reason that we have survived.
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One would hope that whatever funds the manager has available this time around would be bolstered by a few sales; we’ve got perhaps 4-5 players who might be deemed expendable and who might be reasonably assumed as capable of generating over or around £1m apiece. Outgoings will be a necessity in any case to bring our squad numbers in line with the new rulings. So if there’s likely to be a considerable amount of financial juggling that Moxey and Morgan will be required to oversee during the summer- they’ll be on a hiding to nothing if there’s not at least the same level of investment that we saw last year. The tenor of some of the pronouncements currently emenating from the Boardroom do sound a little ominous, though, with a definite hint of cloth-cutting and ‘bargain’ hunting in the air….
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Mattj – we do need to sell some of our players, but i doubt we will get 1m or more for most of them, would be good if we did, as like youi said, it would hopefully bolster our transfer kitty.
As long as we buy a few player with real quality, i wouldnt mind a few bargains on the side, especially given the fact that every season or two, a player gennerally comes along for next to nothing and has a fantastic season. Buying the quality that we could attract will no doubt improve our team, but we will never be able to attract truly world class stars, which is understandable, but when scouring for foreign tallent, theres always a chance you can unearth a gem that can really take your team places.
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16 No question that Mick has been astute and unearthed some gems. He is also fantastic at squeezing every ounce of effort and endeavour out of a player who may be limited in ability.
Wolves have cut their cloth according to budgets and prudently maintained their prem status. No question.
But what doesn’t sit cosily with me is how Jez lords it as though we have some sort of magic formula.
He constantly u-turns in the press and jumps on different so called strategies. We’ll do a Stoke, we won’t do an Albion. We’ll start like Hull. You’ve got to invest to stay up. Now what is it this week? Absolute Rubbish.
Here’s one for next season…our strategy will be to spend a touch more than Albion and finish above them. That will appease the fans for another season. Jez will know what we have to do (and their board is even “more prudent” than ours)
No Wolves fan is asking to bankrupt the club, so why doesn’t Moxey take that as read instead of keep referring to it and hiding the spend thrift nature of our board behind it.
Oh and if Doyle does go (hopefully not of course) then of the £12 mill we will invest around half of it, stating that wages and sign on fees need to be taken into account.
God, I can read Jez like a book. unfortunately, he can read us all like a book too and knows just what to say and just what he can get away with (on Morgan’s behalf).
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It would be nice to hear what Steve Morgan thinks of it all.
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If Jez really believes that “a club’s level of expenditure equates to a parallel position in their finishing position” why did he agree that we should pay the second lowest wages and pay lowish (by Premiership standards) for most signings last summer?
He couldn’t KNOW that Mick was going to “buck the trend” so he presumably expected us to be relegated and if we had been it would have been his fault.
Sounds as though Mick pulled him out of a hole!
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Well done to Mick and the players – a great performance but, for my own curiosity, I would still like to know why we signed the players we did last summer.
Were they Mick’s first choices or were they the best he could get with the budget set by Jez?
As so few of them made an impact in the first team I would say we stayed up in spite of the signings not because of them (though Doyle obviously made a major contribution).
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mick is it true that next season you have asked for the players names n numbers to be put on the front of there shirts so that the fans think there attacking aye boing boing
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Bearing in mind Jez’s thoughts on the relationship between expenditure and league position was he trying to get us relegated this season?
Well he was authorising the apparent second lowest wage structure in the league.
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20 Moxey is Morgan’s voice.
Morgan and Moxey will have a formal relationship. Moxey is after all an employee.
He will have directives from his owner to whom, I’m sure, he reports to frequently and diligently.
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Sounds like “got away with it once, let’s see if we can get away with it again”.
Supporting Wolves for the most part of the second half of the season was boring as hell. 2 goals in our last 8 home games.
“I think this team has got better as the season has unfolded, which to me is the mark of a really good team and manager.”
Wrong – the team has not got better. We’ve parked a bus in front of the goal as the season has unfolded, meaning we’ve conceded far less than in the first half of the season, and as a result, we’ve picked up a few points. Finishing 17th or better was the aim at the start of the season – job done.
Well done all who have been involved in doing this – it’s great to stay up. Time to have a summer holiday and then move on to next season. I just hope we don’t try to do it on the cheap again – it’s a big gamble.
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18- I was thinking of the likes of Keogh & Halford, both of whom would surley interest Championship clubs; Milijas doesn’t look set for a long stay at the Mol, so hopefully he’ll have a decent World Cup, which would attract interest elswhere in Europe- I could see us getting our money back on him and (don’t laugh!) Maierhoffer.
As for what constitutes a ‘bargain’; Doyle’s being talked about as a £12m target, so at £6.5m he was a good investment whichever way you look at it. I’d suggest it’s a sound policy to make a concerted effort to sign at least 2 ‘mid-range’ players, in the O’Hara/Reo-Coker/Sidwell mould; probably costing a similar amount to Doyle, but of the right age and thus with a resale value- and take a chance on someone like Fletcher at Burnley, hoping he can build on a decent 1st season at this level. My blood runs cold whenever we get linked with signings from abroad, though!
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lets get things right in 2003/04 we spent 5/6m
and went down with 33 points this time we spent 18m and have 35 points so how does that
make him the best manager in 30 years?? and
how many players as he brought in and not played
well over half of them so get real some of lot.
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I cant see Wenger wanting Doyler, he said before the game V Arsenal that he thinks hes a good player but his pace or strength are not exceptional. If he does then 12mil is alot of money and I wouldnt want to be Jez!
As for next season quite a few fringe players will move on and our wage budget has increased so Id like to see maybe:
Reo-Coker or Sidwell
Shorey or Belhadj
Tel Ben Heim
Robbie Keane
Jamie O Hara
Also, if we can get Kites and Matt Murray fit we will progress almost certainbly next season.
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21 comments and Moxey patting himself on the back,and no one refers to the obvious.Don’t you think Sir Jack selling the club for a tenner has kinda helped.Most clubs are left with debt when the owner sells up for a fist full of dollars.Not in our case.Frankly with that advantage and the condition that the new owner spends £30 M on the club,you would expect progress to be made on the pitch.Messrs Morgan,Moxey and McCarthy you have done nothing yet.We need more quality to complement the graft and sweat that has got us a foothold in the Prem.
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Smacks to me that Moxey is expecting poor old Mick to perform another miracle on the cheap next seson. I hope I’m wrong as next season is going to be a much tougher league.
However, sensible acquisitions would include:
Jamie O’Hara
Chris Eagles
Dindane
Charlie Adam (depending on Blackpool’s fate)
Nicky Maynard (should have bought him two seasons ago).
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Right, deep breath –
15 – 2004, we finished bottom, it was a disaster.
2010, hull and Portsmouth both had more prem experience than us.
I am sick of hearing about portsmouth’s woes, they still had enough quality on the pitch to have done much better than they did. Hull and Portsmouth underachieved we overachieved simple. Played like a championship side- yep, that’s because we pretty much still are. Could do better, with this squad, get real.
21 and 24- I don’t think he did it deliberately – I’m sure we would have loved to have been in the top five spenders, but the club is being run correctly, not on a financial whim.
30- done nothing yet? What did the regimes of the past twenty odd years do then? I would say they have done an awful lot more than most in recent years and hopefully this is the beginning.
Seems a few people are forgetting a few things with regard to spending- we would have spent 5-7 million more in jan if hunt / Johnson had come to the mol.
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we dont need a winger because zeli ismail in the youth team is very good 16 and under 21 best player, also wolves sould buy João Moutinho he will be a very good buy also kazim kazim is a good player gary cahill good and o’haro and dindan or utaka that will be all a very good buy and we will go 10th-15th if we got them plays and would cost about £24-30M
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we should sign
o’hara
keane
aruna dindane
rob green
sell doyle to arsenal for 12 mill
and hennessy
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We got away with it because the Prem was played at a lower level / standard this year when compared to previous years. If Portsmouth had not had their £ problems and the Hull and Burnley management did not change we would be down. We have by far the worst Prem player playing at left back. Everybody can see he has cost us goal after goal. In addition how could we get away with playing our best fullback in right midfield I shall never know. God knows how many goals a true right midfield would have got for us. I can think of 6 it could be 10 goals that he has missed. MM should take credit for keeping this team up however next season will be simular to his previous points total if he does not wake up and smell the coffee. So many of the players are not Prem standard. We only have one forward in Doyle. I think the rest sould be sold. In midfield we should only keep Jones, Henry and Jarvis. And at the back I’m not sure if any of our centrehalfs are up to it. We have two good right backs and no left backs of any quality. I think we should also cash in Wales number one!!!
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So, to sum that article up, we won’t be spending much money, ” didn’t go mad with the dough” on the quality players needed to keep us up next season. Great, thanks for that Jez.Another relegation battle then and 451… pass me the sleeping tablets… oh sorry..I won;t need any
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Fingers crossed we manage to bring in players of the type that will fit into wolves work ethic and strengthen our first eleven. 3-4 quality signings will be very welcome.
Congrats to both Jody Craddock for fans player of the year and to Kevin Doyle for players player of the year. Well deserved!
After all the speculation and negative comments regarding the new kit sponsor im chuffed to bits with the new away kit. Personally i think our away colours should always be black, spot on!
If the home gold shirt mirrors the style of the away one ill be more than happy.
Not only is this our biggest ever kit sponsor deal but sportingbet.com have increased our biggest ever club sponsorship deal by another 2 years!
Happy days me thinks. :-)
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no32 Holby City,
Self congratulations is a dangerous thing,and Moxey is a lot better at that than he is at spending money on the quality we need.
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Whilst Moxey, Morgan and McCarthy bask on thier financial oasis and looking forward to yet another round of visits to the board rooms in the Premiership. May I remind them that their tickets for the excursion and the continued stay in five star luxury was a gift from a wonderful man.
That gift was made to everyone who supports and loves the Wolves and not for the chosen few at the top. If that gift is to be appreciated fully, those responsible for it’s legacy need to do a dam sight more to achieve the success desired.
As yet we have seen Nothing Pro Rata ! Considering the debt free status and the lack of a financial Handicap we should now be ‘Flying’. Sadly we are being told to expect more of the same. If BS was music our 3MMM’s would easily fit into a Yorkshire Brass Band.
Please stop treating these wonderful supportting customers as Numpties and get on with doing the job you were gifted with.
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The fan on here who touted Jody Craddock for F.P.O.T.Y, he got his reward, although i said i was voting for Karl Henry, i did also say Jody had, had a fantastic season, and thats why i didnt mind changing my vote in favour of him. Jody has been a model pro since he arrived at Wolves,and showed something which is very rare in football today that is ‘LOYALTY’, plus its more than likely he wont ever have such a good season ever again in a Wolves shirt, so Conratulations to you JC. I listened to Steve Morgan on WM last night, it seems Wolves will only go for 4-5 QUALITY players, but ‘WONT’ be changing their ‘pay structure, therefore it would seem you can rule out 80% of Premier League players. UTW
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For Moxey to state that Mick is the best Wolves manager in the last 30 years shows how little he knows about Wolves past!
However, I have come to terms with Mick’s erratic management style and his contradictory statements and attitudes. He isn’t in the same management league as a Cullis, McGarry etc., and he is totally inconsistent.
However, he is also the best thing that has happened to Wolves for decades, so try and ignore the more stupid side of his personality and just enjoy the ride.
McCarthy got us into the Premiership, so don’t waste the experience by moaning about how flawed his management is. We know all about that; but somehow he has the luck of the Irish and he has kept us up in the Premiership, in spite of us being one of the poorest teams there this year.
Roll on next season, and just enjoy the roller coaster, it’s the best show in town at the moment and forget dreams about Houllier coming and managing us. It won’t happen, we are a small provincial club and we are now near the limit of what we can legitimately expect from out team and club.
Well done Mick, thanks for what you have done, glad to see that you are also growing with the experience, and best of luck with your next meeting with the little people!
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Whats the saying, you can not please all of the people all of the time but some of the people some of the time.I have read most of the comments and i can honestly say to all of those people still moaning is remember the season of hoddle, now that was some thing to moan about. Just enjoy what we have as wolves fans.
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“We’ve been very prudent in running our business and our achievement is underscored by this table of wealth against table of expenditure”. Our achievement is most definitely underscored, Mr. Moxey – we’ve underscored every other team in the Prem. You get what you give, and surely, now that Mick, the team and the fans have managed to survive the first season, now is the time to step it up a gear.
One life, one club. COME ON YOU WOLVES!
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