Express & Star

Bully: Wolves first, Villa second would be my ideal finish

We’re getting to the business end of the season now and the table looks even better for Wolves after last week’s results.

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There’s a new team in second place after Villa edged ahead of Derby and for me those are the only two teams I’d really be worried about.

Villa are on a great run of form and they seem to fancy their chances of catching us. To be honest I’m happy for them to keep shouting from the rooftops while we keep plugging away picking up the points.

I’ve said from day one this season that Wolves don’t want to be getting ahead of themselves and that definitely remains the case.

In all seriousness, if Wolves do go up I’d love Villa to come up with us – it would be great for the Midlands to have as many teams in the Premier League as possible and you always want to be playing your local rivals because they’re the games you enjoy the most.

Wolves face what looks like a tough looking trip to Deepdale today to play a Preston team that’s only lost once in 15 matches.

Last week’s win over QPR showed that we need to be mentally focused every single match and every single half.

Wolves legend Steve Bull

We coasted through the first half and looked at our best – and then we went into the panic zone in the second half and almost threw away three points.

We showed good resilience to see it through but it was definitely a warning sign that they can’t switch off.

It’ll be a physical game against Preston but the players have shown they can certainly handle that.

Jota gets chopped in half every week but just keeps getting up and carrying on, which is exactly the attitude you want.

Touch wood they haven’t suffered too many injuries at all this season, which has been a big factor in their consistency.

There are 5,600 Wolves fans going up the M6 today and the away followings at the moment are a throwback to the old days, it’s great to see.

I’d personally keep the same XI, I don’t know who you’d drop.

Benik Afobe is the wildcard on the bench and all I’d say to Benik is ‘stop trying too hard’.

He’s getting in the right positions and those goals will come soon enough. In fact I think when he gets one he’ll go on a run.