Welcome back to the Black Country. You join me in my first full season in charge at Wolves, after we finished 11th last year with an excellent run of results following my transfer from Hibs in January. If you've missed any of the previous updates, you can read a quick summary on how it's gone so far here.
Preseason
We had a busy Summer as we looked to start clearing out some of the old guard and bring in some fresh faces. The key here was to get us some strength in depth and so we were really looking to fill roles all over the pitch.
Wolves 2029/30 - Transfers In (Summer)
Pascual will push Jota for a starting place at AML, with Gvardiol coming in as starting left back and Taylor his opposite number on the right hand side. Roden will offer a DMC option, rotating with Caqueret while Turner, Leonard and Marques are all destined to go back out on loan, with a chance of making the first team in a few years time. The pick of the players is Fito Querol, an impressive midfielder who i'll play as BBM to start with and see how he gets on.
In terms of home grown talent, I've promoted Brian Eadie (18) and Leigh Tobin (21) from the Under 23s to act as cover at RB and LB respectively, while Gabriel Lechon returns from two years out on long to bolster our AMR options. I've also got a number of promising midfielders available to bring in from the U23 set up if they can make an impact, or an injury crisis ensues.
With the squad assembled, we headed for our preseason friendlies, most of which would take place in the Netherlands. Some pleasing performances, albeit against lesser opponents, but 24 goals for and only 2 against in 5 games is a great record to kick us off for the season.
Wolves 2029/30 - Friendly results
Competitive Performances - Part I
Wolves 2029/30 - Predicted results
Our opening games would see us host Liverpool and Man United at home with tricky away fixtures to Brighton and West Ham sandwiched in the middle. Before the season started I attempted to forecast where I thought we could pick up points as we aim for a top half finish.
I knew we'd lose to Liverpool and was pleased to meet my expectation of a draw against Brighton, but i was absolutely dumbfounded in the next game as West Ham utterly demolished us 8-1 at the London Stadium - from memory, my worst ever defeat in FM. A hapless and dejected squad then succumbed to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Reading in the League Cup just three days later. A bad week all round.
Manchester United next and some significant changes to the team were implemented as we attempted to turn things around. Although we lost, we did play well and were unlucky to concede the one goal that secured them the win.
In retaliation for the cup defeat, and in a vain attempt to claw back the negative goal difference, we had a little demolition derby of our own next as we smashed Reading 6-1 back at Molineux, before following that up with a second win, this time against Leicester.
It was a while before we managed 2 consecutive wins again, in fact only managing to pick up 4 points (including a win against Chelsea) from the next 9 before a win at home to Everton in mid-December. Despite the victory, the Board were less than impressed with how things were going, and promptly called a meeting to discuss the matter, the outcome of which was that i would need 7 points from the next 5 fixtures in order to keep my job.
We kicked off with a 4-3 win against Newcastle before a devastating defeat at the hands of Watford, who got the win with a last gasp goal making it 4-3. A win against Fulham before the New Year would mean i needed just 1 point from the next two games and i was feeling confident.
Wolves 2029/30 - Results from August to December
Despite a poor start to the season, by the halfway stage we we were hovering between relegation and a top half finish with a game in hand, although against Liverpool we could hardly call it an advantage.
Wolves 2029/30 - Table at halfway point
Competitive Performances - Part II
With the New Year comes the opening of the January Transfer Window and a chance to bring in extra troops to shore up weakened positions. My 21yo LB Leigh Tobin wasn't cutting the mustard and so was sent out on Loan along with promising Iranian centre back Reza Ghorbani. Samuel Antwi would join from FC Nordsjaelland to give competition to Gvardiol at LB while 35yo veteran centre back, John Stones, would see out the remainder of his playing days with us, offering a wealth of experience and much needed cover in case of injury. Finally, Alan Mcleod was an inspired choice by our Director of Football, cited as one for the future, he'll play in the U23s until he can prove his worth.
Our January fixtures saw us continue our march towards the 7 points needed to appease the board, with Brighton and West Ham our remaining two games, and our first FA Cup game of the campaign sandwiched in the middle. A win at home to Brighton meant my job was secured, for now at least.
The bubble was abruptly burst in the next game though as we hosted Swansea at home in the cup, and lost 1-0. Now out of both cup competitions without so much as a walk, let alone a decent run.
Three consecutive draws saw us end January still within touching disctance of the top half, and with a win in our next game against Leicester, i was feeling confident we could do it. No sooner had that thought entered my mind, did we then go on our worst run of form since taking over, with just 2 points from 21 in our next 7 games. Suddenly we were being dragged into a relegation battle, hovering perilously close to the drop, we hosted fellow relegation strugglers Swansea in the next tie, waiting until the 91st minute to secure the win and seeing us to the end of March.
April was a mixed bag, with a win, a loss and a draw in our three fixtures against Stoke, Everton and Newcastle. Enough to see us secure safety from relegation, but with hopes of a top half finish utterly dashed.
Wolves 2029/30 - Away win against Arsenal
A disappointing loss to Fulham in the next game mean that to match last season's finish of 11th, we'd need two wins away to Arsenal and then at home to Watford, plus results elsewhere to go our way. We kept up our end of the bargain, impressing against Arsenal with a dominating performance before ending on a high with a 2-1 victory against Watford.
Wolves 2029/30 - Results from January to May
As results from around the grounds started to trickle in, it was clear the gods had smiled on us once more and we managed to climb two places to secure another 11th placed finish. A satisfying end to the season all things considered, but short of our goal of a top half finish.
Wolves 2029/30 - Final league table
Season Review
The media predicted we would finish in 14th and so we can be pleased to have surpassed expectations, even if we fell short of our own goal of a top half finish.
We set out to attain 52 points which would have been good enough for 9th place, but instead had to settle for our actual tally of 45 points, 4 points shy of 10th and 14 points above 18th. The "Difference" column in the table below shows green boxes to reflect where we secured more points than forecast and red boxes to show where we dropped points.
Wolves 2029/30 - Predictions v Actual results
I was pleased to secure wins against Arsenal and Chelsea as well as draws against the two Manchester clubs, plus we did the double over Leicester equating to 10 extra points than planned. On the flip side, both Burnley and Southampton took all the points in our fixtures, and we failed to win either of our games against both Brentford and West Ham which was really disappointing. Add to that dropped points against Fulham, Everton, Swansea and Watford and we managed 17 less than plan in these games.
Stat Attack
In terms of team performance, i was surprised to see us anywhere near close to the top in some categories, compared to other teams in the division. We ranked 7th in terms of total goals scored, but our goals conceded saw us the worst ranked side overall.
Our Shots on Target ratio was pleasing, ranking 3rd with 48% of 246 total shots over the course of the season.
In terms of individual performances, our English starlet, Adam Hawkins, notched up 12 goals for us as well as 5 Player of the Match awards while Gabriel Lechon, after a two year loan spell away from the club, returned as arguably our best player, achieving a 6.98 average rating and 9 assists.
The fans felt differently though, handing Jota the Player of the Season Award who also got our Goal of the Season and the league's 3rd best goal for his thunderbolt against Fulham. Elsewhere, Hawkins also won the Young Player of the Year Award while new man Jose Pascual took the honour of Signing of the Season.
And finally, I wanted to give a special mention to our academy graduate, Brian Eadie, who, after a few terrible performances from Gary Taylor, managed to own the shirt as our starting RB for the majority of the season, and still at the tender age of 18.
Wolves 2029/30 - Team of the Season
Next Season Aims
I'll be looking at strengthening our Defensive Midfield position, as well as bringing in another centre back as I'm concerned Hlophe may not be a long term solution. Elsewhere, we'll need cover at right back and striker plus will need to replace any outgoing players.
I think with those few additions, we can come good on our ambition of a top half finish and push for 52 points. I do think we should look to secure a few points from the top 6, and perhaps i'm being too ambitious trying to take 4 points from each of the mid table teams. I'll need to adjust our forecasting accordingly.
Until next time friends. Thank you for reading.
Thanks for reading the blog, i hope you enjoyed this update. You can follow me on Twitter @fm_athlete and in my FM Slack channel #fm_athlete for more updates throughout the season.