Wandering Wolves

Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Terry Connor remains winless in his first five managerial games, with pressure now increasing on all sides.

The 49 year old initially seemed to have lifted the club inspiring a two goal turnaround in his first game at Newcastle to claim a point, his only point so far. However, since then wolves have shipped fourteen goals in four and the club are now 20th in the league, lower than when Mick McCarthy was sacked.

Connor's appointment as manager capped a farcical week with several managers claiming to have been considered for the job. Chairman, Steve Morgan, has since stated that the position was only offered to one candidate: but if media reports are to be confirmed at least three candidates were interviewed before the promotion of Connor to the managers role.

Connor then seems to be a fall-back option, one without any managerial experience, which probably explains the tepid response from Wolves fans to  Connor's appointment.

To sack a manager of McCarthy's experience (six years international and 14 years at club level) and then appoint his long term assistant is not a forwards step. Being part of the old set-up, Connor would struggle to galvanise the current squad, especially with no opportunity to bring in his own players and start anew.
On paper Wolves are certainly one of the five weakest squads in the Premier League, so their position this season is hardly a huge surprise. Not to say that they deserve to go down, but in terms of quality they are clearly one of the weakest teams in the league.

Getting a squad of this calibre (and on their current form) to suddenly start winning games and moving away from danger would have been a massive achievement. Connor has failed to win from a tough opening set of matches and is now facing criticism from fans and pundits alike but I doubt whether even a Jose Mourinho could have got Wolverhampton winning games.

Opportunistic and baseless articles, see Oliver Holt's piece last week, have even accused Wolves fans of turning on Connor so quickly because of the colour of his skin. Such hyperbole exacerbates the teams woe and without a shred of evidence aims to undermine the standing of Wolves fans.

Just a few miles down the road a straight-forward but effective manager was sacked at Blackburn last year. Like Wolves, the Venkys also plumped for a former assistant manager to bring the club forward, sacking Sam Allardyce before promoting Steve Kean. And in a situation almost identical to Wolves the fans were on the back of Kean straight away when results started slipping, which can only be attributed to their lack of status and managerial experience.

Wolves are a big team, but have no divine right to be in the Premier League. Their squad is one of the worst in the league and they have simply played according to their abilities, no better and not much worse. Only days after appointing Connor, Steve Morgan publicly blamed Steve Bruce for turning the Wolves job down, and ergo forcing them to turn to Terry Connor, hardly a ringing endorsement of the new manager. To place the blame squarely on Connor in his first managerial role is to ignore other factors and not fair on the the man.

It's taken Steve Kean over a year to start getting results and start moving up the table and unfortunately it is unlikely that Terry Connor will be afforded as much to turn things round.