In this view from the opposition national newspaperman and lifelong Wolves fan DAVID HARRISON take a look at how the midlands outfit may approach the opening game of the resumption.
Wolves will have something in common with opponents West Ham United when the disrupted season resumes on Saturday. Both need to hit the ground running – but for opposite reasons.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s team are chasing a place at football’s top table, ideally fourth or fifth place in the Premier League which would more than likely guarantee them qualification for next season’s Champions League.
The Hammers’ pursuit for points has a more desperate feel as they try to climb away from relegation trouble.
So the competitive edge from both sides will be fierce. The contest will not be short of intensity, despite the lack of atmosphere in a near-empty stadium.
Qualification for the Champions League has an added incentive for Wolves, apart ftom the extra financial rewards it brings.
A sizeable quota of Nuno’s squad have been linked with moves to supposedly bigger clubs – namely strikers Raul Jiminez and Diogo Jota, winger Adama Traore and midfielder Ruben Neves, who have all thrived and prospered under the Portuguese manager.
For Wolves to command a place alongside Europe’s elite club would be a strong incentive for their star players to remain at Molineux for at least another season.
The enforced break has seen speculation about the players’ futures run out of control, much of it emanating from uninformed overseas sources but nothing has emerged from Molineux to suggest there is any substance in the stories.
The long lay-off will clearly have taken the competitive edge off all of the players but the bonus for Wolves is that winger Traore has been able to receive prolonged treatment for a shoulder injury which troubled him in every game prior to the break.
Traore is very much Nuno’s wild card. As Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp remarked after the two sides met at Anfield: “There are times when he can be unplayable.”
The Spanish winger’s place in the Wolves line-up is not always a given. It depends on which system the manager choses. In a 3-4-3, Traore fills one of the wide berths on the right, with Jota on the left and both given the freedom to link up with Jiminez in the centre of the attack.
If Nuno goes with a more restrained 3-5-2, there is a reinforced midfield with Jota playing more centrally with Jiminez and Traore usually used as a shock tactic from the substitute’s bench.
The lack of a crowd will not be unprecedented for Wolves. Their last Europa League match against Olympiakos, which ended in a 1-1 draw, was played behind closed doors because the Greek club’s owner had tested positive for Covid-19.
The decision to go ahead with the match, which resembled a pre-season work-out because of the absence of fans, did not please the Wolves manager.
“You realise what’s happening worldwide, people are dying, now we have to play a game of football?” said Nuno. “It’s absurd.”
The English game will have no choice but to go ahead now in relative silence, despite attempts to generate atmosphere with piped crowd noises, and it remains to be seen how much detrimental effect it will have on home teams.
As someone once observed: “At a football game, the crowd is part of the theatre. Without fans it would be like a leading theatrical company playing in front of an empty auditorium.”