Wolves, Blackburn and Bolton: The Premier League’s class clowns?

The end of year report is in for the Premier League clubs and for most it makes for very disturbing reading. As for the bottom three clubs it was a season-long ‘car crash’. Indeed the ‘BW’ zone at the foot of the table had few good news stories throughout this last season. Wolves were first to be demoted to the second stream on the back of a bizarrely-timed dismissal of manager Mick McCarthy. The Midlands club were struggling all season long but for Wolves to show McCarthy the door when they did was daft. They were humbled 5-1 at home by fierce local rivals West Brom and that did for the Barnsley man.

So Wolves went and shot themselves in both feet. The Midlands club then propounded that disastrous decision by not having ‘Plan B’ ready and waiting. Alan Curbishley was offered the job but turned it down. Having McCarthy’s assistant take over was clearly not what the owners had in mind when spinning the managerial merry-go-round. Whatever chance Wolves had of staying up under McCarthy there was none under a clearly overwhelmed Terry Connor. Under his charge Wolves notched up four out of a possible 39 points. That record was clearly a factor in Connor not getting the job on a permanent basis for next season. Right so he’s good enough for the job in February but three months later he’s not. Need I say anymore?

While Wolves handled their slide back down to the second tier of English football with a large pinch of resignation the same cannot be said of Blackburn Rovers. This was nasty from the word go and got progressively worse as the season unfolded. Manager Steve Kean was the lightning rod for the fans’ anger. Indeed since his predecessor’s sacking in December 2010 Kean never felt ‘the love’ in Lancashire. It didn’t help that Kean was Allardyce’s assistant when the larger-than-life ‘Big Sam’ got the bullet. Rovers were 13th in the table at the time with a narrow defeat to Bolton Wanderers doing for Allardyce.

It was a bolt from the blue that took both supporters and players by surprise. Indeed the whole of the footballing world were hard-pressed to explain why new owners Venky’s did what they did. Kean stepped up to the plate but relegation was only avoided by a last-day defeat of Wolves. This term the slide to the Championship could not be avoided as Kean racked up the second-worst record of any Blackburn manager since 1992. Kean was and is the face of the Venky’s regime. Both are now associated with defeat and relegation now so expect the Rovers’ fans to keep up their campaign to get rid of both.

While both Wolves and Rover were undone to a large extent by poor organisational decisions off the field Bolton Wanderers’ relegation was down simply to poor displays on the field. They came agonisingly close to securing their PL status on the last day however. Alas for Bolton fans that 2-2 draw away to Stoke City wasn’t enough. QPR had already done enough ‘business’ to elbow the Lancashire club out of the PL lifeboat. Captain Kevin Davies doesn’t seem to be keen on jumping ship despite facing into a season in the Championship.

Either is club chairman Phil Gartside about to drop the axe on manager Owen Coyle. Indeed Gartside is on record as saying that Coyle will remain on as manager despite the drop. Here we have a club where there’s a rich seam of loyalty. For that alone I hope to see Wanderers end their championship sojourn sooner rather than later. As for Wolves and Rovers one could not possibly comment.

Introducing the neat little app that’ll pay you to view content tailored to your interests:

ThisisFutbol.com are seeking new writers to join the team! If you’re passionate about football, drop us a line at “thisisfutbol.com@snack-media.com” to learn more.