Just how good were/was/is/are (Wolves Edition)

[lemonjelly]

His partnership with Sturridge was very good on occasions.

His goal return gets criticism (unfairly sometimes imo) and I feel his all round play is often under appreciated. He was a pretty creative player, and did a lot of wider work for the team. He was also decent at creating chances for others.

Very unlucky with his injuries. He was always one who seemed to take quite a while to recover, though our medical/physios left something to be desired back then.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

His link up play was excellent.

Couple of common trends here:

1) Our fans were dicks towards him, constantly accusing him of being lazy. He wasn't
2) He's another we should have signed years and years before we did, Sheff Utd paid £300k for him in 1994. We end up paying five times that when he's nearly 30

I was a big fan though. It wasn't ever going to work for him in the PL for us, he was too old by then and we were never going to play in a way that suited him.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Another trend, DJ being a fucking bellend:

During the Premier League season I was fifth or sixth choice - they had Kenny Miller, Deano (Dean Sturridge), Henri Camara, Carl Cort, I wasn't involved.

I had an opportunity to play for Harry Redknapp at Portsmouth and I was coming to the end of my Wolves contract.

Portsmouth wanted me and I must have had four calls from my agent saying Wolves had kept upping the asking price.

Pompey kept agreeing but then in the end Wolves said I wasn't for sale, but then they didn't give me a new contract either.

It was quite vindictive but I largely held the manager (Dave Jones) responsible because there was no need.

I was 32 or 33 at the time and Portsmouth would have been a swansong for me.

My body was battered, I was thinking I don't know how much longer my body would hold up. I was aggrieved at how it ended, there was never going to be another contract so why do it?

I left Wolves at the end of the season, went to Leicester in the end and snapped my hamstring, that was the end of me.

The surprising thing for me was when Dave Jones took over at Cardiff he called me up and asked me to play for him, I said you're joking aren't you.

Blake was definitely a member of the Clarence Seedorf XXL shorts club. That big arse came in handy though.

 

[Jinky]

I was always a fan of Nathan Blake. His link up play, as has already been mentioned, was hugely underappreciated. Finishing was slightly erratic, but he was a likeable character, good in the air and not a bad touch for a 'big man'.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Ah man, that miss at Forest. Should have been impossible. I mean they're blocks/saves rather than him skying it, but you're a yard out and you get two goes at it.

Not going to have a go at him though.

As you can see in the clip I posted, he was a very different animal in his early days. Loads of pace, always troubled us when we played against him. If we'd got him then, who knows. We badly lacked vision though at the time.

 

[Sniffer]

He did the same for Bolton (possibly twice in the Lofty the Lion game) to us as he did for Sheffield United in that video clip. I'm in agreement that we should have been in for him far earlier as although he did a job for us, his best days were behind him.

Edit - Just once

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

That is awful from Curle.

David Lee never, ever looked like a footballer, was pretty good though.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

I think i under rated Blake, watching older footage now, it's clear that he did a lot of work, took a lot of hits, used his arse, flicked it on. His build up play against United in the game Camara should have scored 2 was excellent.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

So many players that we signed too late or didn't sign at all that would have been relative peanuts.

Rae (when at Millwall), David Johnson (when at Bury), Tim Cahill (when at Millwall), Blake, it's not even hindsight, it was so obvious at the time.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Robbie Earle, Chris Coleman, Ian Taylor.

Paul Simpson when he was at Oxford.

 

[Tredman]

I rememeber endless rumours about Ian Taylor when he was at PV, PVF, PVFC. Would have been a great signing at the time.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

28. Bakary Sako

Bakary Sako (born 26 April 1988) is a professional footballer who currently plays as a midfielder. Beforehand, Sako played as an attacking midfielder for English club Crystal Palace and the Mali national team.

On 29 August 2012, Sako signed for Championship club Wolverhampton Wanderers on a three-year contract for an undisclosed fee that was reported to be £2.2 million. He scored on his Wolves debut in a League Cup tie against Northampton Town on 30 August 2012, and again on his league debut in the following match, a 3–1 defeat at Cardiff.

The winger adapted well to English football, scoring ten times in total and contributing eleven assists. However, his season was halted early when he tore his hamstring in March 2013 in a match against Bristol City, which ruled him out for much of the season's final games, during which the team were relegated to League One.

Sako was the subject of transfer speculation during Summer 2013 with interest from Fulham in June 2013 but the London club did not meet a reported £4 million asking price. Owing to his uncertain future, the player did not play in Wolves' final match of the transfer window as he "didn't feel he was in the right frame of mind". Several reported bids from Nottingham Forest were rejected by the club. In October 2013, Forest again attempted to set up a deal but Wolves pulled out of negotiations citing that "the terms surrounding the offer were unrealistic".

Despite the initial speculation surrounding his future and the breakdown of his proposed move to Forest, Sako went on to have a productive season for Wolves, finishing as joint top-scorer alongside the departed Leigh Griffiths as Wolves won the League One title with a record points haul for the third tier. Sako was also named in the League One PFA Team of the Year for the 2013–14 season alongside four of his teammates.

Back at Championship level, Sako continued to score regularly for Wolves and was named in the Championship PFA Team of the Year for the 2014–15 season. He finished the season as the club's (joint) top goalscorer as the team missed out on the play-offs on goal difference. Out of contract with the club, he voiced his desire to play in the Premier League, while head coach Kenny Jackett stated that he expected Sako to depart.

On 5 August 2015, Sako joined Premier League side Crystal Palace on a three-year contract following his release from Wolves.

 

[YoungWolf]

I watched the re-reviewed they did of the 14/15 season and forgot just how many good goals he scored.

One of my all-time favourite Wolves players still. We've obviously had many better players since now but I just loved watching him.

Was disappointed how it worked out for him in the Premier League. Had some injury issues and was never going to get the chances he needed as we all knew he would have some games where he was awful. Could get away with it for us because he was our best player.

His output over the three seasons is really, really impressive (though one is in league one of course)

 

[Premier Quality]

I loved Baks, he worked hard, he had quality, he scored goals, he had a fantastic song. It didn’t bother me that he ended up at West Brom, he was past his best because of injury - we got the best of him and he was great.

 

[Tredman]

I really liked him too, especially the way he stuck with us in Lg1.

Not sure he would fit in with the current team, but was good to see him in that brief Dicko, Afobe, Sako period.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

That goal from the corner, against Millwall I think, is just embarrassing. No professional player should be getting mugged off like that from a short corner, wouldn't have that off a 12 year old.

 

[Kenny]

Absolutely dreadful at defending though. A penalty waiting to be given everytime he went in for a challenge.

Loved the man though.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I loved Baks, he worked hard, he had quality, he scored goals, he had a fantastic song. It didn’t bother me that he ended up at West Brom, he was past his best because of injury - we got the best of him and he was great.

Couldn't give a shite about him going to Albion, anyone who was bothered by that is a moron, no ifs, no buts.

Wouldn't get near our current team but that's not the question. Just a shame we couldn't give him better players to play alongside for most of his time here. Kudos to Ken for finding the right role for him, he was never a proper winger in a 4-4-2, he's a left sided forward.

The endless speculation about him every single fucking window was so annoying, our fans working themselves into a lather over nothing continually.

He clearly had a lot of affinity for the club, Palace should have been a good move for him but as Louie says injuries put paid to that. Couldn't fault him for leaving at all. He didn't owe us anything.

For all the quality we have now, we still don't have anyone who can hit the ball that hard...

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Shocking video quality but this is the only footage I can find right now of his goal at Leicester:

Right peg as well!

Absymal stuff by Ikeme on the opening goal.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

As an aside: spoke to Kenny after that game, we actually played really well in the second half (albeit we were dreck in the first half, could have been a lot more than 1-0 down). Got the ball down, had O'Hara involved, created plenty of chances. We'd been absolutely shite in every game under Saunders up to that point but we agreed that if we carried on playing that way, despite losing this game we'd have been alright going forward.

What does the cuntwaffle do for the next game? Change everything and we never played that way again.