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We are all set to take on Mick McCarthy's Wolves side, but that didn't look to be certain just a few days ago when McCarthy was linked with a return to international football with South Korea. The job looked his when Gerard Houllier distanced himself from it but in the end he opted to stay at Molineux.
He's done a good job there, taking over from Glenn Hoddle in the summer of 2006. He led them to a play off finish last season and they were placed as one of the promotion favourites before this season got underway.
Having had that successful season, and having been bought out by Steve Morgan the Liverpool fan who just couldn't manage to buy the club he really wanted, McCarthy was able to do some summer shopping and that strengthened his hand even more.
McCarthy brought in six new players in the January transfer window and added another six in the summer whilst the only players of note to leave were Carl Cort and Michael Oakes.
The highest profile of those signings was Freddy Eastwood. The much sought after striker cost them £1.5 million from Southend. The list, including Eastwood, is below along with two further loan sigings.
Darren Ward from Crystal Palace
Freddy Eastwood from Southend
Stephen Elliott from RK Sunderland
Michael Gray from Blackburn
Kevin Foley from Luton
Graham Stack from Reading (loan)
Darren Gibson from Manchester United (loan)
Wolves have the top defence in the Championship and they've conceded only sixteen goals this season. They've kept ten clean sheets and only Barnsley became the first team to score against them in six games when they beat them 1-0 at Oakwell in midweek. This will be a test for the Clarets forwards.
We really do struggle to beat Wolves at times. We won there two seasons ago but it has been back to normal since with three successive defeats, two of them at home. We've won just seventeen of 72 league encounters in post war football. It is time to start turning this around.
He's not found the sort of form expected of him and he's been out of the side more often than he would have liked, but should Freddy Eastwood line up against us this afternoon we know they will have a real goal threat.
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Eastwood started his football on schoolboy terms with Southend, but turned down their offer of a scholarship and instead joined the West Ham academy where he played alongside such as Anton Ferdinand, Glen Johnson and Jermain Defoe. But, as those three moved on to better things, he wasn't considered good enough to be given a professional contract and was release by then Hammers boss Glenn Roeder.
That took him to non-league football and Grays Athletic where he scored 37 goals in his first season. That led to a posse of clubs looking at him and just two months into his second season he moved back to his first club Southend on loan.
It took him less than eight seconds to score on his debut for them and ended the game with a hat trick. He simply couldn't stop scoring for the League Two club and they made the move a permanent one.
His goalscoring just continued and helped Southend to two promotions and into the Championship for the 2006/07 season. Despite their struggle, and ultimate relegation, Eastwood did enough to show he could play successfully at Championship level and again there were any number of clubs keen to sign him.
Southend put a big price on him which saw some clubs pull out of the running, but Wolves splashed out £1.5 million to take him to Molineux on a four year contract.
He's also a Welsh international now, making his debut in August, and it was no surprise to see that he scored against Bulgaria.
He might not have scored a goal for Wolves since August, but he's still going to be a big threat to the Clarets if he's in the side this evening.
Mick McCarthy is believed to be planning a number of changes following the 1-0 defeat to Barnsley, but the only confirmed likely change is the return of Jay Bothroyd with Stephen Ward likely to go into a wide position at the expense of Matthew Jarvis.
The likely Wolves side is: Wayne Hennessey, Kevin Foley, Darren Ward, Neill Collins, Michael Gray, Stephen Ward, Seyi Olofinjana, Darren Potter, Karl Henry, Jay Bothroyd, Andy Keogh. Subs: Carl Ikeme, Rob Edwards, Matthew Jarvis, Freddy Eastwood, Stephen Elliott.
This is Owen Coyle's fifth game in charge and almost certainly it will be the same starting eleven as we have seen in all of the previous four games.
John Spicer and Stephen Jordan are back to full fitness but the manager is looking to give them a reserve game (the next one is a week on Wednesday), whilst captain Steven Caldwell is on the mend and could resume full training next week.
There's also good news on Michael Duff. Following an exploratory operation this week it has been deemed he will not require any surgery to repair his cruciate ligament, the damage is nowhere near as bad as was first thought.
But to today, and expect us to line up: Gabor Kiraly, Graham Alexander, Clarke Carlisle, David Unsworth, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, Chris McCann, Alan Mahon, Kyle Lafferty, Robbie Blake, Andy Gray. Subs: Brian Jensen, James O'Connor, Joey Gudjonsson, Steve Jones, Ade Akinbiyi.
When Burnley are in a bad run the last place we want to visit is Molineux, but that's where we headed back in February this year having at least picked up a point against Sheffield Wednesday in the previous game to end a run of three defeats.
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The rest of the first half was fairly boring stuff. Wolves were the better side but we did have our chances. Ade Akinbiyi missed the best of them but we should surely have had a penalty for handball but it was incredibly turned down by referee Kevin Friend of Leicester.
Much of our good play was coming through Wade Elliott on the right, but in the later stages of the half Wolves got on top for the first time. An equaliser had never really looked likely and then four minutes from half time Wolves doubled their lead.
We made changes at half time and it made a difference. We were much better in the second half and we could so easily have got something from the game. Chris McCann pulled a goal back, there was another blatant handball in the box that the incompetent Friend waved away.
We put them under some pressure but the equaliser just wouldn't come but then in stoppage time we won a corner on the left. In it came, and Steven Caldwell got up to head it towards goal. All the Burnley fans jumped up expecting to celebrate the equaliser only for it to come down off the underside of the bar.
Probably over the ninety minutes we deserved something, but again we'd given soft goals away and this was proving very much to be our achilles heel and once again we were coming home with nothing.
The teams were;
Wolves: Matt Murray, Karl Henry, Neill Collins, Rob Edwards, Jackie McNamara, Michael Kightly (Jody Craddock 65), Seyi Olofinjana, Darren Potter, Michael McIndoe (Jay Bothroyd 77), Stephen Ward, Andy Keogh (Mark Davies 89). Subs not used: Jan Budtz, Jamie Clapham.
Burnley: Danny Coyne, Michael Duff (Stephen Foster 88), John McGreal, Steven Caldwell, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, James O'Connor, Joey Gudjonsson (Chris McCann 45), Steve Jones (Kyle Lafferty 45), Ade Akinbiyi, Andy Gray. Subs not used: Wayne Thomas, Eric Djemba-Djemba.
Previous 20 Seasons | |||||
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
1987/88 | 4 | a | 0-3 | 10,002 | . |
| . | . | h | 0-3 | 10,386 | . |
| . | SV | W | 0-2 | 80,841 | . |
1994/95 | 1 | h | 0-1 | 17,766 | . |
| . | . | a | 0-2 | 25,703 | . |
2000/01 | 1 | a | 0-1 | 20,156 | . |
| . | . | h | 1-2 | 15,483 | Branch |
2001/02 | 1 | a | 0-3 | 24,893 | . |
| . | . | h | 2-3 | 21,823 | I Moore Johnson |
2002/03 | 1 | a | 0-3 | 25,031 | . |
. | . | h | 2-1 | 18,641 | Taylor West |
2003/04 | LC | a | 0-2 | 18,548 | . |
2004/05 | C | h | 1-1 | 13,869 | Blake |
. | LC | h | 1-1 | 5,013 | Blake - won 4-2 on penalties |
. | C | a | 0-2 | 24,336 | . |
2005/06 | C | a | 1-0 | 21,747 | G O'Connor |
| . | . | h | 1-0 | 11,056 | . |
2006/07 | C | h | 0-1 | 12,245 | . |
. | . | a | 1-2 | 19,521 | McCann |