Can Wolves and Shrews last pace?
EIGHT down, 38 to go. The promotion parties of May are still eight months away and winter lurks en route. The Football League is a long slog: 46 grinding matches, plus a sprinkling of cup-ties to further clog up the fixture list.
There is not a lot of time for coaching in such a schedule, just the weekly routine of play-recover-prepare. For those not used to it, the torrent of fixtures can be a shock.
Wolves signed a dozen players this summer, eight from overseas with no experience of the British game. Seven of those have featured regularly this season and Wolves have impressed, playing some excellent football and figuring among the initial pacesetters.
Watching them hold a Brentford team, who are playing better than results suggest, Ruben Neves stood out, while Willy Boly and Diogo Jota also impressed.
Expansive
However, these are early days. This time last year, Port Vale were fifth in League One. Now, they prop up League Two.
Vale, you may recall, also focused on overseas talent, hired a Portuguese coach and sought to play expansive football. A good start quickly petered out, Bruno Ribeiro quit at Christmas, and Michael Brown was unable to prevent the drop.
Comparisons should not be overdone. Vale recruited cheaply. So cheaply that most of the new signings could not even hold down a regular place in the third tier.
Wolves have invested considerable sums on the likes of Neves and, last season, Helder Costa and Ivan Cavaleiro. Nevertheless, the relentless competitiveness of the Championship will ask questions of character and fitness, as well as talent, as the season wears on, especially of young players such as Neves (20), Jota (20) and Ruben Vinagre (18).
Assimilation does not just involve adjusting to the thicket of fixtures. Manager Nuno Espirito Santo, whose previous experience is almost entirely in Iberia, made the point that he had done his research on the competition but was still taken aback by what he felt was a laissez-faire approach by referees. ‘A foul is a foul,’ he said with a mix of pique and mystification.
Thirty miles along the M54 are Shrewsbury Town. Operating on a much, much tighter budget, they also had an influx of new players, but Paul Hurst’s shopping was done exclusively in the domestic market.
The focus, he said after his side’s 2-1 win at Gillingham a couple of weeks ago, was on ‘younger, fitter’ players. Getting players in early enabled the squad to blend, pre-season bred confidence, cemented by a lastgasp win against Northampton on the opening day.
Shrews have gone on to make the best start in their history and, having been bottom last Christmas, are dreaming of a first promotion to the second tier since the glory years under Graham Turner.
Hurst, while as keen to manage expectations as any manager, is not quashing such ambition either.
“I was keen to try and raise standards,” he said. “I came here and we managed to survive, but there seemed a feeling of, ‘if we go down, we go down, we’re never going to be that good’. If possible I want to try and raise the bar.
“There is the danger you get carried away. We know what fans are like. They love the club and want the best for it, but getting carried away is not in my nature.”
Speaking to him that rings true.
Pushing
But then he added: “I am interested to see where we can go. There are dreams, and fairytales happen in football. If you can be involved in one, all the better. We’ll keep pushing and see where it goes.”
Hurst has come up the hard way, via Ilkeston Town, Boston United and Grimsby Town.
By the end of the year he will have 500 matches under his belt. His teams are well organised and play with width. If the Salop club keep winning, eyes will turn his way.
The path from lower leagues to top flight is not, however, as well-trodden as it was in Turner’s time.
Certainly, it is hard to envisage Wolves, Chinese-owned, advised by Jorge Mendes, turning to the Yorkshireman as they once did to Turner.
It might, though, cross some fans’ minds should Wolves and Shrewsbury meet as Championship equals a year from now.
To borrow from The Naked City’s pay-off line, there are 72 stories in the dug-outs of the Football League. These are two of them.
It will be fascinating watching their tales unfold.