PARTY-POOPERS
Can Garry Monk’s Birmingham spoil the Wolves party?
GARRY Monk wants to know who his Paul Pogba is going to be today if Birmingham are going to do a Manchester United and wreck Wolves’ Premier League celebration party.
Pogba stopped Manchester City winning the top-flight crown with two goals in an inspired second half performance last week.
The title will still come and soon, as it will for Wolves, but at the other end of the table Monk has a relegation battle to win.
He needs inspiration. He needs goals. He needs his Pogba, below.
Wolves with their silky, classy football, are the best in their division by miles, the Championship’s Manchester City – and clinched promotion when Brentford struck at the death at Fulham last night.
But could what happened at the Etihad in that explosive local derby be repeated at a full Molineux in this Midlands derby?
“Are you saying we are Manchester United? Which one is Paul Pogba?” asks Monk with a smile.
“It’s great that you refer to us as Manchester United. That’s a positive. That’s our plan. We have to think like that. That’s our belief. This is the Championship version of that game.
“The mentality we have, the confidence, we will go to Wolves thinking exactly that.
“We understand we are playing against the best team in our league.
“My focus since being at Birmingham City on day one has been trying to put the players’ focus on us, on what we need to do to perform and what we need to do right by ourselves to give us the opportunity to take points.”
Monk, in his seven games in charge, has brought a clarity to the chaos at Birmingham caused by employing five managers, plus a caretaker, since just before Christmas 2016.
Birmingham have got on the bus to Wolverhampton before with a huge problem to sort out.
They had been hammered 8-0, their record home defeat, by Bournemouth four years ago when they went to Wolves in Gary Rowett’s first game in charge and got themselves a goalless draw.
That, in its way, was as big as Blues potentially turning up at lunch-time today and delaying the imminent crowning of Wolves as champions for the second time in nine years, ironically when they went up with Birmingham in 2008-9.
From the Birmingham team that got the goalless Molineux draw and launched a climb from next to bottom to safety, only three players survive: Jonathan Grounds, Paul Robinson and David Davis.
Midfielder Davis, sub that day, is an ex-Wolves man who will love this fight and he will be kept busy trying to control the quality of football in front of him.
Monk was the first manager to get a close up of what this new, revamped Wolves had to offer when, as Middlesbrough manager, he took his side to Molineux for the first game of this season.
Progressed
Boro lost 1-0 to a 33rd-minute Leo Bonatini goal, one of seven new Wolves making their debuts.
What did Monk think that day? Could he have predicted Wolves becoming so good that some are saying they could take the Premier League by storm?
“I knew from day one Wolves had really good players,” says Monk.
“But they have progressed a lot from when we played them in that game.
“I remember they were the better team in the first half, we were the better team in the second half. Their progression has gone a hell of a long way from that point.
“We analysed them through preseason and we could see the quality of players they had, that they would do well in this league.
“Sunday will be a different proposition to what I faced in the first game of the season. It’s a totally different scenario. “I knew Wolves would be up there and I knew they would be competing for promotion. “But no one can tell what team is going to do what at the start of the season in terms of predictions of where they are going to finish. “You could see their ambitions, though. It was clear Wolves were going to be up there, competing, if they performed with the players they had. “What I mean is that they have progressed massively more, gone beyond probably what even they thought. “Not that they ever thought they couldn’t reach the automatics, but in the way they have performed. It’s not just about winning games, it’s the performances they have had at a very high level, Premier League level. “That’s what you couldn’t predict in the first game of the season. The big progression is that they have performed like a Premier League side in the Championship and done that on a consistent basis.”
In short, Wolves have blown away the Championship as Man City have blown away the Premier League.
Monk, on the other hand, is looking to build an identity at Birmingham, a club that haven’t known where they’ve been going since the new ownership, Trillion Trophy Asia, took over.
Suicidal
To ‘do a United’ and pull this off would be huge and give Monk four wins and a draw from eight games. It might even convince the owners that they have stumbled across getting the right man for the job since their suicidal sacking of Rowett.
Monk’s revival has not been spectacular but it is encouraging.
The 3-1 midweek defeat at Bristol City was a setback, Blues’ first defeat for four games, and they must pick themselves up quickly today. It’s only the second time Birmingham have conceded more than one goal under Monk and they are creating chances, far more than they ever did before the Monk habit.
But they are not taking enough of them.
Sam Gallagher could be back from injury to help out Lukas Jutkiewicz, who has scored three in three since being restored to the attack by Monk.
“I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t believe we would stay up,” adds Monk. “What we have to do is make sure we execute things better, that when we get our chances we take ‘em.
“We have to be at our maximum. No regrets. We don’t have time for regrets. There is no time to waste.”
Birmingham’s fans, disillusioned by what’s gone on since Christmas 2016, are now responding to what they are seeing. Amazingly, nearly 5,000 went to Bolton to see them win there. They were back in numbers at Bristol City and will fill their enclosure at Molineux.
“Our fans are seeing a higher level of desire and fight, and the players respond to that. It has built. We need to continue it in our last four matches,” says Monk.
“It could be one of the deciding factors in our outcome.
“I don’t think we need any more motivation, but the big crowd on Sunday, the atmosphere, we’ll add that in.
“Our biggest motivation is the situation we are in, keeping this club in the Championship.
“We are fighting for our lives. It affects everyone, not just the players, but the people at the club, our fans.
“That’s where the real fire comes from in the belly, but if you can add little motivations on top of that and add fuel to that fire, then that’s what we will do.
“We are ready to go and spoil the party, on their patch and with everything that’s going on for Wolves right now.
“The talent is there in our team. The fight is there. We aim to put the best we have on the pitch.” And Birmingham’s Pogba? Wolves have a Jota. Birmingham have a Jota. Whoever is the hotter will be the winner.