Albion take the title while Wolves miss out once again
Tony Matthews looks at successful seasons for the Black Country’s football clubs ... and Walsall return to mid-table mediocrity
Season 2007-08 Part One
THIS turned out to be a great season for the Albion, who won the League Championship with 87 points, two more than runners-up Stoke City, with Hull City third, while Wolves ended up in seventh place, 11 points behind the Baggies.
Meanwhile Walsall had to settle for a mid-table finish in Division One, 28 points adrift of the champions Swansea City and 18 fewer than third-placed Doncaster.
Under manager Tony Mowbray, Albion started the campaign pretty well, winning eight and drawing three of their opening 15 matches with Kevin Phillips netting 10 goals in the process.
This run saw the Baggies neatly bedded in fifth place in the table, and over the next seven weeks or so, up to the turn of the year, they continued their good form and ended 2007 sitting on top of the division, having won 14 of their 25 matches.
Fielding a reasonably settled side, Mowbray had confidence in his players but surprisingly their team’s form dropped into the New Year, when four defeats were sufffered in eight games.
Thankfully, things picked up after that blip and from game 30 right through to the last fixture on 4 May, the Baggies lost only three matches and eventually clinched the title on the very last day with a 2-0 win away at QPR.
Albion’s full record for 2007-08 was played 46, won 23, drew 12 and lost 11, goals scored 88, goals conceded 55, pointsv total 81.
Their biggest win was 5-0 at home to Scunthorpe United while their heaviest defeat was that of 4-1 against Leicester at The Hawthorns. Phillips ended up as top League scorer with 22 goals, followed by Roman Bednar with 13. Midfielder Jonathan Greening was the only ever-present in the side.
Switching to Wolves who had Mick Mccarthy in charge, their form during the campaign was up and down after they had made a decent start, winning half of their first 12 games.
December turned out to be a horrible month – only one win in seven starts. January was no better, but their performances did pick from February onwards.
However, inconsistency in the early part of the season cost them dear, missing out on the play-offs by one point and two goals, finishing with this record: played 46, won 18, drew 16, lost 12, goal count 53-48 with a points tally of 70.