Wolves v Newcastle: Failure is not an option

Andy The Magpie

“Failure is not an option”. I’m no fan of the psychobabble surrounding the game these days but the words attributed to NASA flight director Gene Krantz, fit perfectly into Rafa Benitez’s team talk this week.

As an aside, Krantz denied uttering the phrase; it was a Hollywood construct, spoken by Ed Harris in Apollo 13.

Rafa could have said it this week to the players. I hope he did, sprinkling a bit of stardust over the squad along the way.

The Chronicle reported that he believes,

“If you win the title it means you are there (Premier League). If you try to be first, then you might be closer to being second.

“If you try to just be second, then maybe you’ll end up being close, and being third. We just have to try to be first.”

Which is true; the lower you aim, the more you miss top spot by.

Where we finish will be defined by the next half-a-dozen games. Overconfidently, I’m claiming three points from the Villa and Bristol City games. Neither side has shown anything recently to suggest we won’t beat them. Let’s be honest, our wounds in the Championship are largely self-inflicted.

The squad can’t afford to think they are games we just turn up for; they need to leave the complacency to the professionals: us fans.

We’re embarking on a run of games where top performances will be needed. There’s no let-up; each of them is tough, so we need to keep a consistent mindset of working hard each week. None of the matches allows us a moment where we can switch off; no mistakes will go unpunished.

And they will dictate where we finish. Wolves, Norwich, Brighton, Huddersfield, and Reading; if we take nine or more points, it almost guarantees us promotion, and not through the playoffs either.

Thankfully, Dwight Gayle is on the cusp of returning. When he is out of the side, you’re never sure whether it’s going to be feast or famine in front of goal. We’ve done well in his absence to an extent. We’re back to the top of the table, and while it’s easy to say that’s down to the failings of Brighton, we still had to take points.

Within the context of a season, we’ll always have ‘iffy’ spells. The ones where you wonder how you won 1 – 0 because you should have had more, or you should have lost. We do need consistency, and we’re short on that at the moment but a (major) contributing factor I always think, is Rafa’s need to tinker with the line-up every five minutes.

Playing the same team is tough, and armed with the performance data from GPS tracking, the manager knows more than ever who needs a rest. But it impacts on understandings and partnerships. It why ****-ups like Clark’s own goal against QPR happen. If we can get a settled side, we can wrap this league up sooner than people expect.

But focus is the key thing. As Rafa said, aim high but if we’re truthful, finishing second in May genuinely is good enough. Promotion is the be-all and end-all for this season and how we achieve it is a distant second.

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159 thoughts on “Wolves v Newcastle: Failure is not an option”

  5. Watch out for the ref trying to make it up to the Wolves fans. Mitro won’t stay on the pitch or he will give them a pen.

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  7. Played poorly this half… Are we deliberately sitting back to avoid the Wolves counter, as the announcers suggested?

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  8. Okay: Would you talk Mitro off or leave him on?

    Undecided–leaning toward taking him off…

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  9. ‘Newcastle have stolen a goal’, oh I’m sorry, did we not actually score a pretty good goal there.
    this commentary team need to give their heads a shake. 👿

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  11. Wolves probably the better team in a scrappy game. We are lucky to be ahead but I will take it.

    What to do with Mitro? If he does anything remotely bad the Ref will send him off. I think you take him off at half time.

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  12. Kimtoon: Who do you have commentating? We have one guy and he is being pretty fair.

    There were decisions that could have gone either way so if it is one sided commentary then I would be annoyed as well.

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  15. Fans Should Own the Club:
    Played poorly this half… Are we deliberately sitting back to avoid the Wolves counter, as the announcers suggested?
    Yes I think so. It is going to be two games per week now. It is a good way to save your energy for that.

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  16. I would definitely take Mitro off at half time and bring on Murphy. Too risky to leave him on. I’d also get Colback off asap. A disaster waiting to happen.

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  20. Wait–I think I see it–Atsu’s on? Who’s playing up top? Gouffran? He used to be a striker.

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  24. They’ve scored 9 in their last 5 at home.

    We’ve scored 7 in our last 5 away…

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  28. Don’t know if Gouffran’s the guy you want on the end of the chances, but he seems to be up top there. Maybe Murphy replaces him later on?

    Sitting pretty deep, we are.

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  30. Bet Lambert has been in the refs ear at half time about Mitro, ref will probs look for a chance to even things up a bit this half. Don’t trust the refs in this league one little bit .

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  32. Funny–I heard a wolves fan interviewed on the True Faith Weekly podcast saying he felt this particular ref was very, very fair. I feel like he’s missed the foul by Stearman early on that could have given us a man advantage and the yellow for Mitro was harsh, but he got that dive call right.

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  35. Was Lascelles offside for our goal then? Commentators reckon he was, I never saw half time analysis as was feeding lewis. He didn’t look off in real time to me.

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  36. Eric Sykes:
    Kimtoon: he is a Premier League ref. Dropped down for this game. 3rd time this season.

    oh dear, seems poor show that championship gets the PL cast offs like.

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  41. Lascelles was off, then he wasn’t–questions about “active” or not was what I heard in the commentary.

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  45. Hard ten mins coming up now. Reckon they’ll apply the pressure. We should have chances to counter but we don’t look like we’re at it today.

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  46. I think Rafa must have told ours to sit back and avoid the counter today.

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  48. We typically do not concede this late in away games. I just had a look–we’ve given up 3 in our last 10 away games after this point in the game, but that includes the Lascelles OG from that disgraceful Nottingham Forest game (speaking of bad refs).

    Weirdly, it also includes another Lascelles OG.

    How many does he have this season?

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  50. Of course, I may have just jinxed us with my half-assed statistics.

    Now the stats and the superstitions are battling for control of my soul!

    **** you modernity!

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  65. Very very pleased with the three points. But I thought our passing and movement was poor. Too many balls aimlessly in the air. Need Hayden back. Colback doesn’t even know when he’s fouling.

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  66. Yeah, crappy game but now it is over I can get back to laughing at the Mackems. I read Louise (Mackem) Taylor’s write up in the Guardian and it was scathing. Basically, if anything goes against them they collapse. Moyes’s face on the 4th goal was a picture.

    They are off on a team bonding trip to New York next week. I don’t know who the hell set that one up because it is usually cold at this time of year and I assume they will still want to train. They had a foot of snow in Central Park on Thursday so I am assuming that is out. Anywhere outdoors is going to be suffering the soggy after effects of a major snowstorm.

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  68. Thought about going jogging over in Central Park to spit at the Sunderland boys.

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  69. Second 1-0 win on the trot. That’s Rafa there in a nutshell. He’s realised things had started to get a bit tight and nervy so he’s decided to shore it up and get tight games.

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  70. Oh, and I just added up the amount Palace have spent on their major players such as Cabaye, Benteke and Van Anholt. It is about 150 MILLION POUNDS. And that doesn’t include their fringe players. They are totally fcked if they go down as they are mainly new buys and will be on massive wages.

    Yes I know I dwell. But I like a bit of schadenfreude and their supporters were so cocky when they were doing well.

    I don’t actually think they will go down as they have easily a midtable team. Better than ours last year and we were supposed to be “too good to go down”.

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  71. I’ve had that bloody error 520 all afternoon it’s the only site that does it with my tablet,so hope this one gets through it always says error is with host site,great three points,Fat Sam got beat,scum got thumped what a good week-end

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  72. Icedog:
    I’ve had that bloody error 520 all afternoon it’s the only site that does it with my tablet,so hope this one gets through it always says error is with host site,great three points,Fat Sam got beat,scum got thumped what a good week-end

    certainly is Ice, was really worried about getting a result today especially after the first 20 mins of play. Didn’t see us winning at all.

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  73. i wish every game was that easy. they only had a cpl of shots towards the end.
    Great team play. cracking result – clean sheen

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  74. Icedog:
    I’ve had that bloody error 520 all afternoon it’s the only site that does it with my tablet,so hope this one gets through it always says error is with host site,great three points,Fat Sam got beat,scum got thumped what a good week-end

    Ice – likewise & im on my phone. Pisses you right off & im sure one was an error 522 message as well.

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  75. I was really pleased for Mitrovic getting his goal today. I think his frustration was there for all to see before it and he was a lucky boy imo – could have got a second yellow for the challenge on the keeper.
    But pleased Rafa stuck with him & the goal will have done him wonders.

    Thought Yedlin was class again today but agreed with the praise for our CBs – they were excellent. I really like Clark – very assured CB and reminds me a bit of Darren Peacock in his style of play.

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