Cardiff v Wolves Match Preview [LIVE]

Date: Friday 30th November
Venue: Cardiff City Stadium
Kick-off: 20.00

Live @ http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewLiveArticle/399316
One match ban enabled

On Friday Nuno Espirito Santo will take his side to South Wales to face Cardiff.

The game will be shown live on Sky Sports TV

The last time these two sides met, also on a Friday night in Cardiff, the hosts failed to capitalise on either of two injury time penalties resulting in a 1-0 win for the visitors. The scenes after the final whistle have now passed into the annals of history. The cameras followed a red faced, spittle spraying Neil Warnock marching across the pitch repeatedly waving away Nuno and telling him to feck off. The reason for this dummy spitting display was apparently because Nuno hadn’t rushed over to him, shaken his hand and congratulated him what a wonderful team he had created. The real reason of course was because Warnock was furious that Wolves had just made his bunch of cloggers look even more ordinary than they actually were.

Since then, Cardiff have spent £27m on 4 Championship players and got in a couple of loanees which has of course resulted in them continuing to play Championship level football and finding that it is not good enough for the Premier league. They languish in the relegation zone as a result with just 8 points.

Wolves, by comparison, despite playing classy football whilst dominating the Championship last season, approached the summer transfer window with due respect. Recognising the need to strengthen an already impressive squad in order to make the step up, they spent £50m on carefully selected players. Giving 4 loan players permanent deals and bringing in 2 Portuguese internationals, 1 Belgian international, 1 Mexican international and 2 Spanish players (1 international). Their transfer savvy appears to have paid off and seems to be having the desired results.
Although still a work in progress, Wolves have certainly made their mark this season and made it quite clear that they have serious ambitions. They currently sit 11th in the table with 16 points.

As was the case last season, there is a marked contrast in playing styles between these two teams but the greatest contrast is with the two managers.
Nuno Espirito Santo has always maintained that performances are more important than results. His belief is that if you work hard to improve, understand and play your system and try to play well, the results will naturally follow.
Neil Warnock by comparison is of the old school who believe that football is a results based industry and results are all that matter. You can imagine him in the dressing room before the game telling the players to go out and do whatever they have to do to secure the win, “And remember lads, points make prizes, what do points make?".

The contrast of styles will make for an interesting game but Nuno will be looking for a huge improvement from his players after their poor performance at home to Huddersfield on Sunday.
More than 3,000 travelling fans are making the journey to Cardiff and I expect them to come home happy!


Gem’s prediction: 0-2