Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Dean Saunders has hit
out at The Football League after claiming that the Easter programme unfairly
disadvantaged his club.
Wolves played out an exciting 3-2 win over West Midlands
rivals Birmingham yesterday just 48 hours after another hard fought 3-2 victory
over Middlesbrough – their fourth win in five matches in their bid to maintain
their Championship status.
However despite the joy of earning all three points at
St Andrews for the first time in 12 years, Saunders questioned the league’s
attitude to fairness with relegation rivals Blackburn, Blackpool, Bristol City,
Huddersfield and Peterborough all receiving an extra day off between their
Easter fixtures.
“It’s ridiculous we’ve had to play on Saturday/Monday
when some teams are playing Friday/Tuesday,” said Saunders.
"Some of the teams down at the bottom near us are
playing teams that haven’t got anything riding on it and it has to be looked at
because it was a definite disadvantage for us.
"We weren’t recovered and in the first-half we came out
of the traps well and banged three quick goals in. It’s lucky we did get three
because they came back at us and we were hanging on at the end.”
“You get a dead leg on a Saturday and sometimes you
can’t get over it by Monday so I had Jamie O’Hara on the pitch today with a
dead leg and he was still struggling from Saturday. I had a massive dilemma
over whether I picked the same team to keep some continuity or whether to make
changes. I stuck with the same team and luckily we won."
The result which lifted Wolves out of the Championship
relegation zone and up five places to 18th in the table did come at a cost.
Goal-scorer Sylvan Ebanks-Blake left the fray with an ankle problem while Jamie
O’Hara and David Davis also picked up groin injuries that Saunders fears may
rule them out of key games during the run-in.
“I’ve got a couple of groin strains in there and Sylvan
might be out for the season and it’s just fatigue. He’s gone over on his ankle
but it was through tiredness stretching for the ball and he was out on his
feet. You get injured when you’re tired.
“Dave Davis was shouting at me to come off with 20
minutes to go and I couldn’t bring him off. We didn’t buckle though and the
lads fought their way to the win.”
With six of the bottom seven teams in the division
separated by just three points the Wolves boss admitted that a record points
tally may be needed to stay up.
“Normally 50-51
points would keep you up,” continued Saunders.
“I think 52 points is the record so normally after
winning four out of five at this stage you should be out of it needing maybe
one win but I think we’ll still need another two or three wins. It’ll only take
a draw and defeat to be right back in it again. It’s uncanny everyone seems to be
winning.”
Yesterday’s 3-2 reverse leaves Birmingham sitting just
four points above their near neighbours. Blues boss Lee Clark admitted his own
frustration at the events of the afternoon and the need to cast an anxious eye
over his shoulder for their final few games.
“I’m not ignorant or arrogant to only look at the top of
the table. There are teams in the bottom half of the table on ridiculous runs
but with Middlesbrough and Bolton playing the day after us there was the chance
to go eighth,” said Clark.
"We’ve just got to get back on it and make sure when Millwall come here on Saturday we’re right in amongst it and not living off the memory of last Friday – in this game you have to move on quickly, you can’t effect the past but you can have an effect on the future and we need to do that.”
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