Preview: Ipswich Town home

Wolves face a blast from the past this weekend, as Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor return to Molineux with their resurgent Ipswich Town side. Whilst both are sure to receive a good reception at the near sell-out Molineux, Wolves fans will be hoping that's all they both leave with, with Wolves looking to fight back after their disappointing display against Peterborough on Boxing Day.

Tommy Smith's bizzare own goal gives Wolves the lead

Our last meeting with Ipswich took place earlier this season at Portman Road. Having seen off some early pressure from the Tractor Boys, Wolves took the lead through a bizzare own goal from Tommy Smith, before Tongo Doumbia wrapped up the points with a drive from 25 yards. The September win was part of a run of 4 wins that took Wolves to 3rd in the league and gave many fans great optimism of the season ahead. Our last meeting with them at Molineux was, of course, in the Championship-winning 08/09 season. A 0-0 draw helped the promotion ship continue to steady, after back-to-back 1-0 wins away to Sheffield Wednesday and Crystal Palace stopped the rot of 1 win in 11 games. The closest anyone came to scoring in that game was when Ebanks-Blake hit the bar from close range towards the end. Ipswich do have a dreadful record at Molineux though, winning only 5 out of 35 league meetings between the two sides, scoring just 29 goals at the Golden Palace. However, out of those 35 games at Molineux, 14 have been draws, and very rarely have we scored more than 2 goals past Ipswich in our previous meetings with them. Indeed, Town's last victory at Molineux came in 1991 with a 2-1 success. So, based on past history, it is not likely that they're gonna have much luck tomorrow.

McCarthy and Connor return to Molineux for the first time tomorrow

However, one key thing that the have in their armour is knowledge. Mick McCarthy brought a lot of our current first-teamers to Molineux - including our entire back 4 and our front pair of Doyle and SEB. So he will know their strengths, but also more importantly their weaknesses. And whilst things have changed under Stale Solbakken, McCarthy's assistant Terry Connor will know quite a bit about the new players such as Sako, Doumbia and Sigurdarson as he worked with them briefly before being dispensed by Solbakken. It is knowledge like that that will mean Ipswich come here with a well thought out gameplan - much like Peterborough did and that brought them success. Knowing McCarthy, no stone will be left unturned as he will be seeking to prove a point to fans who slated him more than anyone else. The former Wolves boss took over at Portman Road at the start of November with Town rooted to the bottom of the Championship and without a win in 11 games, but he has since guided them to 5 wins from his 11 games in charge and has lifted them to 20th in the table - 5 points clear of the drop zone. It is the typical 'McCarthy effect' and has seen Ipswich become hard to beat recently, after some early drubbings at Palace (5-0) and Leicester (6-0). They've also won 4 out of their last 6, proving themselves to be a very tricky opposition coming into tomorrow's game.

Goal celebrations have been few and far between for low scorers Ipswich

One thing we can be sure of tomorrow is goals. In 24 league games this season, Ipswich have only kept 3 clean sheets - only Bristol have a worse record than that! This failure to keep clean sheets has seen them lose 15 points from winning positions - although that's still 2 points less than we've lost from winning positions. So whichever side has the lead tomorrow can't be sure that they're going to go on to win. In half of Ipswich's matches this season, they've conceded more than one goal, and in all of those matches they've only come back to draw once, losing the other 11. The opposition have scored first (something we are the 2nd best in the league at doing) past Ipswich 13 times, and in those 13 games they've lost 8 times and won only 1. However, under McCarthy their defensive fortunes have improved slightly, only conceding 7 goals in their last 7 games. Scoring has been a problem for the Tractor Boys too this season, as they are the second-lowest scorers in the division with only 25 goals (1.04 goals per game average) - only Barnsley (24) have scored less goals than them. Their main goal threat comes from former Birmingham and Brentford striker DJ Campbell, who has got 9 of Ipswich's 25 goals this season whilst Lee Martin is their main provider from the wing, contributing 5 assists.

Solbakken: Under pressure from fans

As for Wolves, well they will be looking to bounce back from the worst performance since, ironically, Mick McCarthy's last game in charge - the 5-1 home defeat to West Brom. Although the Millwall performance earlier this season was bad, the defeat to Peterborough was worse as it seemed like the players just didn't care. The reaction of the fans was similar to the defeat to Albion too, with arguing in the stands, and sarcastic cheers for substituted players as well as cries of "you're not fit to wear the shirt". It was a day that highlighted the pressure Solbakken is seemingly under from the majority of fans - and his cause wasn't helped by the bizzare sackings of Sean O'Driscoll at Forest and Henning Berg at Blackburn, which led to some Wolves fans claiming Solbakken should be next out the door. What a time to now be playing a team managed by a Molineux legend. Whilst Mick McCarthy had indeed outstayed his time at Wolves (I firmly believe he should've been sacked well before the Albion game), there is no doubting what the man did for this football club. He dragged us from being relegation favourites and having barely any squad of note, to Championship Champions in 3 seasons, and gave me arguably the best year of my life as a Wolves fan. Not to mention the 2 seasons he successfully (if not always comfortably) kept us in the Premier League. I hope he gets the good reception he deserves, but I hope it ends at just that. Any singing of "Super Mick" during the game will be an insult to Solbakken, and will be detrimental to the team. We want to end one of the worst calendar years in our recent history on a high - something we've only done once in 8 seasons when we beat Liverpool 1-0 at Anfield in 2010. We do have a very good record against bottom-half sides, winning 7 of our 12 matches against them and scoring 18 goals in the process. It is important to view Boxing Day as a blip. We still have 4 wins in 6 games and that is the same run we had after our 1-0 win at Blackburn earlier in the season, when Solbakken was being praised so heavily by fans. All teams suffer setbacks and bad runs - particularly in the Championship. It just seems a lot of our fans have got so focused on the Premier League, they've not realised how much tougher the Championship has gotten since we've been away.

Ward and McCarthy could link up again at Ipswich

The match could be an interesting one for several Wolves players too - with Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Richard Stearman and Stephen Ward all up against their potential future employers with all 3 amongst names linked with McCarthy at Ipswich. One player who won't feature tomorrow but looks certain to join Ipswich is defender Ronald Zubar, who hasn't played a game for Wolves since the 3-1 defeat at Cardiff at the end of August. As for team news, Wolves have no fresh injury worries, and it's expected that Bjorn Sigurdarson will replace the maligned (and hugely disappointing) Jermaine Pennant on the right, while Jamie O'Hara will again be on the bench as he is nowhere near fit enough to start yet. Wolves will be looking for more from Bakary Sako too, the French winger struggling for form in the last 2 games. It doesn't help that teams have seemingly sussed him out, double-marking him and letting him do plenty of tricks before easily winning the ball back off him and starting a counter-attack. This is something Solbakken will have to try and combat before it becomes to serious a problem for the team, as when Sako had struggled this season, invariably so have Wolves.

However, I think a little bit of perspective is required for all those around Molineux at the moment. Rome wasn't built in a day, and this is a long-term project. Mick McCarthy took 3 years to get promotion by building a "new Wolves" that was made of young and hungry players. Stale Solbakken deserves the same amount of time to build a "new Wolves" made of quality foreign players who perhaps aren't quite the finished article, but are still quality and who keep the ball. That is the way football is moving these days - gone are the days of kick and rush football, where workrate was enough to see you succeed. These days you need to have a technical and tactical style of play. It will get better, it just needs time and a little bit of patience. Hopefully the New Year can see a new start at Molineux and a fresh sense of optimism and acceptance. And don't forget, our last pathetic performance (at home to Millwall) was followed up by a 4-1 thrashing of Bristol City. Don't be too surprised to see a similar response from Stale Solbakken's men tomorrow afternoon.

Prediction: Wolves 3-1 Ipswich Town

In Stale We Trust.