Stats Aplenty To Mull Over

Does Steve Bull ever look at tomorrow’s Molineux visitors, cast an eye over Wolves’ strike-force and wonder what it’s all about? 

Ten home League games against Newcastle in what we might call the modern era have yielded a solitary Wolves victory and, some time before the return at St James’ Park in January, someone will presumably point out that they have been victorious on only two of their last ten League trips up there.

It is grim reading, indeed, but no game on the clubs’ respective fixture lists throws up statistical oddities like this one. Not that the feeling of supremacy has by any means been one-sided.

We have highlighted previously that home advantage was almost everything in the 1970s clashes between these teams and the points generally stayed at Molineux or St James’, depending on where the match was being played.

Neither side won at the other’s home throughout the decade and, for Wolves, that often spelled early-season trouble as they always seemed to head for Tyneside in the opening weeks of a campaign.

Fast-forward more than ten years and another curious fact pops up…..the first day of the 1990s was Wolves’ best day of the 1990s; the Bully-inspired 4-1 win at Newcastle half-way through Graham Turner’s side’s first season in the Second Division.

It was one of no fewer than five occasions on which the striker finished on the winning side against tomorrow’s opponents – and he scored in three of them, including a 6-2 floodlit triumph in 1992 over a side who had just been taken over by Kevin Keegan.

In between the two trips when Wolves fans flew in big numbers to Tyneside, there was also a 2-1 victory for Turner’s men in the north east 33 years ago today in a game of two own goals.

The whacky stats continue as we come back to more modern times….seven out of the last ten Wolves v Newcastle games in these parts have been drawn, nearly always 1-1, and none of the last 12 meetings at Molineux, in any competition, have been won and lost by more than one goal.

The BBC Sports website also informs us that tomorrow’s game is the most drawn Premier League fixture, with 61 per cent of the matches here having finished level. What’s more, the last nine top-flight matches between the clubs in the West Midlands have seen both teams score.

And it’s no surprise that the all-time win-loss count in head-to-head contests is close, with Wolves having registered 29 victories and Newcastle 31.