Tough times ahead for Wolves?

As Wolverhampton Wanderers supporters debate whether the glass is half-empty or half-full in relation to their club's performance this season, the one thing they are happily agreed upon is that at least the glass is not shattered.

After the disappointment of 2003-04, when Wolves finished bottom in their only previous Premier League campaign, a repeat of that broken dream was a nagging fear in the minds of many of the Molineux faithful going into the campaign.

It could yet happen, of course, but with around a third of the season gone the signs are that Mick McCarthy's team are considerably more durable than the one that failed under Dave Jones' management.

This time six years ago, Wolves had already leaked five goals to Blackburn and Chelsea and crashed 4-0 at home to Charlton. Although the class of 2009 are only a point better off at the same stage, they are currently unbeaten in three games, comprising useful draws at Everton and Stoke and another in the home derby against Aston Villa.

By a quirk of the fixture computer, however, they have managed to avoid meeting any of the Champions' League quartet (or indeed Tottenham). That anomaly has led some fans to question whether Wolves' moderately encouraging start represents an opportunity squandered.

Amid all the anticipation surrounding the start of their games with the Big Four - they face Arsenal at home on Saturday, visit Chelsea a week later and encounter Manchester United, Manchester City, Spurs and Liverpool by December 28 - one uncomfortable fact stands out.

Against the bottom four (as they stood before West Ham beat Villa to climb above McCarthy's men), Wolves have taken a solitary point, at home to Hull. The Hammers and Portsmouth won at Molineux, while Blackburn thumped them 3-1 at Ewood Park.

It does not follow that they will fare worse against more vaunted and costly opponents. Even in the dark days of 2004, Wolves beat Manchester United. And didn't newly promoted Stoke see off Arsenal a year ago, and United and Chelsea lose at Burnley and Wigan respectively this season?

Yet even in a game that confounds logic as frequently as football, it is hard to ignore the fact that Arsenal go into Saturday evening's match having won all the past eight matches with Wolves.

Difficult, too, to dispute the wisdom of those Premier League managers who view any points picked up from the elite clubs as the proverbial bonus. Whether they admit it publicly or not, for Gary Megson, Sam Allardyce and Alex McLeish, it is how their teams fare against other sides in the bottom half of the table that will determine their fate.

In that respect, Wolves have a golden opportunity to offset any damage caused by their brushes with the top clubs. After Arsenal, who have prised an ominous 16 points from the last 18, their next three home matches pit them against Birmingham, Bolton and Burnley. They urgently need a minimum of seven points from those fixtures, not to mention the momentum and confidence a set of convincing results would generate.

McCarthy could point, with some justification, to the injury list that led to Wolves starting the season at a disadvantage. Sod's law dictated that all his key attackers - from prolific Championship goal-scorers Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Chris Iwelumo to pacy winger Michael Kightly and club-record signing Kevin Doyle - were indisposed at one stage.

Now that they are all back, and with Andy Keogh and Austrian Stefan Maierhofer also pushing for places, the Wolves manager is confronted by a different quandary. Can any, or all, of them cut it in the Premier League?

Doyle has already proved, with Reading, that he can score at this level. Ebanks-Blake has the potential to do likewise, especially if his principal source of crosses, Kightly, can recapture the form that made McCarthy's £25,000 outlay to Grays look like larceny.

Neither, at the moment, looks to have reached full fitness, while Keogh is a selfless grafter rather than a high-class finisher and the towering duo of Iwelumo and Maierhofer appear more suited to cameo roles.

All of which leaves a sizeable question mark over Wolves' capacity to score the goals that will be needed to keep them out of the bottom three next May.

The creativity required to bring the best from Ebanks-Blake and Kightly could yet come from Nenad Milijas. The Serbia midfielder faded after a promising start in the Premier League but has re-emerged looking less daunted by its physicality and delivered the two set-pieces from which Jody Craddock scored his unlikely brace at Stoke.

Curiously, and perhaps worryingly for McCarthy, only one of Wolves' goals this season, by Doyle against Fulham, has come from truly open play. The rest stemmed from corners, free-kicks, throw-ins (Greg Halford's delivery is sufficiently similar to Rory Delap's to warrant McCarthy's consideration for promotion from the bench against Arsenal, given the way Arsene Wenger's side buckled at the Britannia Stadium last season) and a goalkeeper's kick-out.

Defensively, Wolves have creaked badly at times, conceding five at Sunderland, with left back a particular problem. But in holding midfielder Karl Henry, who has led his home-town team with inexhaustible drive, they have one of the unsung heroes of the English season to date.

The honesty and work-rate embodied by Henry are valuable assets. Wolves, though, need to complement it with a spark of the unexpected. Saturday, and the first of their confrontations with the Big Four, would be the perfect time to start.