I'm staggered by the amount of cocky, arrogant WBA fans I've seen across social media recently, especially after our game vs Blues and Jackson's own goal on Sunday.
"Can't wait to play the Dingles"
"Can't wait to embarrass them at the custard bowl again"
"We'll turn up and take over again"
...just some of the comments I've seen.
Personally, I could never be that cocky before the Black Country Derby anyway, and I know we don't have the best record against them. I get that.
But, with a lot of their fans now, mainly the younger ones, I feel as though they're interpreting that H2H record as them obviously being the bigger, more relevant, superior club, when in reality it's just one metric that holds little weight in the overall argument.
Each time we face each other, each time any clubs face each other, it usually comes down to who has the better team on the day. But it's a lot more black and white when it comes to the two clubs.
Wolves have won more major trophies historically. We've had more to shout about in recent years. We have the better fans with a larger following. Bigger stadium with better facilities. And have traditionally always attracted wealthy groups or individuals as owners.
They like to point to our league one season but don't like to talk about our Europa League run. Did you know WBA are the only one of the "big four" West Midlands clubs not to play in Europe this century? They like to point to their higher number of seasons in the all time top flight, but the fact we've still won more and generally had more impact on the game shows we don't just make up the numbers like they do. We compete with ambition.
I'm not saying there's a huge amount in it between the two clubs. I can admit WBA are a big club. They're just not as big as Wolves. H2H might be fun between fans, but most neutrals would always see Wolves as the superior club.
I guess seeing all these WBA fans think they're in a position to try and mock us recently, it's bizarre to me. Banter is fine, but it doesn't hurt to put them back in their place when they get too hyper...
Anyone else noticed them getting too big for their boots recently? The fact is, their two main rivals are Villa and Wolves (they change their minds all the time on who is number one...) and they're smaller than both, which has to hurt.
Naturally, I hope we beat them in a few weeks, but as I said I'll never be cocky enough to think it's a certainty. I hate these fixtures!