Doyle The Right Man For Wolves

Reading might have fallen short this season in the Championship, Kevin Doyle will be playing in the Premier League next season. His record signing for Wolves yesterday shouldn't come as any major surprise as Mick McCarthy recently proclaimed Doyler the best player in the football league in Four Four Two. This was high praise indeed especially with Mick's own centre forward Slyvian Ebanks-Blake finishing so far ahead of Doyle in the scoring charts.

Doyle only scored 1 goal since Christmas but there is no doubting his class. The biggest worry is whether he can stay injury free. Playing in the Premier League will help him because if nothing else there will be fewer games. I think Doyle found his second season in the Championship difficult simply because there was so little time between games. He is on record as saying he was exhausted from playing twice a week. It's not that Doyler isn't up to it, it just means that injuries aren't given time to heal and because of the pressure of getting back into the Premier League he was always thrown back in too soon.

Trapatonni took Doyle off for Ireland against Italy in Bari because he was flagging and he suffered an injury for Reading soon afterwards which finished his season. Doyle is an all-action centre forward and he is noticeably off-colour when hampered by injury. The thing about centre forwards though is that they are judged on goals and Doyle took more than his share of criticism for Reading's relegation in 2008. Again Doyle was injured for much of this season and he rarely looked fit on his comeback.

Steve Coppell took to playing him on the right wing that season as well which didn't help and Reading struggled badly as a team leaving their strikers with fewer chances.

Wolves have gotten themselves a quality player though. He has scored some brilliant goals for Ireland and been excellent in a team which has often looked to have less Premier League quality than Wolves.

It is great for Ireland's World Cup prospects that Doyle will have a season in the Premier League behind him if we qualify for South Africa. At least it won't come as a shock to him. While the present Wolves team have the look of a new Reading, you would have to assume they will struggle next season. Playing fancy football didn't get West Brom anywhere and if Wolves take the Stoke approach then I don't think Doyle is going to see much action. He'd probably end up back at Reading again a la Dave Kitson.

Hull were a bit of a disaster themselves and I don't even know what strikers they used after Christmas. I know Marlon King was gone and our boy Caleb didn't play much but beyond that they didn't do much attacking. That's the problem with promoted teams in the Premier League. It's all 4-5-1 and lone attackers ploughing a lone furrow. Doyle mightn't get a kick much less a game if Mick resorts to these tactics. He might have to if they are to survive.

I would have preferred if Doyle had moved to the continent where he might have played for a more established top flight club. The continent can be more open and I'm sure he would score a bag of goals in La Liga, Ligue 1, the Ere Divise, Serie A or the Bundesliga.

I did in fact write to all Serie A, Bundesliga and La Liga clubs in December telling them to sign Doyle. I didn't get any responses. Doyle would have been more than good enough for a top European Club but in many ways he had no choice but to sign for Wolves.

They showed real and genuine interest in Doyle which he was surely impressed by. Mick McCarthy's presence would have been a factor as well. He understands the Irish players well and if any Premier League manager is going to give Doyle a fair crack at the whip, it will be McCarthy.

Wolves have also made him their record signing and Reading's record sale. Other Premier League clubs have had ample opportunity to sign it but they've instead seen fit to sign Bobby Zamora, Emile Heskey, Pavlyuchenko, Amir Zaki, Alfonso Alaves, Daniel Cousin, El Zhar, Bojinov and all sorts of other rubbish. So why would he wait for any of those clubs to come in for him.

Wolves were quick off the mark and they have been very upfront with Doyle. They are a Premier League club with the right set up and an exciting young team. If Doyle does stay fit, you can be sure he will have a good season and Wolves will stay up.

If that happens, Doyle to Wolves will have been the best business done all summer.