Nenad Milijas, come on down!

Three games, two midfielders unavailable, one question, which combination should we use for the next three games with Karl Henry, Adlene Guedioura and Michael Mancienne (ineligible for Chelsea) unavailable for selection? David Jones looks as though his mind is set on leaving, David Edwards has an amazing engine but nothing else, so that leaves a midfielder who last season shown glimpses of promise yet so much more to offer. Step forward, Nenad Milijas.

Milijas stepped into Molineux on the back of scoring 22 goals in the 2008/09 season for Red Star Belgrade and we all believed he would supply and score the goals from midfield. He made a bright start in his first few games by spraying passes and whipping in threatening set-pieces with that left foot but as we would start to find out, he hadn't lasted 90 minutes for us. Now I hear this urban myth about Milijas being a 40-a-day smoker and I can't help but think that if it is true, then no wonder why his endurance has suffered. But despite this, he has contributed so much to the first half of the season; the free-kick heading in by Andy Keogh at Wigan, the deliveries that gave Jody Craddock brace at Stoke, the ball touched on deftly by Kevin Doyle to claim our biggest scalp against Spurs, the opening goal that won us a then-crucial game against Burnley and who could forget his finest performance in the Wolves shirt capped off with a 30-yard screamer against Bolton? This is proof that a player doesn't have to last 90 minutes or run around all day to leave a footprint on a football match and all a player like Milijas needs is one killer pass and it could define the difference between a result and defeat. But Mick McCarthy believes that work ethic gets results, hence why he preferred fellow left-footer Jones in the second half of the season - not that I am disputing his beliefs because that's what kept us up and Jones played a major part in that.

Now fast-forward to the World Cup, pre-season and now. Milijas has travelled with the Serbia squad to South Africa, and having only played once in the tournament, he needed a break and had to catch up on fitness with the rest of the Wolves squad, in order to do that, McCarthy has only started him in the two Carling Cup games, which he has dispatched a penalty in each, also lasting 120 minutes in both games in the process, which would easily show signs of his fitness improving, which is a priority, irrelevent of how good or bad he performed. Should Milijas play on Saturday, the other central midfield void wouldn't need filling as the tenacity and mobility of Mancienne would be the perfect foil for Milijas for spray passes at will.

Should he be given the chance to start, whether he'll last 90 minutes or not, Milijas sure won't disappoint. After all, he is from Serbia, underestimate him, and we will murder ya.

'Grobs'

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