Do You Remember Michael McIndoe?

This month in 2006, we signed two wingers by the name of Michael, one with the last name Kightly, who is still a popular name despite his injury troubles, and the other was McIndoe, who we take a look back at and remember.

Before coming to Molineux, McIndoe set his stall out as a prolific goalscoring winger in the bottom two tiers of the Football League at Doncaster Rovers, being included in PFA Team Of The Year in 2004 and 2006 in the process. He felt he could go up another level and in July 2006, he did so and switched to newly promoted Championship side Barnsley for £125,000 and in the four months he was there he was a hit, scoring 4 goals in 18 matches.

When we came knocking at Oakwell, we were still rebuilding and just about getting by with homegrown Lewis Gobern and Daniel Jones occupying the wide positions with endeavour so some added depth to that area was welcome. McIndoe joined us just says before the loan deadline and at the turn of the year, we signed him permanently for £250,000 but all the talk and buzz around the ground was about the winger named Michael. As they arrived, change in form developed because of the quality of the widemen, mainly through Kightly, but McIndoe did his bit popping in with a couple of assists through his ever-menacing set-pieces. We never much success with converting corners into goals over the years but I fondly remember us scoring them more frequently when he was taking them. His open play game was pretty fine too, decent level of pace, good cross, doing the graft too but the goals were missing and his first didn't come until March in a scrappy draw at Sheffield Wednesday and his only other two came in a 3-2 defeat against Birmingham, where he missed a penalty to clinch a point and a hat-trick.

Michael McIndoe: Still chasing that 'big club'.

The end of his short stay in the summer of 2007 came as a shock to the club, just days after Matt Jarvis arrived from Gillingham. You would be entitled to think that he moved to Bristol City because he couldn't hack the competition but McIndoe insisted it was to further his prospects to play for Scotland, but that didn't stop him to have a dig at Wolves, stating "Some people see this move as a step down – they think of Wolves as a big club and Bristol City as a small club, but I don’t see it like that" as if he was suggesting that Bristol City were the bigger club and on at his first game back at Molineux in 2008, we beat his team 2-0 and timely reminded him that "this club's too big for you". Nice wee £150,000 profit we made on him however and two seasons later, we move divisions, he moves to Coventry City - a slightly bigger club from whence he came so he should give himself a pat on the back - where he flattered to decieve before falling out with new boss Aidy Boothroyd. Just last week he was farmed out on loan to MK Dons. So much for this unloyal swine's aspirations to play for his country.

Care to join me in a little snigger, anyone?

'Grobs'

Do You Remember Ludovic Pollet?

Wolves 24-7 doesn't only talk about the present and the future, but we also like to reminisce about past, good or bad times. So without further or do, we open a new feature called 'Remember...?' Every month, Wolves24-7 will go to the past and remember the good and bad players who donned the gold and black shirt. This month, we look at a centre-half who has had more injuries to his face than I've had hot dinners, Ludovic Pollet.

In August 1999, Robbie Keane was sold to Coventry City for £6m, enabling Colin Lee to use the funds from the sale to bolster the squad in other areas. Out of the players he signed from the spree, Pollet - or 'Ludo' as he was affectionately know to us - proved to be a snip. He arrived from French side Le Havre on loan in September 1999, making his debut in 1-0 defeat to Huddersfield Town and a few solid displays and a month later in the centre of defence alongside ex-England man Keith Curle, he was snipped up for what would turn out to be a shrewd £350,000. Pollet's form continued so impressively that a Sunday newspaper wanted to stir some fiction suggesting Arsenal were interested and tabled a £1m bid for the Frenchman. This did not deter him as he went on to be voted Player of the Season for the 1999/2000 season.

However in his second season, despite solid performances - which saw him score against West Brom - and gaining the captaincy for a couple of games, 'Ludo' struggled with injuries, mainly due to his bravery, putting his body where it hurts, but his face more so as he suffered a broken nose, gashed eye and half a dozen cuts to the facial area during his time here. And due to the form of Paul Butler and the emergence of academy star Joleon Lescott, Pollet had to resort to injuries and suspensions to his competition to get his chance to play and he only managed to make seven appearances in the 2001/02 season as we wasted a golden chance to gain promotion to the Premier League -nonetheless he did a job. He rarely featured in our promotion campaign a season later, resorting to only League Cup appearances and the emergence of another youth product in Mark Clyde pushed Pollet further down the pecking order so he spent some time on loan at our friendly neighbours Walsall.

'Ludo' was released in June 2003 making 78 appearances and scoring 7 goals for Wolves and returned to his native homesoil with USL Dunkerque for three seasons before retiring. He remains at the club as an assistant coach.

'Grobs'