Bully Bites Back in his New Column

Wolves legend Steve Bull gives it to you straight with his opening weekly column lamenting the fare for visiting fans going to Old Trafford.

When the draw for last night's round of the Carling Cup was made, plans were immediately put in place for me to join a gang of 15 mates to go up to Old Trafford. Then my pals heard about the ticket prices – and I ended up joining them at the Sports Bar in Cannock instead!

Charging £41 for a third round tie for which you know full well both teams will not be fielding first choice starting line-ups was an absolute disgrace in my opinion. I take my hat off to all those fans who did stump up their hard-earned cash to make the trip.

I hope they are not too disappointed this morning, just as I hope Wolves aren't beating themselves up too much about the defeat.

It's funny, I turned to my pals midway through the game and said 'It's going to take one moment of brilliance to win this' – hoping that we would produce it. But instead it came from United and you could only admire the way they created that goal with three sharp passes.

It shows you how good United are when, even with 10 men, they were able to dictate the pace of the game at times. But we have to put things in context. We are talking about one of the strongest clubs in the world who can field a 'second XI' which contains Michael Owen, Michael Carrick, Gary Neville, Wes Brown, on, on and on.

But I was still encouraged by the way we played. We made our half chances without quite coming up with the clear-cut opportunity we needed. I think the boys are showing that they can cope at this level and, despite that defeat, the good vibes they got from beating Fulham will not have faded away.

When I looked at the Premier League table on the morning of that match, we were already down in 17th place and knew we really had to win. No doubt the team and manager must have thought that, too, and started to feel the pressure. But the performance that followed, was, I thought, absolutely spot-on.

I felt that the crowd certainly helped the players to because the atmosphere was like a derby game, it really was incredible. I spoke to a lot of Wolves fans before the match – as I always like to do – and their attitude was fantastic.

They were determined to enjoy every match in the Premier League this season and always get behind the team whatever the scoreline might be.

Home form is going to be absolutely crucial this season and believe me when I say that winning the first one lifts a massive psychological barrier. I know people say that there are quite a few bad sides in the Premier League this year but they still have to be beaten – and that's never easy.

Fulham are far from being a bad team, for instance, so seeing them turned over so convincingly gives me great optimism for the season ahead

The way I see it, there are two leagues in the top division - one for the top 10 and a bottom one for the others. If Wolves could finish at the top of that second half, and I think that there's enough talent in the squad for that aim to be realistic, then I'd be absolutely delighted with a really successful season for us.

Looking ahead to this weekend's match with Sunderland reminds me of previous encounters with their manager Steve Bruce – and they always used to be good battles! Like me, he was a whole-hearted player who used to get stuck in and always wore his heart on his sleeve.

I enjoyed playing against him and we actually lined up against each other quite a few times. From memory, the last time that I played against him was in a friendly against Manchester United where we lost 2-1, but I did manage to beat both him and Gary Pallister to score our goal.

When I was playing, a trip away to Sunderland always used to be frightening - and sometimes was absolutely terrifying! The fans at their old ground, Roker Park, used to be right on top of you, and the 'Roker Roar' that their crowd generated could be deafening. It was never a fixture I looked forward to if I'm honest.

These days though, whenever I've been to the Stadium Of Light, it's usually seemed half-empty and the visit hasn't seemed to be anything like as intimidating an experience as it used to be during the 1980's and 1990's. That's just one of the reasons why I think Wolves can get a result there.

For me, there's no way this one is going to end in a goalless draw. Maybe I'm biased as a former centre forward but, the way I see it, this one is going to be decided by strikers.

I'd predict that the battle of the match – and the duel which its result might well depend on – will be between Darren Bent of Sunderland and our own Christophe Berra.

I thought Berra was brilliant against Fulham and did well again last night. He'll need to be on top form against Bent, who I personally rate as a very good centre forward

Finally, I could well understand Harry Redknapp's frustration at that penalty or non-penalty decision for Spurs last week at Chelsea because it was the turning point of the game.

I know the sport moves so quickly these days that referees can sometimes be deceived, but I was always amazed as a player at how many blatant penalties could be missed by them! I can't understand why football doesn't follow rugby's lead by taking a break for 20 seconds while a video replay is examined.

It's a hard job being a referee – and I wouldn't want to do it! – but it still seems that, despite all the technology which surrounds us elsewhere in life every day, you've just got to hope that they haven't got out of bed on the wrong side!