Wolves had a lot of quality, some of their running off the ball and reverse passing was far superior to that which I've seen from most teams this season, and it looked like they may to run away with it in the opening stages. Fortunately for us their forward went down on the edge of the box and feigned injury, allowing us to catch our breath and regroup, after which there was little between the teams for the next hour. The pressure began to build again as the second half wore on, but the introduction of Thiam gave them something else to think about and the siege on our goal I was expecting for the final ten minutes never materialised. In hindsight, we should have probably made the change earlier. They missed one from right under the bar, but other than that we defended very well and restricted their chances, as we have done for the last month, the cup game apart. Gardner had the best game I've seen him play, the back four look strong (unfortunately I think we may be losing Yiadom after the way he appeared to say goodbye at full time) and the whole team were disciplined and worked very hard. I thought Hammill epitomised this - he ran his blood to water. He may have lost half a yard of pace but he gives it everything and his run to the byline and cross was one of our more exciting passages of play creating one of our better chances. His crossing hasn't been as accurate as it can be, but with Moore now in the squad it may not have to be. We've finally got someone who could battle to get on the end of a punt into the box rather than us having to rely on pinpoint accurate crosses placed between two giant centre halves to have a chance of a goal. Moore looked mobile too. I hope it works out, he's exactly the right type of player we needed. I'm not a fan of Potts, but I do understand he gives us presence in the middle of the park and he's probably a better option than Moncur. However, even his supporters (of which there appears to be many) don't credit him as being any sort of right winger. By moving Potts out wide and introducing Moncur we managed to make both areas of the pitch weaker. I don't understand Hecky's rationale on this and why after so many failed attempts he keeps doing it. Hecky's made us much harder to beat. We went through a run of games towards the end of November and beginning of December where the goals against column was spiralling out of control. That has been addressed. It's a good foundation on which to build. But it's come at the expense of goals (just one in the last six home games) and it's come at the expense of attacking football. Grinding out a 0-0 draw at home to the league leaders can be seen as a good performance and a good result, but the way we're now playing will probably see us do the same against lesser opposition, after which I don't think we'll be nearly as enthused. Let's hope the rest of the transfer window sees us bring in players who can create and score us some goals without weakening the side defensively. Without such signings we may find ourselves with a defensively sound team that no one wants to watch.
Hopefully against teams we feel that we can get at a bit more than we could vs wolves we will see Moore partnered with Thiam or Bradshaw. We are really struggling for different types of midfielders now though so I hope we can get some bodies in for both wide and central areas.
