Match report v Wolves - part one

A relocation to the South Midlands means that my diet of Reds’ away games now involves the likes of Birmingham City, Wolves and Bristol City, rather than Ipswich Town and Norwich City, so it was nice to return to Molineux last night, to a ground I last visited in the seventies when the likes of Palmer, Parkes, Richards and Dougan were around.

Typical of the treatment of away fans at so many clubs with a large fan-base, we were rammed into a small segment right up ‘in the gods’ in a corner of Molineux. It was a good job I don’t suffer from vertigo, or altitude sickness. As time wore on, I found that I actually liked this vantage-point, as it gave a very complete overall view of the game – a bit like looking down on a chess-board, so you could see more clearly the patterns of play. We seemed so remote that I did wonder if the players were at all aware where we were as the following team took to the field:

Fernandez

Hassell Foster Wiseman Golbourne

Cywka Mellis Perkins Etuhu

Davies Harewood

It was to be a game of ‘three halves’ – the first 15-20 minutes; the middle hour; the final 15.

First half:

We started brightly enough and matched well a slightly sluggish looking Wolves. The atmosphere around Molineux was very much like a ‘cold start’ and there were times in these early minutes when they looked like a team haunted by the memory that they had not won at Molineux for a long time. Our pattern was at its best when firing good long passes along the deck and into the channels for Davies and Harewood to latch on to. Davies looked dangerous during this time and was starting to get the occasional chance. At least he was looking for the goals and to get shots away.

I had thought beforehand that the battle between Hassell and Jarvis would be key, as I regard the Wolves winger as their main threat. I wasn’t wrong, even though Hassell never lets us down. Wolves’ main threat during this early spell was down their left and our right, Jarvis stripping Hassell for pace more than once and getting in dangerous crosses for the forwards to attack – good job Fletcher is on sick leave! When the combination of Jarvis and Ward attacked down our right, we were simply torn apart, Ward starting with an attacking run and then continuing into the box for the return pass and slotting past Gonzales, who had little chance. There was a suggestion of handball by Ward in the build-up, but I would need to see the replays. We did not really deserve to be behind, but it shows what a couple of premiership standard players can do to you just through their own skills and determination.

We took to the challenge and, at this stage, I could still see us getting back into it. There was some trickery from Perkins, although he chose the wrong option to pass and the chance was lost.

Wolves were starting to dominate from about twenty minutes in and, more significantly, were coming to terms with stemming our football at source in midfield, so the balance of possession shifted and we were starting to lose the ball more. Our loss of possession at critical times during build-up play was a key factor, as Wolves looked more and more dangerous on the counter-attack. We started to get pressured into making mistakes and gifting possession back to Wolves, who were much more up for it now. We had just one more gilt-edged chance, well made by good build-up play from Mellis and, in particular, some great trickery from Cywka, whose pull-back from the goal-line near the edge of the six yard box was begging to be turned in, but there was not a blue stripey shirt in sight, as the ball evaded even the alarmed Wolves defenders – where was our midfield to get on to this sort of ball?

Gonzales made a confident save from Doyle’s long-ranger.