From my position on the goalline, it was clear the linesman was an idiot

Halsey was the only one in the entire stadium who thought Taylor’s foul on O’Hara a yard inside the box deserved a free kick not a penalty. To pretend the foul could have been outside was spineless. Then to disallow Doyle’s last gasp equaliser because the ball had apparently already gone out of play was ridiculous. I’ll put this one down to the *probably* (unproven – he may just have been stupid and lazy) linesman.

Let’s be clear before I say any more: Wolves deserved a point – or more – from this game , and would have got it but for the incompetence of the match officials. Let’s hope not to see them near our team until they’ve learned the basics.

However, while I’m happy to give Newcastle some credit (kind of me, I think), especially Gutierrez for the second – that we found ourselves 2-0 down was very much our own fault. Johnson lost his marker for the first; for the second O’Hara, and then – critically – Henry, mispassed the ball in midfield to the opposition. Gutierrez, picked it up with plenty to do, but easily passed Johnson and scored a good goal.

So, lazy passing and poor defending cost us as much as poor refereeing. Our attack – in patches, and especially after substitutions – was better than in last few games, but not yet good enough. From 25 shots, 12 on target, we managed 2 goals (I choose to allow the second). Again, credit to Newcastle for this, with keeper Krul pulling off some excellent saves, but a couple of times he should have been given no chance.

So, finally onto team selection, certainly second the most contentious issue around the ground (after refereeing, of course). One change from the Liverpool lineup saw Fletcher in for Edwards, and although they started brightly the team soon lapsed into apathy, losing key battles and making silly mistakes in midfield. This was no excuse for Henry to be jeered off the pitch (for my money he’d mainly put in a decent defensive display and, the even more careless O’Hara should have gone), but there’s no doubting that the injection of Guedioura and Hammil brought some much needed energy and creativity to the attack. They’re not perfect and misplaced a couple of crosses – no more than, say, Jarvis had, though – but neither were afraid of trying something different and running at the defence, and even stirred O’Hara into showing some of the attacking flair he seems to have been hiding too much this season.

The referee and the Toon keeper may have kept the points from us, but our attacking edge needs some sharpening. Guedioura for O’Hara, and Hammil for Hunt next game please.

In my dreams…

West Ham won, and Wolves now sit at the bottom of the table, three points from safety, having given their nearest rivals a nice three point leg up the League. At this half way point, there are of course plenty of games left to make up the deficit, but the most worrying this about yesterday for me was that it showed how unable we are to correct past mistakes. The team are developing a fatal habit for conceded at least one, generally more, stupid goals per game.

I have regularly said after some fiasco or other that these are mistakes that the players must learn from – do that, I blithely insist, and we’ll start winning. It is now more than clear than no one is learning anything. I’ve given Stearman praise previously where it is due, he is a good footballer, but always has at least one critical lapse of attention too many in a game. If we are to stay up, we urgently need new personnel in defence. That much is unarguable with Craddock still some way off a return, and anyway with the future in mind. Who with any reliable record at this level would want to join us at this stage is a more difficult call. Lescott would have been amazing, but Manchester City seem to have cut off that avenue by vetoing any loan arrangements. The only reason we could realistically have got him was due to his existing connections with Wolves, and at the club – any player of similar calibre would have better inducements to go elsewhere. Taylor from Newcastle would be a good bit of business, but the club are going to have a difficult job ahead. We’re likely to end up taking a gamble, which is not what we need – any thing better than that and I’ll be congratulating Mick, Moxey and the team very much indeed. It’s a tough sell.

But onto the actual game. Must I remember? No? Excellent!

I’ll just pick out two points aside from the obvious about defensive concentration and lack of creativity in the midfield:

1) Steven Fletcher came on to score his 4th League goal – a good return from 14 appearances, 9 as a sub. It is frustrating that we seem to be unable to play a formation that enables him to play regularly and effectively.

2) Ebanks-Blake was not alone in producing a disappointing performance in this game, but it was especially irritating to see him showing such little effort (unusually so for this season, I must add). It’s been difficult to see Doyle producing so little in front of goal this season, but it was clear that we missed his linking play.

As I say, you don’t need me to say how bad yesterday was, so instead I’ll say that disappointing as the result was, frustrating as the performance was, Wednesday against Liverpool is another day, and we have a team who can do much better. Steve Morgan said two weeks ago that he supported Mick McCarthy. One game – quite rightly – will not change his mind so I’d prefer to support him and his team to do better that bitch about them.

This was Wolves’s heaviest defeat of the season and not one of our best performances to boot but, in truth not so very different to last week.  This will go down as the worst result this term so far, and was certainly one of the most disappointing. However, but for some very good goalkeeping, we’d most likely be looking at a narrower margin, but the most important statistic would still be three goals against.

The most consistent characteristic of the team throughout the season, especially noticeable after the injury to Jody Craddock, has been the inadequacy of our defence, and never was that more evident than today.  We won last week because of some good finishing in spite of some shaky defending.  We lost today because our slightly off-colour attack, in the face of a top form Paul Robinson, could not make up for some shocking defending.

For a team who’s biggest asset is probably their never-say-die attitude, Wolves are regularly unacceptably casual in defending.  We started so promisingly, hitting the post twice in the first five minutes, but Blackburn worked their way into the game until, just before the half hour mark, David Dunn, surrounded by Wolves players, was allowed unchallenged to head the ball into the net from inside the six yard area.

Worse was to follow. The marking was equally non-existent in the 44rd minute when Emerton swept home Rovers’ second, and again when Nelsen was allowed free reign to help Pederson’s free kick into the net.  Both decent finishes from Blackburn,  but they really had no need to be – Wolves seemed determined to give the opposition as many goals as they wanted.

Robinson saved well from Elokobi and then twice from Hunt in the last 10 minutes but the game was already beyond us by that point.

Where from here?

We have been unlucky with injuries this season, with David Jones the latest casualty this week, joining Edwards, Craddock, Henry and Kightly in the treatment room, taking the place only just vacated by Ronald Zubar.  We have, however, also found it too difficult to get a settled line up.  Where did Ward in midfield come from?  Having felt Hunt was not quite ready in the games he’d played up to last week, I thought he looked sharper against Sunderland, and picked up a good poachers goal to prove it. Yet somehow Foley ended up shifted wide to accommodate Ward in the centre with Hunt on the bench.

I’ve regularly championed our attacking play in recent weeks and although we weren’t on top form anywhere on the field today, we probably would have got at least a goal on another day.  But it doesn’t need me to point out that when you let in 2-3 most games you’re rarely going to score enough to make up for that.  Plenty will call for Mick’s head again today, but they’re wrong.  He needs to get the defence sorted out and concentrating throughout the match and, in the absence of a certain Mr Craddock, that probably means a new defender in January.  Sacking your manager now is a mug’s game however (official World Wide Wolfie fact).  We need Mick to try and dig us out of this, and I believe he has the character and the team to do it.

But they need to *&!*%* concentrate at the back.

Agree? Disagree?

Within the first two minutes we were a goal down (admittedly to a fantastic strike from Varney) and chasing the game. Early substitutions made a difference, but we conceded another and despite sustained pressure, couldn’t level the score. Plenty of parallels to Bolton last week, although I’d argue that we played better overall yesterday.

'What went wrong?' 'We couldn't defend and couldn't score, but the midfield weren't as bad as last week'

Over more than one game, results very rarely come down to luck. We have nine points from fourteen games and have lost the last four. We have played well, with the exception of some fits of hoof-and-hope against Bolton, in all of those four games but, self-evidently, we haven’t played well enough. Blackpool scored a wonder goal and defended splendidly yesterday. Our keeper made a rare but bad error, which cost us a goal, and our forwards lacked incisiveness in finishing and positioning. There were times when a player took on a shot and should have passed and vice versa. We were not good enough when it really mattered.

We weren’t far off, however, and the not-good-enough has come down to single decisions – chances not taken, tackles not made: Foley letting Varney in for the first, Hahnemann flapping for the second, Ebanks-Blake not being sharp enough to run onto a spilled shot from the keeper. Reverse those, which the current squad are capable of doing, get some belief back, and we’re good enough to stay in this League. Whether we will is a different question which, in a remarkably similar way to last season, relies on McCarthy finding and sticking with his best team.

Today was a classic of this not happening and plenty of questions will be asked about McCarthy after this result. However much Blackpool have surprised everyone this season, they only had one home win prior to this, and these are the games we’ll need to pick up points from. Leaving out Milijas was strange, but then he had played in Bulgaria on Wednesday, but as he came on to good effect after 30 minutes, perhaps he should have started. Conversely, he’s been too keen to integrate Hunt, who could make a difference to the team in time, but is not up to pace.

The whole game was frustrating, but the margins between success and failure have been extremely narrow. McCarthy should stay and be given the chance to tip the balance and turn things around. But this does have to happen very soon.

Let’s be clear, however unglamorous they are, they are fifth in the table and would have been upper-middle even without yesterday’s win. They are a good, disciplined team and played as such yesterday.

After the terrible start at Arsenal, presumably everyone was drilled to ensure a similar disaster did not reoccur. However, where Arsenal’s goal was straightforward, Bolton weren’t even required to finish the move themselves to score in the first minute after Stearman headed into his own net. The worst possible start, and the uphill struggle only got steeper as we twice allowed Bolton all the space and time in the world in the penalty area to build up a three goal margin. Game over, I thought, but credit to the team for the spirit to try and dig their way out of this particular hole, an attitude which will reap rewards later in the season no doubt, but none today.

Wolves had switched to 4-4-2, with Edwards out in the midfield, and we always came out second best in the middle of the park. We weren’t overrun, however, as we have been earlier in the season it was just that, denied any space, our passing game fell almost to pieces. Add to this a stinker of a game from Henry and in the first half we were on a hiding to nothing. Hahnemann continually lumped the ball straight down the middle of the pitch, and Bolton came away with it. Our best play, of course, did not come from these situations, but when we were able to get the ball through the midfield – with Milijas, Jarvis and Doyle in particular showing the way.

And I’m saving the defence for last, as this is clearly where the game was lost. Two goals at home should be enough to win. The three goals we conceded were entirely unavoidable. We were hindered by a warm up injury to Berra, but I wasn’t too concerned about Mouyokolo starting in his place. He reportedly had an excellent last season with Burnley and looked decent in the League Cup. However, the central defenders looked less like players who had not played with each other before than people who had never seen each other in their lives before. Stearman came back into the team in a blaze of glory, but has gone backwards the last few games.

An own goal was a bad start, and thereafter the Bolton players mainly had the beating of him and his partner. Bolton’s second showed excellent skill from Elmander, but to allow the opposition to pass, turn, dribble and shoot the ball unchallenged in the penalty area is unforgiveable, especially with the number of Wolves shirts bumbling ineffectually nearly. Likewise there was too much space, too little marking for the third.

As to individual performances:

Hahnemann – not a lot he could do with the goals, but hit and hope tactics need to end (the Manager should tell him this, I feel)

Foley – decent game, contributed well to attacking play again, topped off with an excellent goal

Stearman – Bad, bad day. Failed to put in enough tackles but a good header for the own goal

Mouyokolo – Like Stearman, but without the own goal. Let’s not write him off though. Good goalscroring opportunity at the end but just failed to connect with header

Elokobi – I’ll own up and say I wanted to see him given a chance in the place of Ward (if Van Damme was not to get the gig). In an up and down game, he looked no better or worse than Ward defensively. Made good tackles, but failed to make some key ones for the goals.

Jarvis – excellent once he started getting the ball. Main difference this season has been confidence to keep running at the defenders

Milijas – another good game, hit the bar and forced a couple of good saves. Not afraid to take a shot, from which our forwards could have learned a thing or two in this game. Struggled a little like the rest of the midfield with the lack of space

Henry – terrible, terrible day. Misplaced passes and caught in possession too much

Hunt – off the pace still, for all his effort

Doyle – good game, kept running and involved in some nice interplay in attack. Not going to get a goal until he shoots more, however.

Ebanks Blake – ok, but very frustrating that he chose to leave several balls to the defender that he should have chased

Fletcher (sub) – struggles when asked to play wide, but showed excellent goalscorers instinct for our second. Is our top scorer, despite lack of starts.

So, a disappointing day, without the warm glow of thinking that we deserved more. Credit to Bolton who bossed the midfield and took their chances well, but we should not have given them three goals so easily. The fact that we should have scored more ourselves is almost irrelevant. We’re can play well enough to win the points to stay in this League, but we’re second from bottom and seem to have reverted to a hit-and-hope style that will get us nowhere. Next week will be better.

Wolves start digging

We’re no further up the table, but a little pride and confidence has been restored after recent results. Watching the Wolves today I was delighted not to have chosen to watch the overpaid mercenaries in blue every week, for all the wins I’d get to see.

It may have ended as a routine win for Chelsea, but Wolves gave them a good game, and created their own chances along the way. Most significantly, we continued to attack and put players in the box right up to the end of the game. In a game of plenty of positives, there are however, two glaring negatives: 1) no points; 2) if we’d shown this belief against West Ham, we’d have won the game.

All credit, however, to McCarthy and the team for not only recovering from last week’s self-inflicted disappointment by looking to the take the game to the champions, but also trying to play a bit of football for a change.

Wolves ultimately were punished by a skillful counter attack on 20 minutes, after their best patch of play, but didn’t use this as a excuse to stop trying for a goal. With more clinical finishing and a bit of luck we might even have got a goal of our own: Edwards, Van Damme and Doyle all had decent headed chances, and it was good to see Milijas with the confidence to go for goal (would have been even better to see him hit them anywhere other than at the keeper). Chelsea it was who got the next goal, however; finally killing the game off in the 80th minute. Wolves played at the top of their game, but Chelsea always had the class to punish even the smallest mistake, without really breaking a sweat.

In the centre of defence, Stearman and Berra both didn’t get too much wrong, and were beaten by two very slick Chelsea moves. Ward wasn’t too bad, but Foley was excellent, linking very well with Jarvis going forward.

The enforced changes in the midfield worked out very well. Jones gave a generally assured performance, and played a good passing game, with Milijas also looking comfortable on his return to the team. Edwards worked as hard as ever and was involved in some good attacking play. I’ve always liked Jarvis, but he’s rapidly becoming my favourite player.

Van Damme was decent in the first half, but it was a big boost to the team to see Hunt come into the team in the second half. Despite a predictably hostile reception from the home fans, he looked sharp in the attack, and made a couple of important defensive interventions.

At the front, Kevin Doyle looked sharp, lively and much more the player of last season.

Chelsea were better, but the Wolves team did us proud today. Keep it up and we can dig ourselves out of this hole. The season starts here…

I was, however, disappointed to hear the Sky pundits at half time dredge up Henry’s tackle which left Zamora injured. Talk of this is always swiftly followed by a mention of the fact that no one disputes that the tackle was fair and the result unlucky. It is therefore completely irrelevant to today’s situation, where the tackle was not fair, and the result lucky. If was only Henry’s second red card, however, and I hope to see lessons swiftly learned.

Henry is not the only one who needs to learn some lessons fast. While it’s somewhat unfair to judge the players left playing 80 minutes a man down, Wolves finished the game very tamely. Had the game stopped after 60 minutes (is Wolves’ ‘late-in-the-game’ hoodoo, moving nearer to the middle of the game?) I probably would have said that ashamed as I was of Henry, I was thoroughly proud of the other ten players on the pitch, but that would probably have been sentiment talking. While Doyle and Jarvis showed genuine quality, Ward looked far from a Premier League left back, but Edwards was perhaps the most worrying. When he played at the start of last season I was impressed by his energy and effort, but his lack of skill was all too evident. His foul just outside the box that led to Wigan’s first (a great free kick from Gomez) was clumsy and stupid.

On the whole, with some notable exceptions, performances, if not results this season give me hope that Wolves will pick up enough points to stay up, but there’s no doubt that we’re showing a fine streak of relegation form.

The only way is up – I hope – because this way is down.

The worst of the result is that it all could have been so very different. This was a good team performance from Wolves, let down by some appalling moments of lax defending. At 75 minutes, I was disappointed to have to make do with the live stream and radio commentary; 16 minutes later not having to brave the streets of North London was very welcome. At 75 minutes, my 3-1 prediction looked foolish (happily so); at 91 minutes, I felt a lot wiser than I really am.

Tottenham had the better of the first half and Hahnemann had to pull out a couple of fine saves, but Wolves still looked a much better team than against Fulham last week. The packed midfield did a better job of closing down their opponents, and when Fletcher grabbed a close range goal on the stroke of half time, Wolves again went in ahead.

Perhaps in the second half we sat back too much and let them attack, but the enforced substitiutions of Fletcher and, even more so the again-brilliant Jarvis, forced a more conservative approach, and Tottenham were successfully contained for the first half hour. Then Hutton picked up the ball in his own half, ran the length of the pitch with it until felled by Ward. This was a penalty so clear cut that even the referee who had already missed a blatant foul on Jarvis in the box in the first half could do nothing but point to the spot. I hate to see penalties on a player who isn’t even running towards the goal, and Ward’s tackle was stupid and clumsy, but at least as much blame should fall on Mancienne, and a lesser extent Van Damme, who happily tracked Hutton half the length of the pitch without a challenge.

Wolves raised their game, but Spurs get their second after a misplaced pass from Ward. This does not make the goal his fault, but I’m hope for more care from a left back in an advanced position with three minutes to play. Spurs’ third in injury time was a bit of a freak as a rebounded clearance looped over Hahnemann’s head. However Stearman’s judgement was clearly at fault, trying the shepherd the ball in front of an opposition player to a keeper who clearly was expecting the more obvious ‘just get it away’ response. Inexplicable, and had Wolves not already thrown the game away he’d be getting a lot more attention for that lapse – much worse than Ward’s.

Tottenham are a good team. To lose to them away is no disgrace. To be second best to them away is not unexpected, and Wolves held their own for much of the match. Doyle was again excellent, and will surely get his goal soon. Jarvis continues in fine form and Van Damme again impressed (perhaps he’ll be able to play a whole game one day!). To lose in those circumstances is desperately disappointing but play like that again, cutting out the moments of stupidity, and we’ll get some decent results this season.

For the first 10 minutes, Fulham looked like there would walk the game, but in truth, passed the ball very nicely up to the point of needing to take a shot on goal, where they were largely ineffective.  Then Van Damme got an unlikely goal for Wolves from a lovely ball by Doyle.  After that, Fulham still looked like they’d walk the game, but still they couldn’t get the goal, and Wolves gradually came into the match.

Before the match I stated my doubt about Van Damme as an attacking threat.  More fool me, because he had a good first half, with the goal to prove it.  His substitution for Fletcher in the second half did not help the team defensively, and ultimately did not come off, with Wolves conceeding within 5 minutes of the restart.  It was not a good goal to let in, but the second was worse.  For Berra to give away the free kick in the first place in the 91st minute was silly, for the ‘wall’ to completely abdicate it’s responsibility to stay together and try and get in the way of the ball was ridiculous.  Most people learn lessons the hard way, so let’s hope there’s one learned here: Don’t jump unless the ball is going over your heads, and don’t jump apart.  Perhaps someone can write that down.

So, we left Craven Cottage disappointed by the nature of the defeat, if not with any real argument with the scoreline.  The positives were that Doyle looked much sharper, Foley much more in control, and Jarvis very good in patches.  Ebanks-Blake worked hard, and we pulled together a few decent attacks.  On the negative, Mancienne did not have a very impressive return and all in all we punted and lost the ball far too much, giving away possession and letting Fulham pass the ball forward through the midfield with ease at times.  Hahnemann had an amazing season last year but made a few poor decisions today again.

A lot of the post match talk has – again – been about Wolves being, to use one of the politer descriptions ‘over-physical’.  I understand the Fulham fans may have sung something along these lines (probably not ‘Wolves – they’re over-physical’, however: I don’t know what exactly, because personally all I heard from their end all game was ‘You’re not singing anymore’.  Ok, and ‘Come on Fulham’, once).  Anyhow, I digress.  Seven yellow cards, one red does not look good. However, I defended the team last week and will continue to do so for as long as it’s true – whatever the stats say, Wolves did not play dirty.

It’s wasn’t shocking to see Berra sent off, as he’s too regularly to be seen with his arms around the opposition, but that’s more stupidity that bullying.  It was bad to see Zamora’s injury under a tackle from Henry, and I wish him a swift recovery, but no one can seriously argue that was anything other than very unfortunate.  The majority of the other yellows were debatable but, whatever the case, we’re going the way of getting a very bad reputation with referees and opposing fans. There’s nothing that can be done about that, however, except continue to try and play strong but fair (in Berra’s case, today, I’m placing the emphasis here on ‘try’ – try not to be so clumsy would be another good bit of advice for a number of players.)

Next up Spurs away: three points last time around.

Mick McCarthy with characteristically commendable honesty summed it up in his post match interview: “Arsenal have had all the chances; they’ve had all the play.  They’re better than us.  I’ve no problem with that, but losing like we did in the last minute is bitterly disappointing”.

At least Wenger, for once, didn’t have anything to complain about at the end of the match after Wolves skipper Karl Henry was harshly dismissed where a booking would have done, for a sliding tackle on Rossisky that did seem to get the ball.  Arsenal squandered several more chances and Wolves still hung on heroically and looked set to take a fine point from the Emirates when Zubar let Bentner get in front of him in the 94th minute to find the incisive finish Arsenal had been looking in vain for the previous 93 minutes.

Congratulations for Mancienne on a very strong game in midfield and to Hahnemann - although Arsenal missed the target more than they hit it, he still had plently of saves to make, and did it well.  Finally, a must-do-better to Keogh, a 70th-minute substitute, who didn’t look ready for this game and needs to sharpen up a bit again – perhaps not against Arsenal when we could take a point againt the odds, Mick?

Losses for the other of the bottom 7 teams in action softens the blow, and while this outcome is easier to take with Wolves remaining in 14th than if we’d been in 18th, this will rank among the many ‘might-have-beens’ of this season.