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…

“The big matches should be refereed by the best referees. Italian referee Pierluigi Collina always used to get the big Champions League matches because he rarely made mistakes.

“They should make it like that in England and use a few elite officials in the big games instead of trying to give all referees experience.” 

Mr Neville, it seems, doesn’t want to say that Man Utd have been “hard done by this season because every team has their complaints, and I don’t want to jump on referees’ backs because they are under a lot of pressure [and] the game is so fast that you can’t eliminate all mistakes.” This doesn’t stop him from moaning that “I expect the big decisions in the big matches to be correct, which is not happening at the moment.” Personally, I expect all decisions in all matches to be correct, but they aren’t, and we all know that they never will be. It sucks when you’re on the wrong end of one of those decisions, but the degree to which it sucks doesn’t vary depending if you’re Man United at the top of the table or Wolves at the bottom.

Therefore, whether to even consider taking his comments seriously depends on how you think he is defining big games. Does he think a match up between Wolves and Portsmouth, which could be absolutely critical for both teams at the bottom of the table, is a ‘big game’? And what about Peterborough vs. Doncaster? His comment that “The best players play for the big clubs and the best commentators commentate on the big games. That’s how it should be with refs”, would suggest not. ‘Big games’ means ‘big teams’ like Man U and Liverpool fighting it out for third place, not lesser teams fighting for survival, where Mr Neville seems to completely miss the point that the stakes are as high if not higher for those involved.

So, for that he wins Wolfie’s newly inaugurated ‘Twit of the Week’ award.

He is also slightly amused that referee Mike Jones is adjudged not good enough for the Premier League after failing to disallow Sunderland’s comedy winner against Liverpool, which rebounded into the net off a beach ball thrown on the pitch by a Liverpool fan. As a punishment, he is taken off the Premier League list for next week and banished to officiate as Peterborough take on Scunthorpe. Not good enough for the big boys but it seems they’ll have to take him down in the Championship, where apparently no one cares if you’re good enough or not.

In fairness, it’s a moot point whether they goal should have stood or not and perhaps any action against the ref is harsh (particularly given the travesties Wolves have been subject to in the last few weeks) but surely he’s either fit to referee or he’s not, and it shouldn’t matter if you’re Scunthorpe or Man U.

So Kightly didn’t live up to the hype, but should get a little time to play himself back into form. Ebanks-Blake looked stronger and had a couple of near misses. Hennessey continued his impressive early season form – for me a significant improvement in terms of judgement from last season (now cue jaw dropping Calamity James moment vs Villa). Zubar looked like he might have been worth the money afterall. Doyle was fantastic and made his route one goal very easy, although I’m sure a few could have missed it. Henry was solid, and Edwards continues to impress me greatly with his hard work, if not always finesse. Craddock and Berra will have won over – or perhaps kept – plenty of fans, again having very good games. The only real weak link, sadly, was Elokobi. He’s strong and has his moments, but the curse of the inconsistient left back seems to continue.

And let’s spare a thought for Stefan Maierhofer who, I accept, came on with a lot to prove and some heavy tackles but managed to pick up two yellow cards while his opponents got off with, on the first occasion grabbing his foot as he stood up to walk away, and on the second, grabbing his neck as he walked away. Both bookable offences in their own right, surely.

Wolves may have dominated much of the posession, but conceeded a soft penatly when Castillo felled a man in the box, and the referee didn’t see the contact made with the ball, and then were denied a clear penalty shout of their own when Doyle was barged to the ground by Turner. Going in at half-time 1-0 down, Wolves should still have have confidence in their chance of a comeback, despite a distinct scarcity of goals this season, so to concede again within a few minutes of the restart was a blow. There were few arguments, however, with the second penalty of the match after a rash challenge in the box by an otherwise excellent Christophe Berra. Wolves, however, fought back with two goals in a few minutes. There was a element of luck in both (an own goal and an indirect free kick in the six yard box following a disasterous backpass by Wes Brown) but few would have argued that the scoreline didn’t at least reflect Wolves contribution to the game. To concede three more goals seemed unlikely, but Wolves did it. However good the performance. It’s idiotic to just put this down to luck, even though only one of the goals (when Michael Turner was allowed a free header at goal) was a clear case of bad defending. Wolves need better luck next time, no doubt, but also need to maintain their tight defending for 90 minutes and create a few more quality shots on goal of their own. At this stage there’s no reason to think this can’t happen.

So, a thrilling game, positive signs and, crucially, zero points.