No passion. No fight. No ability.

Butterfield - Humiliated Wolves

How can we be outplayed for ninety minutes by Championship side pulled apart by administration? How can we allow a full-back to plunder three goals?

Pathetic Wolves. Pathetic McCarthy.

Say whatever you like about signings we have or haven’t made, but the manager and squad of players we do have let the fans down badly tonight. That kind of performance is just unforgivable.

I’m so appalled by such a weak, inept, disgusting display, I can’t even consider the thought of constructing a match report.

Oh, Henry’s just smashed one in. What does it count for? Absolutely nothing.

The Morning After

OK, so I’ve had a night’s sleep to recover, but I stand by everything I originally stated.

There’s a minimum you expect from a Wolves side and they fell someway short of that last night.

I always like to find one positive in any performance though, so I’ll point out that I think Zubar had a pretty solid game. The other ten just didn’t want to know.

I don’t know whether I’m more shocked by our lack of fight or the fact that Karl Henry scored a goal.

Think I’ll leave it there.

On a more positive note, it was a decent game of football, which kept the crowd of 14,449 entertained throughout. There were some excellent goals too, most notably Ronald Zubar’s chest high volley that whistled into the top corner to earn us a second chance in the tie.

Zubar - Deserved his goal

The big defender did himself no harm with his performance either. How Mick can’t see that this guy should be in the team every week is beyond me. Whenever I’ve seen him play, he’s done well and a good run in the team seems long overdue. Perhaps now could be the time for the former Marseille man to step up and make a big contribution to our survival mission. He certainly has all the attributes to do just that.

Mancienne had a decent game too, sweeping up at the back and keeping Victor Moses in his back pocket. Berra wasn’t as convincing and struggled to contain the aerial threat of Alan Lee, most notably in the fourth minute when the forward powered home a header to give the Eagles the lead.

That put paid to Hennessy’s hopes of a clean sheet and things didn’t really get much better for the Welsh international. He had very little to do in the match, so will be disappointed to have shipped two goals. He couldn’t do much about Lee’s bullet header, but I’m not so sure Darren Ambrose’s free kick should have been able to find it’s way in.

Elokobi enjoyed mixed fortunes and despite some powerful and incisive runs forward, he let himself down again with poor distribution. I can’t see him unseating Ward from the left-back slot anytime soon.

In midfield, Jones was the real bright spark and must surely have played himself into contention for the Liverpool match. He picked out some clever passes and got into good shooting positions, culminating in a well-taken goal from the edge of the box.

Henry, Surman and Foley all showed nice touches but none of them really had the ability to hurt Palace in the final third, which probably says a lot about why we’re so toothless in attack at the moment.

Up top, Vokes won a lot of headers and was up for the game from the very start. Maybe he deserves a chance alongside Doyle with SEB and Iwelumo struggling to make the desired impact on the Premiership stage. Speaking of SEB, he can be reasonably pleased with his performance, but unfortunately, his long wait for a goal continues and for all his good play, he didn’t really get a sniff in this one.

By contrast, new boy Mujangi Bia got into some great positions when he came on, but ultimately failed to capitalise. I wouldn’t say he convinced me about his future potential with this second-half cameo, but the one thing he did was put Palace on the back foot. We’ve been crying out for a player (other than Jarvis) that can get defences turned and this guy might well give us that spark. The jury’s still out.

Overall, a few decent performances but as a team, we didn’t do enough at either end to get the win. And I’m afraid that until we start playing with two proper wide men, we’ll continue to struggle in the ‘goals for’ column.

Come on Mick, sort it out.

I didn’t go to that replay, but I remember vividly watching at home on the TV and shaking my head in disbelief at that last goal from Armstrong. What a finish. However, I did go to the first game at Selhurst Park (what a dump), where Gordon Cowans assaulted one of their players before curling in a neat finish to earn us the draw. I suppose justice was done in the end.

To be honest, I won’t be heading to Molineux on Saturday expecting a similar cup classic, but will definitely settle for a decent performance, a win and maybe even a few goals if the footballing Gods are smiling down on us.

I’m sure Neil Warnock has other ideas though and will have his side up for the game and hellbent on causing a mini-upset. It will be interesting to see whether the ‘next big thing’ Victor Moses turns out for the visitors, as many of their fans seem to think they don’t want to get him cup-tied. Makes sense I suppose given that his exit seems inevitable and they want to get top dollar for the striker. If he does play though, I’ll look forward to seeing what he’s about.

For Wolves, I expect a lot of changes from the side that were blown away by Wigan. With Liverpool to come on Tuesday, I can’t imagine Mick risking any of our better players for this one so it could well be a complete second string. That’s not necessarily bad news though, as all of those players should be well up for the game and a chance to force their way back into the first team.

Here’s the kind of lineup I’d expect to see:

Hennessy

Zubar
Berra
Elokobi
Hill

Surman
Jones
Castillo
Foley

Iwelumo
SEB

I include SEB in that eleven, simply because it seems like a good opportunity to try and get him a goal. That must be something Mick is contemplating, but I’ve given up trying to second-guess our manager. For all I know, he might field our best side.

To be honest, the one result I really wouldn’t like to see is a draw. I think win or lose, get this fixture out of the way and move on, whether that be to the next round or focusing completely on survival. I’d love to see us win it and continue the cup run, especially with the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool already out, but staying in the Premiership must remain the number one priority.

Ben put the question to me earlier in the week:

‘What would you prefer, an FA Cup win or Premiership survival?’.

I opted for the latter. You might well think differently.

Either way, I do believe we’ll overcome Palace in this particular encounter. Had the game been at Selhurst Park, I wouldn’t have been quite so confident, but seeing as it’s at home, I’ll go for a 2-0 win.

If you’re going to the match, have a great time and get behind the lads.

Up The Wolves.