I’ll keep this short and to the point.
A highly irritating defeat, given the overall balance of play and the chances we created but you simply can’t afford to be profligate in front of goal at Old Trafford and expect to get a result.
With that said, rather than go into detail, here are just one or two thoughts on each player’s individual performance:
Hennessy – Handled and kicked well throughout. Wasn’t at fault for any of the goals, but will be disappointed to have shipped three in the second half.
Foley – A brilliant performance both defensively and going forward, capped with a neat finish for the second goal.
Berra – You know what you get from the Scotsman. Good in the air and largely reliable but his lack of pace sometimes gets him in trouble.
Mouyokolo – Good in the air, a nice turn of pace and some clever distribution. The first time I’ve seen this guy properly and he was impressive. Could he challenge Stearman for a place on Saturday?
Elokobi – I think big George can be pretty pleased with his effort. Bebe stumbled his way passed a few times, but on the whole, our giant full-back came out on top. Timed his run perfectly to power home his first goal for Wolves and must surely be pushing Ward hard for a game at left-back.
Hunt – In his first competitive start, Hunt was pretty slow to get going and had an appalling first half hour. Looked sharper in the second half though and came close to giving us the lead, but could only hit the top of the bar from a glorious chance. Could and probably should start against City on Saturday.
Mancienne – On the huge Old Trafford pitch and with only Jones for company in the middle, the Chelsea youngster struggled to anchor the midfield as well as he has in previous games, but probably did as well as he could have under the circumstances.
Jones – Hit and miss from David Jones for me. Picked out some clever passes and was often the player giving Jarvis the ammunition to cause havoc, but he does have the tendency to dawdle on the ball and lose possession in his own half. Certainly looks more comfortable in a five man midfield than a four.
Jarvis – Man of the Match and not just for Wolves either. Easily the most dangerous looking player on the pitch and caused United all kinds of headaches with his pace and trickery. Sir Alex even sent Gary Neville on with obvious instructions to stop our winger getting in behind, but Jarvo just dropped his shoulder and sped passed the veteran without breaking sweat.
Fletcher – Sorry to say it, but Fletch really irritated me throughout this game. Aside from the intelligent flick inside for Foley’s goal, he was largely anonymous and nothing he tried seem to come off. At such an early stage, you’ve got to be willing to put it down to a bad day at the office, but for a £7 million striker, he must do better.
SEB – In stark contrast to Fletcher, SEB really impressed me. Had his work cut out against Chris Smalling but held the ball up when he could, picked out his passes and came within a whisker of finding the back of the net, first with a fierce drive that was blocked on route to goal and then with a sweetly struck effort that flew agonisingly wide with the keeper rooted to the spot.
Mick McCarthy – I applaud Mick for putting out a strong side and giving United a real game, but the substitutions towards the end defied logic. Surely Jarvis and SEB could have managed five minutes more to see if they could win us the game inside the 90 minutes. Fair enough, take them off if we’re into extra-time, but I think I speak for the overwhelming majority of Wolves supporters when I say I’d have liked to have seen those two players given the chance to finish the job.
I hate football.
Another hard luck story where we didn’t deserve to lose. Jarvis was immense, but why take him off on 85 minutes? What’s 5 minutes rest going to do. There was our chances of winning up in smoke. I was thinking ‘how the hell are we going to get near the goal now?’ And Marcus Bent for SEB was a joke. Once we’d got into that position, we might as well go for it! Ultimately the defence was poor as they cut us open with ease
Elokobi has to come in for Ward, at leastr he offers a goal threat if little else. In fact i wouldn’t mind seeing that same team saturday. Moyokolo looked promising too
If we’d have scored in the first half we’d have won.
We’re not good enough to keep a clean sheet, so we need to score; our strikers aren’t doing that.
Jarvis for England.
If we had scored in the first we would have conceded in the second as Mick would have gone on the back foot, made some inexplicable subs and thrown it all away, just like every other game we play against struggling teams week in, week out in the prem. I like MM, but I’m beginning lose my patience, as are many others among us. When are you gonna prove that you know what you’re doing, Mick!?
I agree. Jarvis for England.
The key requirement for a player in the premiership is pace. Even Man Utd reserves have this in plenty, and you can see why they released Jones and EB, lack of mobility and pace. When they pressed us we had no alternative but to take the ball backwards to our keeper.
Gutted about the result, its another morale sapping defeat. Any positives, well George, not perfect but has to be a better bet at full back than Ward, Jarvis is now fulfilling his potential, heaven help us if he gets crocked sometime.
Goals scored on the break running through/past our midfield, see you on Saturday Karl, mancienne cant do it himself. Unlucky on first goal but no protection for the back four on last 2. Looking forward to saturday!?!
It was quite possibly the worst first half of football I have ever witnessed in my life- boring, littered with mistakes, 2 teams full of players that strolled around as if it was a training match – it was terrible! There was simply no urgency in any of the players. It would be interesting to see the stat on how many times that incompetent buffoon known as Berra passed back to Hennessey I think it was well over 40 times! Terrible terrible terrible!
The second half was moderately better but still disappointing. This was the worst Man Utd side that I think I’ve ever seen yet they still beat what is a strong Wolves team.
Why he took our main threat in Jarvis off threw me completely has McCarthy never heard of the phrase attack is the best form of defence??
We stand no chance in the corresponding league game, none at all if we can’t beat that shower of shite!
McCarthy’s days are numbered thank god!
Was it just me or did the substitutions of Bent for Ebanks Blake and then Jarvis for Doyle feel like MM didn’t want to be in the next round of the cup?
Blake had been crap all game to be fair, but Bent offers nothing. Jarvis had taken the p*ss all game and was the best player on the pitch so why take him off? Can only think MM was saving him for the heavy defeat at home to Man City this Saturday!!!!
I have to say that the thought of Hennessy being our number one keeper fills me with dread too. I have no confidence in the bloke (unlike USA) and we have just given him a five year deal. Also thought Berra looked too slow on a couple of the goals, but hey it was Man Utd (reserves!) after all.
Glass still half empty here. You get nothing for playing well and losing – Like two in a bed on Bullseye!!!
Oh, and Jarvis for England!
Hope Fergie doesn’t see him as a replacement for Giggs!
I hope Fergie does, Jarvis deserves better than to be playing for a second rate manager
But what difference would 5 minutes have made? If we’d have gone to extra time i could have understood Jarvis being taken off at 90 minutes. He could have been worth another 2 or 3 chances for us to win the game as it looked like were going to. Can’t understand that one
Couldn’t agree more Rich. Taking them off 5 mins from the end when there was extra time looming is another example of his very confused thinking. As for Connor finding something hysterically funny with the assistant ref moments after their third goal. Obviously didn’t upset him much. A real winner there.
Gents – last night I posted something even an illiterate neanderthal would have been ashamed of and I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to anyone I may have offended. Rest assured I’ve felt embarrassed and an arsehole all day.
I was pissed but there are no excuses for such ill-thought out, cretinous posts.
In the spirit of goodwill and by way of apology I’ve made a £10 donation to Macmillan Cancer Trust.
Hope this helps to smoooooooth things over…
Macmillan is certainly a worthy cause!
While your article was indeed ill thought and in bad taste, there was one point in it which, unfortunately, was missed and that is Jez Moxey is indeed a c**t!
I had a brother who died from bowel cancer so i suppose i’m entitled to comment. We all do things were ashamed of but it takes courage to admit them sometmes so thanks for your apology anyway.
Here here martin (the Wolves’ one), again A Gooner, not a fair enough thing to say, however to have the gumption to admit you made a mistake and fess up publically goes some way to mitigating the error.
I don;t think Hunt should start on Saturday, and neither should Mancienne, thank goodness we didn;t waste another 5mill on him…mind you, we might come January
4231
USA
Foley Berra Moyo/Stears Elokobi
Milijas – Henry
Hunt/JVD – Jones – Jarvis
Doyle
McCarthy will probably drop Jarvis 🙂
Very interesting analysis of the players Thomas which i largely agree with. Just a couple of thoughts. I would have liked to see Milijas in this one. Might have suited him against more technical players. Why don’t we play our very best team in the cups? If we keep progressing, great, they hardly play a lot of games anyway and losing is becoming a habit. Secondly, it’s hard to blame Hennessy for the goals( although i think he could have stayed tall for the third one) but the fact remains that when he plays we concede more goals. Players seem to produce great goals against him, especially from distance, which rarely happens when Hahneman plays. Mind you i think he’s a really top keeper.
Totally agree with your assessment on McCarthy and wrote almost an identical comment myself on the newspaper website. We had the momentum and it was just peculair timing… ebanks wont even play on Saturday and you could see his thoughts by the quizzical look he gave McCarthy when he came off the pitch.
One thing I feel very strongly about is this opinion that a good performance verdict every time we lose badly over looks/ignores defensive frailties. Mick McCarthy insists we have played well through out and “our luck will turn”. For me you don’t lose 5 out 6 due to bad luck or playing well.. sure we passed the ball about well and looked comfortable in possession, but the reality is that this team cannot defend as a back 4 or as a team. Defending is as important to a performance as attacking. The fact we always concede soft goals is what means the performances cannot be considered good… we have some great attacking players but if we have liabilities at the back, we will always be frail and i think instead of fans and manager focusing on us hitting the cross bar in the odd game, a couple of saves by the opposition goalkeeper we need to focus more on the fact we have a defence that is simply not up to the standard requires… Teams over the years such as West Brom under Mowbray, Burnley and Barnsley have all played some cracking stuff but they didn’t go down due to lack of goals, they went down due to their inability to keep a clean sheet.