This result was a travesty.
Why?
Because having completely outwitted, outmuscled and outplayed Blues from start to finish with what was effectively a reserve side, Wolves should have won by a significantly larger margin.
However, it would be completely unjust of me to label any player in a gold shirt a ‘reserve’ following such a Herculean performance.
Deputising for the injured Kevin Doyle, SEB produced a masterclass in forward play to shake off the attentions of Dann and Johnson throughout, culminating in a sharp turn and cross to supply Stephen Hunt with a tap in for the only goal of the game.
It was a man of the match display from our number 9 who seems to have found a yard of pace as as well as an admirable determination to defend from the front. I actually lost count of the number of times he sprinted 20 yards to win possession and setup another attack.
He’ll deservedly keep his place for next weekend’s showdown at the Hawthorns.
And what about Stephen Ward? Deployed in a free role between midfield and attack, he was fantastic, slipping into useful positions all afternoon and linking up play with simple passes. He was a real asset today, combining his usual enthusiasm and work ethic with some touches of real quality.
Foley was quietly effective too, sitting deep and picking his moments to nip in and win the ball. The importance of his versatility should not be overlooked. Alongside Nenad Milijas he kept things ticking over nicely.
Edwards is of course the master of the lung bursting run and showcased his considerable sprinting talents to bomb forward throughout. He could have scored a hat-trick today and will be disappointed not to have buried at least one of the two headed chances that came his way.
One player who did find the net, as mentioned, was Stephen Hunt, timing his run to perfection to slot home at the near post. His knack of scoring important goals has already come to the fore and hopefully there’s even more to come from the plucky Irishman.
But perhaps the most telling contribution today came at the other end of the pitch, where the defence held firm to leave Wayne Hennessy untroubled throughout, bagging Wolves their first clean sheet of the season.
All four defenders were superb and comprehensively won the aerial battle with Cameron Jerome and the ineffective beanpole Zigic. It was important they did too, as all Blues could muster were hopeful long balls from deep, which very rarely landed in dangerous areas.
Mick will likely have one or two selection dilemmas next weekend when hopefully one or two of the walking wounded will return to bolster the ranks.
Whoever plays though, this performance shows we can at the very least dare to dream of a famous derby-double.
And who felt confident of that this morning?
I come off my pitch at the end of my match and went straight to my phone to see the score. Was sure we would be losing but all everyone else could see was me jumping around celebrating.
Sylvan has to start next week, and I expect on his own or with Fletcher as it doesn’t look like Doyle will be fit.
Sounds like Stephen Ward was brilliant in the attacking midfield/forward role!! Glad he played well, I don’t think even Clive will deny it.
Thomas, I want my bonus points for correctly predicting Phillips will miss a sitter.
Also, may I point out that I was the only one who backed Sylvan to be a Premier League class striker? That must have ended any doubts.
When we bought Fletcher who would have thought he would be ahead of him like this?
No you weren’t! Being self righteous is fair enough on a joyous night like tonight, but you’re wrong there Louie. Me and scores of fans have always backed our double golden boot winner!
I remember having a huge argument (with, in particular Jed) that Sylvan would make it! Not the only one, but there were very few!
I accept your apology then! Delighted for Sylvan as this has to mean he starts at WBA. We’ll all be watching the injury updates with interest this week won’t we? while I’m over the moon,losing jarvis again would be a sickener.
haha.
Sounds like Doyle is more of a doubt than Jarvis. With Jarvis (instead of who???) we can go their and get something at the shit (who were very unfortunate at Villa park)
Although SEB was my MOM and played really well he has to do it week in week out to be classed as a Prem striker. He has been brilliant this season and needs to carry on this form.
Again Louie I am happy to be proved wrong, however I stand by my point that SEB was horse sh*t last season – utter horse sh*t. Glad he’s turned it around, lets hope he don’t rest on his laurels!
I was up at 4 this morning, nervous for the next 3 1/2 hours, too much coffee and eggs.
What can you say?
WHAT CAN YOU SAY??!!
What seemed like a makeshift side, with no one seemigly knowing where to be, with Birmingham looking at them like lambs for the slaughter.
Well, we are not lambs, we are Wolves, and boy did we play like them.
I thought it was far and away our best performance of the season, mainly because everyone played well, except perhaps Hennessey, only coz he didn’t have anything to do but put down his coffee, fold the paper, and deal with the odd cross.
Ward was excellent, the best he has played for the Wolves.
SEB had the best game I’ve seen him play, and I was so impressed with his tackling back.
The rest of the team were seemingly scurrying about, all over the place, and brum didn’t have a clue.
Our Serb is far more betterer than theirs, and in the end I felt it was a 1 – 0 thrashing.
Well done, this week I take my hat off to Stephen Ward, and I never thought I would ever do that, but fair play, he was good today.
Now, where’s me map to the crem???????
Oh, by the way, McCowardly, you get to keep your job for another week…………
I’m with you Clive (for once!) – really, really happy with the win, hope its the turning point for our season and MM proves me wrong. But… the jury is still out given our season so far.
I also felt playing Ward up front(ish) was a p*ss take when I got the text through with the team news from my mate! Seemed to work though – so what do I know? I suppose to be fair to the bloke he was signed as a striker and not a left back.
Well played the lads! Especially SEB (hungry like the wolf!) and Ward (who suddenly, and very shockingly, looks every inch the midfield maestro!!) Even if we get several returnees from the injury bench, I wouldn’t mind the same XI starting next week.
The fightback has begun!
That game was immense. Looking at the bench we had and our midfield we were there for the taking. I’ll give my dot point conclusions again.
1) Zigic was terrible, played into our hands, immobile, poor touch.
2) SEB was outstanding, from the ball that created the goal to the tackle which released Edwards, Louie I don’t remember bagging SEB but how good is it to have depth in 3 positions now (Striker, Goalkeeper, Right Back)?
3) The absence of Doyle reflects the extra depth the squad has from last season. Last season we were lucky to have kept key players fit for long periods, really lucky. This year we can cover swathes of absence.
4) Edwards and Ward interchanging roles in centre midfield controlled the game.
5) McLeish got it wrong, wrong, wrong. 451 with Jerome up front and Phillips coming off the bench would have seen us in serious trouble.
6) Milijas is particularly effective when surrounded by runners.
7) Was Blackburn our Birmingham match from last year, absolute low point followed by a rally? If we’d lost last night we would have been a long way back.
8 ) Results have disguised some pretty decent stuff from us this year. We have only been dire once or twice, which wasn’t the case last season. With players slowly returning, and plenty of games still to go we’re in with a decent shout of survival.
Delighted.
With Apologies to Jed
1. Ward will be in midfield – and he was impressive
2. Birmingham will score – not with Zigic up front.
3. We’ll have all the possession – Good Shout
4. We’ll lose 2-0 – Win 1-0
5. McCarthy will keep his job so he can steer us to a richly deserved defeat next week as well. – Even Clive wants him tokeep his job
6. I’ll have a massive argument with the Missus, again – No comment
7. Louie will say how unlucky we were and we deserved to win. – Louie’s comments speak for themselves.
1,3,5,7 (I’ll count that Louie said we deserved to win) correct. Only 2 wrong. Well played Jed.
Thanks t’OM! 😉
No, let’s not go overboard, as I said after the Sunderland game, one swallow does not a summer make.
I wrote yesterday that he can keep his job another week.
Let’s see the comments on here after the match at the crem.
FOMM
i think the correct phrase here is ‘bah humbug!’
Humbugs have nothing to do with it.
Realism does.
We will play vastly superior teams than that one Birmingham put out yesterday.
One win does not convince me we are world beaters.
Yes, I am very pleased for the points, but we still have a long, long way to go to be safe.
If we stay up then I will gladly eat humble pie, because that would be far more palatible than Second Division football.
But, it’s a big if.
We know Brum thought they could walk over us, and didn’t come for a fight. That aint gonna happen every week, starting this coming weekend.
However, the form book usually goes out of the window during local derbies, so who knows what’ll happen!
The jury is still very much out on Ward’s “revival”. Can he do it again and again???
Let’s hope so, it’s time I gave him a rest and picked on someone else!!!!
FOMM
just one turn of the key….eek…eek
Stop it.
It’s Christmas.
and it’s my mouse and you can’t wind it, so there!!
We’ll see how we are this time next week, if we have big smiles then I will be only too happy to concede that I’m an idiot! I am unable to comment on the game as I haven’t seen it, but I’m obviously very pleased we stuffed the blouses, I just hope we can take it further……………..
Who would’ve thought that that team could play so well? No Jarvis, no Doyle, i’m sure i wasn’t the only one fearing the worst. But Blues didn’t turn up, and that obviously wasn’t the real Kevin Phillips if he missed at Molineux! Bring on Albion
McLeish said it all, when they heard our two big players were out, Doyle & Jarvis, they switched off and couldn`t turn it round. Eleven heroes yesterday, proud of them. Clean sheet yesterday, what about following that with an away win next Sunday.
If the defence is at it, we can play 442, or was it 4411, either way, letss have more of it, thanks for a great Sunday lads.
Delighted with the 3 points, what i wouldn’t gvie now for 3 more against the shit.
Worryingly for Feltcher, as i now call him, Ward was picked ahead of him and amazingly did a better job than Feltcher would have.
£7mil definitely wasted considering he’s probably now 4th choice!
Oh if only we’d spent it on a centre half.
Some reports in the papers say that Feltcher is unhappy and wants a move away in January! (like Van Pussy Damme)
Not as unhappy as I am tham we wasted the best part of £7million to sign the useless c___! No way we would get anywhere near our money back now, lucky to scrape £3million.
I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t gutted to be playing so little SW. I think he’ll come good,as long as he sticks around. I’m a fan and am sure he’ll figure after Xmas a lot more. Interestingly, a Blues fan was on WM saying they should snap him up while he’s still unhappy
he’s had a virus for the last 2 weeks and hasn’t trained. the fact that he still made the bench just confirms the depth of our injury crisis
My view was that he wasn’t fully fit and that was the reason he didn’t start.
Again, he quickly showed his quality in terms of positioning, first touch and distribution in tight areas. Fletcher needs a chance to shine. I like a 4-4-1-1 formation with Fletcher in behind SEB, with Milijas and Edwards in central midfield.
Agree with earlier comments on SEB – just awesome, especially the way he was able to bring the ball down. On that performance, he is miles ahead of Doyle in a 4-5-1 formation.
I’m looking forward to Sunday…
Bolton now in the hunt for Fletcher – Lets do a swap for either of their current forwards!!
The source saying he was unhappy was the daily mirror – nuff said!
Still in a state of shock at how well we played yesterday and also how appalling blues were. They were quite easily the worst opposition i’ve seen this year, just hope next sundays opposition are as generous although i somehow doubt it!
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11688_6570007,00.html
Greg seems mystified. I think I have the answer for him – he’s been awful for us.
Get the video out of the Blues game last season Halford – then perhaps you’ll understand. Quite simply you’re a sh*te championship level player.
Another MM complete waste of money.
Clive – do you think MM says this stuff to directly p*ss you off???
About “Wardy”, and I quote…
“I wouldn’t disagree with that, he epitomises the sort of players who have done well for us during my four years here.”
“He’ll be playing on Sunday, but where I don’t know yet”
“He really is fabulous.”
It says it all when Ward has to be singled out for having a good game, as it means MM knows he’s been shit all the other games he’s played.
If he bought him as a center forward, which he claims in his interview on the official politically correct site he did, then why doesn’t he play him there?
And, using the same fucked up logic, as he’s bought several center forwards (centers forward??) in his time at The Mol, why hasn’t he tried them at left back, midfield and every other place Ward has been shit in???
He’s playing on Sunday, what bollocks. How does that make the others feel???
FOMM
This is the line that gets me. ‘….he’s played in nearly every position and whenever he plays, he’s terrific.’ Now we can all argue about team selection and whether Ward or anyone else is worth their place etc but that statement is just plainly untrue. Often at left back he is very far from terrific, sometimes very poor and on several occasions directly responsible for points being lost. But not, alas, in Micks head. It MUST be love. He’s playing on Sunday which, if Jarvis is fit , could well be at left back at the expense of big George.Now that would be terrific.