If Kenny Jackett isn’t as enraged as the skies were at the moment a freak monsoon drenched us at 7.40pm, then he has every right to be.
The Chris Wood deal dead in the water, Northampton Town singing in the rain and his League Cup runneth o’er with bile as three wonderfully worked first half goals were chalked off for offside.
On another night, his half time team-talk would have been simple, with his side deservedly 3-0 up against a Cobblers team who were presumably told to seize the day, such was the freak substance of a night like this.
From our long distance vantage point away from the North Bank goal, it was impossible to tell if all three decisions were correct or not, but both Leon Clarke’s finishes – from well worked positions – appeared to arrive from behind the play when the ball was initially played. I could be wrong (and presume I am).
When Jacobs arrived to slot home a third disallowed effort shortly afterwards, you sensed it was one of those evenings.
Not once, twice, but three times my sodden jeans sent a cold, constricting cuddle to my thighs as I stood to cheer, only to sit back down and shiver at the discomfort that simply wasn’t warranted.
Northampton Town boss Chris Wilder must have given a pep-talk to exceed his wildest dreams as his side snuffed out our architect Michael Jacobs in the second period, who became so significantly anonymous.
With momentum swirling in the sky like a miserable big raincloud, Cobblers struck past the worryingly porous McCarey and that was the start of the deluge.
A soft goal from a corner – featuring no man on the far post – made it 2-0 and despite an instant rally when Dicko (x1) and Sako came off the bench, Kenny Jackett’s footballing umbrella was turned inside out when an even poorer goal was conceded through a combined cock-up between Ricketts (x1) and McCarey, who stood and watched as Northampton’s D’Ath won it.
On another day things might have been different for Kenny Jackett, who deserved this outcome as much as any waterlogged fan caught cold on Waterloo Road.
Life at Molineux is seldom so straightforward.
Player ratings
McCarey: Poor. All three goals arguably preventable but more worryingly, his lack of presence more noticeable. Don’t get injured Ikeme! 5
Doherty: Good going forward, space occasionally exploited behind him as we pushed to get back in the game. 6
Ricketts: Good goal to equalise, but can’t have been pleased in his part for Northampton’s third. 6
Ebanks-Landell: Not a great game as he failed to dominate physically as Batth so usually does. Not a ready-made replacement on this showing. 5
Stearman: A fair game, but a completely different proposition without his Brierley Hill battler alongside. 6
Henry: Always a willing outlet but the end product missing, as appeared to be a yard of pace to really hurt Northampton. Subbed. 6
Evans: Ultimately a poor game on second period showing. Flattered to deceive and in a game you’d expect him to grab by the scruff of the neck, he didn’t. Occasionally sloppy. 5
Price: Like Evans, you expect him to boss the midfield against League 2 opponents. Failed to do so and was too often anonymous. 5
Jacobs: Great first half, shackled completely during the second. The game hinged on this. 6
McAlinden: Set-up both goals during his best spell of the game. A clear outlet and looks visibly quicker and stronger. Got their right back subbed who couldn’t control him. Faded. Subbed. 7
Clarke: I’m in a minority to feel for Leon. Should be reflecting on two good goals having occupied their centre halves well. A linesman’s flag denied him and he looked typically unhappy when subbed. Rotten luck in my opinion, which doesn’t bode well for a guy already short on the stuff. 6
Subs:
Dicko: Injection of pace up top livened the affair and took his goal well. Another we can’t afford to lose through injury. 7
Sako: Typically lively and should really have hit the target to make it 3-3 after an Evans through ball. 6
Edwards: Not a great deal of time to do a lot. 6
What is it with us and the bloody League Cup, in whatever sponsorship incarnation it happens to be in any given year (other than distant glories, of course)?! Every year it comes along to prick early season bubbles. Yes, I too would like to cast it aside as a distraction, but it wouldn’t seem like a distraction if we kept going through, giving competitive game time to a wider squad and some excitement in later rounds. At least Ben’s great write-up puts some realism into it all and maintains the hope and indeed belief that it was all just a temporary bad dream. Kenny’s post-match analysis was also wise and shows the lessons will be learnt.
Call me an arrogant son of a bitch, but I thought we’d progress comfortably, even with 8 changes to the team.
Frustrating to see another cup campaign splutter and stall. Every year a team no better than us makes it to Wembley and I keep believing a law of averages dictates it will be us next time. Oh well, I’ve got a good feeling about the FA Cup…
Well done to Northampton though. To score 3 goals away from home against a team two divisions higher up the food chain is a great achievement and merits the reward of progression. Good luck to them.
Didn’t go to them game so can’t comment on individual or collective performance, but happy to hear in-house reports on McAlinden’s progress look to be coming to fruition out on the pitch. Another striker will be in before the end of the month no doubt, but would be useful if he and Clarke can chip in along the way.
Onto a difficult looking game at Rotherham, but we can call in the cavalry and expect a strong showing.
Very frustrating evening & a first for me as I’ve never seen us have three goals ruled out for offside in a single match.
Impossible to see from where we were but it seemed unbelievable that both Clarke (twice) & Jacobs were in front of square passes.
The same lino couldn’t deny us for offside again in the 2nd half but compensated by awarding Northampton a corner from 60 yards away when home & away players were moving away for the expected goal kick.
Needless to say, we never cleared that corner properly & ended up conceding a very poor decisive third goal.
So that’s one more linesman crossed off my Christmas card list but, whether he’d got it completely wrong or not, we should have had enough to win that game.
If I had to sum it up in one word – Cobblers!!!
A typically literary write up from Ben (nice one mate and I hope you’ve dried out) and a typically honest assessment from Kenny.
I have long had my doubts about McCarey. It’s difficult when you are being compared to what I think is a Premier class keeper, but he doesn’t fill me with confidence.
More worryingly, we have all had our doubts about the terrible twins – Scrooge and Billy Bunter – actually backing our manager with hard cash to strengthen the squad.
I blame Kevin Thelwell for so cleverly picking up free transfers and bargain basement buys.
But at some stage Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer have to decide which one has the key to the war chest (Ho Ho!) and commit to spending some proper money.
Apart from that, not too worried.
Three points against Rotherham will consign this result to the dustbin of history.
Cheers Doog. I wanted to end the report by writing: ‘Life at Molineux is seldom so cut and dried.’
I thought this would add symmetry to the intro / general theme, but my mind wasn’t sharp enough at 11.30pm last night. I was still suffering from pneumonia at the time!
Thanks for a good report Ben. Concise and informative as ever.
Did not see the game but when I saw the name of the ref I feared the worst. I cannot recall us ever winning a game with that muppet Atwell in charge. Call me paraniod but that is my feeling.
Not too worried (yet) as KJ obviously knows what he is doing. He has to try and give everyone game time and needs to find his best formation. Pity about the Wood deal seeming to fall through, I remember the last former baggie to come to us. He was a bit special.
Onwards and upwards looking forward to Rotherham.
Cheers Tipp’n! You’re right about Attwell. He didn’t give any contentious decisions, but he didn’t give us anything at the same time.
Clarke did really well in the first half, using his strength to get in behind their defender, yet Attwell pulled it back for a foul. Annoying!
And Scooped got it bang on for their third…The same linesman who gave us nothing took it upon himself to give them a corner from his vantage point 50 yards away when nobody appealed for it?! They eventually scored from it. Baffling!
It doesn’t excuse our defending from corners though. We looked very susceptible.
Hoping this weekends result HEALS a few wounds after the SHOEING we got from the Cobblers after SOCKing 3 goals in a game that cannot be described as TIGHT.
The team last night was LACED with the second string, but judging on great play in middle of the field, our second string need personal TRAINERS.
Kennys match report was quite concise, putting the BOOT in regards to our defensive abilities on a night of heavy rain that they could have been playing in WELLIES.
So onto Saturday where need to play with SOUL (I know the spellings wrong but just go with it!). I expect the 1st team will TOE the line and not put their FOOT in it.
Final note… Wolves Very Paw! and glad it was tie with just one Leg.
(Well a paw it’s a type of foot… Let me have that one too).
Well done to the Cobblers… It was their night.
Enjoyed the Chiropodist’s report. This competition is our Achilles’ heel !
That’s quite enough Cobblers puns.
Let’s make this the LAST one.
That’s got it NAILED then. It wasn’t a POLISHED performance, you could say it was a D(R)UBBIN !
Just a bad night at the office. Whilst I found it difficult to SAVOUR, I feel we got our just DESSERTS by not defending as well as we should.
Just thought I would change tack!
Always tricky trying to SHOE-HORN more squad players in and once again ended up on our annual BOOTSTRAPS.
Rotherham’s result and then Fulham more important but bad luck aside this cup has always given us grief since our glory days the FA cup being a better one..
Seems like Mccarey s got to take the rap and so be it.
I heard that Chris wood s deal was lost not because we wouldn’t pay enough but it was his wages…(sore subject) shame …I just don’t rate Clarke as a stand in…
I find the wages line interesting Steve. Moreover, the fact that the ‘bomb squad’ are still coining it in for doing nothing.
There has to be a direct correlation between the two, surely? The club says this drain of resources has no effect on the chances of bringing new players in but I’m just not buying it.
Anyway,I digress…
…We take what we have got to Rotherham and I’m excited by the team KJ has assembled.
The big, big worry wasn’t necessarily in last night’s result itself, but how we’d cope if we lost McDonald, Ikeme, Dicko and Batth for any point of the season.
It only takes an injury to one of these four and we do really look light. Clearly Kenny knows this. We really did look light during periods of the second half as Price and Evans struggled to boss the game.
Hey ho, we shall see…
Perhaps I live in a fantasy world but when we kicked off last night I kept a very close eye on the BBC Wolves live text, confident in expecting at least 3, possibly 4, to hit the back of the Northampton net ,considering we had fielded a team more than capable of wining.
Oh foolish me! Half time and it’s still 0-0, what is going on?
Then 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 2-2. That’s more like it, I’ll sit back and wait for the winner………
Could it get any worse? Yes it could, and it did!
Then the icing on the cake – The move for Chris Woods is off.
What a shit night
Like Thomas I thought the team put out would easily get the win but fair play to Northampton for the effort & result. When Sky said that 3 goals were disallowed I had the feeling we were playing 12 men & it wasn’t our night! Sadly that was proved right.
On the positive side it means less games to play & less injury risks. On the negative it’s a poor show from some players & maybe new faces are needed.
A good result at the weekend will make things better.
UTW
Well done to Northampton but what is it with us and bloody cup competitions?? I can’t remember the last time we had a decent run in any of the cups!!
I’m not going to become pessimistic because of one defeat but although the Norwich performance was very good I think realistically over 46 hard games the current squad will be doing well to get a top six finish this year without any further signings and I have everything I can possibly cross firmly crossed that none of our key players get injured.
Is it FFP and the group 3 players that are preventing us making signings? In our last Championship season we lost £33m. This year with FFP we are only allowed to lose between £3m and £6m I think? We might have lost some high wage earners since then like Hunt, Henry, Hennessey etc but the parachute payment has also gone down.
Is there anybody out there who understands how this all works and what impact it might have on us? Could be an interesting topic for a blog.
UTW
Great – now we can focus on the league.
We can use the same excuse when we’re knocked out of the FA cup, fockit
Once again, we have the ponces from the Prem to blame for our cup demise.
Forty odd years ago, the League Cup, no fancy shmancy sponsor names, the League Cup, was almost as prestigious as the FA Cup.
Whatever the opposition, the first team was picked.
Every match was important, and the best available eleven were put out.
Winning the cup was an entry into a much more limited European Cup competition, not the watered down Europa League, or even the diluted Champions League.
No, the best and only the best from each country qualified, and we were up there with them.
Now, the Prem prima donas play their third and fourth string teams, to “give them game time”, and let the managers/coaches/ developers of football/accountants/agents etc see how they perform under “real conditions”
Bollocks.
Any manager worth his salt should be able to assess players during all the practice sessions they have, and pick his best team from that.
And because of the way this competition has been treated so cavalierly by the top lot, everyone is forced to do the same, resulting in poor performances, and the fans not really giving a shit.
That said, my take on last night is good.
I seem to remember exactly a year ago, going out of both cups early, followed by a period of adjustment, them storming, blitzkrieg style, to a plethora of records.
A repeat of that will do me nicely, thank you very much!!
FOwb
Ben…I’m honoured re – editorial response ..I heard that Woods agent scotched the wages offer for this season …the offer went up if we got promoted..not enough….
We can’t negotiate it seems..as much as us bloggers love KJ and the new squad unit most of us realise if we make the premier we need 2 / 3 extra class players ..Wood was up there..
I agree with your 4 key players plus VLP..but perhaps we are vulnerable….
You can’t read anything – really – in to a game that was nil-nil at half time and ended 3-2 at full time. If you were, it would be that our reserves conceded two freak goals after dominating the first half, we subbed on Sako and Dicko who leveled proceedings and then they got a late winner because our reserve keeper’s an idiot and we’re screwed if Ikeme gets hurt or if some Prem side makes a Godfather offer for him in January if he/we start well.
I’m sick of all the cup failures against clubs beneath us just like everyone else but just like it really truly didn’t matter in the first few years of establishing Premier League stability, this one really truly doesn’t matter because we need to worry about (a) getting out of the division or at least (b) establishing ourselves as a regular threat to get out of the division. If anything, I’m encouraged two of our top attacking players were subbed in and quickly turned around a 2 goal deficit.
Woods is 4th choice at a prem club.he obviously thinks he is worth more than we are willing to pay him. Let’s see if any other club will pay him what he wants. If they won’t then he will probably sit it out till his contract ends. Sound familiar.
KJ Dropped the bollock last night by not picking our best side even though the team he chose
should have been enough to piss over the cobbler’s boots.
Am I bothered not a bit.
League more important I’m afraid.. UTW.
Drip feeding new players into our team is what I, and others, believe will happen. I am not overly fussed that we lost out on Woods. Others will follow and I am confident that KJ will do his best for our Club. I do not expect to see 3 or 4 players coming in during the transfer window. Slowly, Slowly catchee Mox ….sorry Monkey.
UTW/FOWB
Oops!
May as well be the friendly cup which is what it’s attendances and how much esteem this cup is held. Until we win it again and then it will be as big as the champions league!! Theirs always next year so let’s get on with the games wolves are really bothered with ( unfortunate but true). COYW
Personally i’m already salivating at the prospect of the 2015 League Cup 1st round draw. Anyone fancy Accrington Stanley at home ? Surely the proverbial ‘banana skin’. Or maybe I could do something interesting? Like counting the number of drain covers in my street or checking to see if there have been any pigeons flying within half a mile of my local chip shop. Sadly, that’s how I view the League Cup these days. Back in the day it was quite exciting, like when I went to Wembley as a kid to see us win 1-0 over Forest in 1980 and actually win it! Cheers Cloughie! On a happy note, the Baggie fan at work reckons they won’t get 20 points this season. We can but hope…….. WOLVES AY WE !!!