Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 Blues 1 .. Ron's Report

Last updated : 01 December 2008 By Richard Barker

Blues had led through Cameron Jerome, who scored just minutes after coming on, before Sylvan Ebanks-Blake equalised for Wolves with about 15 minutes to go.

Blues made just one change to the side that had beaten Ipswich, with David Murphy coming in for Seb Larsson who missed out due to "personal reasons". The rumour is that he approached Alex McLeish on Friday and informed him that he'd been to Wolverhampton once before and had no intention of putting himself through that again. Whatever the reason, it meant that Murphy came in in a wide left role, with James McFadden moving to the right. It seemed that the inclusion of Murphy in midfield was an opportunity for Blues to try and deal with the threat of Michael Kightly.

Well, it's been a while since the game now, and it was on the telly, so most people have seen what happened and discussed it and all the rest of it. As such, like an Estate Agent or the weird little puppet of the Woolworth's adverts, my role is pretty much redundant. So, I'll just offer a few random thoughts of my own, some of which may have been flogged to death already, and some of which may not have been.

1) Under McLeish, Blues have generally been found wanting in big, crunch games. The mind goes back to a lot of the relegation "six pointers" last season, against the likes of Fulham, Wigan and Reading. So, in that sense, it was good to see Blues perform in such a game. A draw was probably a fair result, but if either team was to feel aggrieved by not taking all three points, I'd expect it to be Blues rather than Wolves, what with having two goals disallowed, one cleared off the line, Kevin Phillips misfiring and all the rest of it. Blues sat back on the 1-0 a little too much and Wolves did come on strong before they equalised (after which Blues stepped it up again for 10 minutes or so), but over the 90 minutes I'd say Blues were the better team, which was good to see in the circumstances.

2) There's no doubt a key turning point was the injury to Nicky Hunt, who'd been excellent - even appearing to scare Chris Iwelumo. Hunt's injury late in the first half meant Blues lost shape. Personally I wouldn't have brought Mehdi Nafti on to play at right-back, and I'm not saying that with hindsight at his shocker. I wouldn't have put Murphy there either, as Blues did later on. I'd have played Kemy Agustien there. What he lacks in positional knowledge I'm sure he'd have made up for with his pace (greater than Nafti's), his composure, his stamina (better than Nafti's) and his youthfulness (if that's a word, and if it is, it's better than Nafti's). The right-sided problem meant that Wolves switched Kightly over there and Blues had a full-back heavy left-hand side dealing with Michael Gray (and I could deal with Michael Gray) and a striker and midfielder heavy right-hand side dealing with the ever-dangerous Kightly. Blues coped (just about), but it was a worry. Nafti, by the way, was just as ponder some and useless when he got moved into midfield.

3) Cameron Jerome - that's how to best utilise him.

4) For forty-four and a half minutes, Blues were excellent first half, but there's still one or two baffling concentration things going on, mainly in defence. Firstly, Wolves nearly scored from a long throw that none of their players touched, but that Liam Ridgewell and Maik Taylor managed to conspire together in making it bounce back off the post. Then there was the unbelievable sight (that I suspect TV missed) of Maik Taylor dancing around inside his goal (ie. behind the goal-line) enjoying some banter with the Wolves fans behind him and then drinking from his water bottle with his back still to play, as Wolves attacked having taken a quick free-kick (honestly, had Wolves been more switched on, they'd have scored - he was clueless as to what was going on). Then finally, following a Wolves player getting some treatment, Blues players continued drinking from the water bottles next to the dugouts as Wolves set up and the referee blew the whistle for play to continue. As such, Blues had one defender facing up to four Wolves attackers. Thankfully the referee insisted Wolves re-take the free-kick and allow the Blues players back into position, which was very, very generous of him, I thought, and rightly angered the home fans. This kind of sloppiness must still be a concern.

5) McFadden's work-rate when playing wide is increasing game by game and he's looking a top, top player at this kind of level.

6) Wolves were a little disappointing, in my opinion, and I wouldn't write Blues or Reading off in this season's title/promotion chase. For a team that had won seven on the spin and were six points clear at the top of the league, they didn't seem as confident as you'd expect and were pleased to get the point themselves. That's fair enough, I guess, but for those who haven't seen them that much this season and see their results each week and say, "that Wolves side are excellent", well, I wouldn't go that far. They're a good side, no doubt, but on this evidence, they're not the trail-blazing, free-flowing wonder team some may have you believe. They're also shocking at the back, with Richard Stearman (a right-back playing at centre half) and Stephen Ward (a striker playing at left-back) prime examples. Michael Mancienne's get-at-able too, as Jerome showed with his goal - again with him, don't believe the hype.

7) This was a good result for Blues, that could possibly have been better, but as I said after Ipswich, regardless of how the game went, a draw at Molineux would have been a result. Hopefully the Blues players will look back on this and think, "hang on a second - they're six points ahead of us... if they can do it, why can't we?" and can kick on. Take nothing away from Wolves though, they're not a bad team and this was an entertaining game.

8) Blues have been paired with Wolves in the FA Cup 3rd Round at St Andrews. I hope that the powers-that-be come up with a ticket pricing structure (whatever that may be) that tempts a big crowd to attend, as based on this game, it has all the makings for a cracking cup tie.