Wolves - Back From The Game...

[Alan Partridge]

These games with 2 teams close to each other in the division can go one of two ways, 1 it's really open, both teams fire and it's a high class game of football or 2 the teams cancel each other and it's a damp squib, today was number 2 really. It was going to take either a flash of brilliance or a mistake to force the winning goal and it happened before some had even took their seats!!

got a lot of time for Mick McCarthy but having heard his interview if he is genuinely really happy with his teams performance and thought they 'dominated it for spells' then he's got some serious problems and if that's Wolves playing 'really well' it will be next week that Reading take over top spot.

The simple facts are, that was Wolves best team out there, not like the 3-0 when they had players missing and then lost players during the game, it was their best team for 90minutes. As for Reading they had their 2nd choice keeper, their 3rd choice right back making his league debut, their 4th choice centre back and a centre midfielder playing centre back for 75minutes or so. And yet Federici hasn't had a single meaningful effort to save in 90minutes.

I was hugely dissapointed with Wolves, I thought they'd come here really have a go at Reading and test them out as it happens it was a comfortable game really for the most part. it was a 0-0 game, not many chances apart from speculative efforts, we didn't do anything second half really until Lita came on and added a bit of life to things but we didn't really need to.

I feared the absolute worst when Doobs went off, he really started strongly and I felt we'd really need him to be huge for us tonight but Cisse (although he'll do anything to avoid heading the ball!!!) filled in admirably back there alongside the excellent Pearce.

It was a tense affair, a big result for Reading against the odds really, they showed a lot of character tonight to get a well earned if scrappy 3 points.

Ratings

Federici 7 - His kicking really is ridiculously good, the best I have ever seen from any goalkeeper.

Kelly 7 - He's no Rosenior, or even Murty but the young man for a debut stuck in there well against their best player Jarvis, he must have breathed a big sigh when he went off.

Pearce 8 - MOTM, 2nd half in particular absolutely rock solid in there, started understandably a bit edgy but was superb 2nd half, even wehn they had the 3 forwrds including the 2 big lads he still limited them to precisely nothing.

Doobs 7 - superb until early exit

Armstrong 7

Kebe 7

Cisse 8 - Did a super job filling in at centre back after the early injury.

Harper 7

S Hunt 7

Doyle 7

N Hunt 6 looked a bit off the pace tonight although the effort was still there

Lita 7

Long 5

Gunnarsson 6 a generous 6 in all honesty, I thought Gunnarsson really struggled to get into the game for long spells. Was the right move to bring the experience and efensive qualities of Boris on but it didn't really happen for him in there tonight.

Overall though good stuff, great win, onto QPR with hopefully a couple of players back!

[Deathy]

...the whole of the lower west stand winced in unison.

Bones in the prawns?

[Dirk Gently]

Interesting to note that Collins was already a target of hatred amongst Wolves fans before today - imagine Harper or Long scoring an og and being sent off and you'll get an idea .....

Neill Collins depreciation thread

[AlexY25]

Federici - 8 - Not a great deal to do, but everytime he was called upon, he dealt well

Kelly - 8 - Solid at the back, good running, good partnership with Kebe down the wing as well
Pearce - 7 - Decent enough.
Doobs - 7 - Solid until he came off.
Armstrong - 7 - Made one or two mistakes early on, but settle and did well.

Kebe - 9 - MOTM thought he was awesome, made a few great TACKLES and very good runs, best i've seen him play.
Harper - 7 - Didn't do that much, but didn't have a bad or good game really.
Cisse - 7 - Did okay again, consistent is the word for him this season.
S. Hunt - 7 - Wasn't too impressed with him today, but he did one or two good crosses, but thats about it.

Doyle - 7 - Never stopped running, didn't look a threat in front of goal today though.
N. Hunt - 7 - Won every header, and caused the first goal.

Subs
Bryn - 5 - I thought he did terrible when he came on, couldn't tackle, passes were misplaced, and giving the ball away.
Lita - 7 - Came on and made a couple of good runs and caused problems straight away.
Long - 6 - Didnt do anything.

[Deathy]

Interesting to note that Collins was already a target of hatred amongst Wolves fans before today - imagine Harper or Long scoring an og and being sent off and you'll get an idea .....

Neill Collins depreciation thread

Calls to 606 were coming in after the own goal demanding he never wear the shirt again!

[woodley_royal_124]

I reckon he said something about the linesmans mum! Look how Zidane reacted with his headbutt.......Lino was tempted by the headbutt but thought nah, i will get him a red card instead...

Being a lino is a frightful affair

[2.8 lita injection]

A rather poor game to watch, nearly 75% of the football was head tennis.

Cisse was man of the match by a street imo, to start he was having a good game in the central midfield and winning all of 50/50's, then he was superb again at centre half, cisse is such an athletic player & his judgement was spot on today. Dont get me wrong Pearce was as good.

Kelly played very well as was just as threat as his opposite was to him.

[Stuffed Crust Pizza]

Surprised to have not read a single comment on the atmosphere tonight!

This was by far number 13's best performance of the season, and the stadium was rocking on a few occasions.

Didn't hear much from the Yam Yam's tonight over in Y19, however they were maybe on a downer after the start they had. Couldn't of happened to a nicer bunch!

[FiNeRaIn]

Kelly played very well as was just as threat as his opposite was to him.

Incorrect IMO. Jarvis skinned him in the first half, improved second half though.

[2.8 lita injection]

Kelly played very well as was just as threat as his opposite was to him.

Incorrect IMO. Jarvis skinned him in the first half, improved second half though.

He might had skinned him but i thought Wolves were rancid in the first half, tho Jarvis was their best player.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Excellent result, decent performance but, most of all, a GREAT game. Considering we've seen some appalling football this season, today's game was a fantastic advert for CCC football. Well done 'ding & Wolves.

.

Bit confused by this, apart from a nice intense atmosphere mostly generated by our fans, the football was poor, really poor.

I have to agree. The football today reminded me of the few days when I've made the mistake of popping down to watch Bracknell Town play, thinking that the football surely can't be that bad again.

It was a diabolical advert for this division, devoid of anything resembling skill, guile or composure. I'm not usually the first to moan about us, but there's some first class turd-polishing going on by those viewing it rather more rosily than they might had we not been comically gifted 3 points.

any premier league scout looking at our players tonight would have walked away laughing. If this was the best two in the football league, then heaven help either of us if we go up if we dare to put on displays like tonight's.

[Percy's Rocket]

.[/quote]

Bit confused by this, apart from a nice intense atmosphere mostly generated by our fans, the football was poor, really poor.[/quote]

If you want quality passing don't try the Madstad..maybe Swansea or Burnley or the Prem but this team is not designed for that. Our passing player warms the bench and these teams just want to over-run passers in midfield.....Fantastic passion and drive tonight though..might get us up bt only for one season sadly unless we do invest in quality.

Thank God Leroy did his shoulder at the far end of the Lower West from me...Having dislocated mine ten times I would have been out of there on a stretcher just seeing it.unbelievablepain..worse than a fracture..I wondered why everyone was standing up....fantastic effort of Fearn to pop it in and Leroy to stay on. As it was so quick if Fearny got it straight back in cleanly the ligaments may not be too bad and he might be OK Saturday.

Well done that makeshift back four..tremndous effort

[howser]

I only had the input from John Salako on GSS but the overall peformance sounds very good particularly as we had a very makeshift back four, both the youngsters kelly and Pearce would have semed to do a very good job against a thoroughly attractive looking Wolves front line set up, we have a great record against our promotion rivals this season so now lets all hope we can push on towards the "promised land" of the Premiership and the sooner Feb 2 comes by the better lets just keep all our stars and return to the top league with them.

[Twix]

Excellent result, decent performance but, most of all, a GREAT game. Considering we've seen some appalling football this season, today's game was a fantastic advert for CCC football. Well done 'ding & Wolves.

.

Bit confused by this, apart from a nice intense atmosphere mostly generated by our fans, the football was poor, really poor.

ditto, poor (but typical) advert for CCC 'football'

You gotta love Championship defending though, why pass it back to the Goalie if you can simply give a thrown-in away.. lost count the amount of times Wolves did this, it really breaks the game up which actually suited us tonight but we wont win back possession so easily in the Prem.

I don't think Wolves trusted their keeper, especially as he struggled when being chased down and seemed to be terrible at kicking.

[Millsy]

Excellent result, decent performance but, most of all, a GREAT game. Considering we've seen some appalling football this season, today's game was a fantastic advert for CCC football. Well done 'ding & Wolves.

.

Bit confused by this, apart from a nice intense atmosphere mostly generated by our fans, the football was poor, really poor.

I have to agree. The football today reminded me of the few days when I've made the mistake of popping down to watch Bracknell Town play, thinking that the football surely can't be that bad again.

It was a diabolical advert for this division, devoid of anything resembling skill, guile or composure. I'm not usually the first to moan about us, but there's some first class turd-polishing going on by those viewing it rather more rosily than they might had we not been comically gifted 3 points.

any premier league scout looking at our players tonight would have walked away laughing. If this was the best two in the football league, then heaven help either of us if we go up if we dare to put on displays like tonight's.

Football is primarily about getting points, not merely to entertain or to advertise divisions.

We got a clean sheet a got the points.

What the game looked like is irrelevant.

We know both ourselves and YLUDA are capable of good footy when need be.

[Woodcote Royal]

The quality of football in these fixtures will always be secondary to the result and it's naive to believe otherwise.


Typical perseverance from Doyle led to the early own goal and from then on, especially with such a makeshift defence, any lack of quality suited us rather than them......................which is why I'm sure we were the instigators of several bouts of head tennis.

Whilst most fans wold have loved a footballing bonanza, 99% would still have taken a win however it was achieved............................the other 1% included my near neighbours tonight who both would have taken a point before kick off

[Millsy]

These games with 2 teams close to each other in the division can go one of two ways, 1 it's really open, both teams fire and it's a high class game of football or 2 the teams cancel each other and it's a damp squib, today was number 2 really. It was going to take either a flash of brilliance or a mistake to force the winning goal and it happened before some had even took their seats!!

got a lot of time for Mick McCarthy but having heard his interview if he is genuinely really happy with his teams performance and thought they 'dominated it for spells' then he's got some serious problems and if that's Wolves playing 'really well' it will be next week that Reading take over top spot.

The simple facts are, that was Wolves best team out there, not like the 3-0 when they had players missing and then lost players during the game, it was their best team for 90minutes. As for Reading they had their 2nd choice keeper, their 3rd choice right back making his league debut, their 4th choice centre back and a centre midfielder playing centre back for 75minutes or so. And yet Federici hasn't had a single meaningful effort to save in 90minutes.

I was hugely dissapointed with Wolves, I thought they'd come here really have a go at Reading and test them out as it happens it was a comfortable game really for the most part. it was a 0-0 game, not many chances apart from speculative efforts, we didn't do anything second half really until Lita came on and added a bit of life to things but we didn't really need to.

I feared the absolute worst when Doobs went off, he really started strongly and I felt we'd really need him to be huge for us tonight but Cisse (although he'll do anything to avoid heading the ball!!!) filled in admirably back there alongside the excellent Pearce.

It was a tense affair, a big result for Reading against the odds really, they showed a lot of character tonight to get a well earned if scrappy 3 points.

Fantastic post. Not a word out of place. Tell it as it is.

Reading reserves 1 Wolves best eleven "x points clear and seemingly running away with it" 0

[bcubed]

Excellent result, decent performance but, most of all, a GREAT game. Considering we've seen some appalling football this season, today's game was a fantastic advert for CCC football. Well done 'ding & Wolves.

.

Bit confused by this, apart from a nice intense atmosphere mostly generated by our fans, the football was poor, really poor.

I have to agree. The football today reminded me of the few days when I've made the mistake of popping down to watch Bracknell Town play, thinking that the football surely can't be that bad again.

It was a diabolical advert for this division, devoid of anything resembling skill, guile or composure. I'm not usually the first to moan about us, but there's some first class turd-polishing going on by those viewing it rather more rosily than they might had we not been comically gifted 3 points.

any premier league scout looking at our players tonight would have walked away laughing. If this was the best two in the football league, then heaven help either of us if we go up if we dare to put on displays like tonight's.

Also agree with this
Good result, great atmosphere, but certainly not good football

[Snowball]

Pearce was so very solid all night, going to be a very very good CB

Cisse did very well in CM and at CB

Both fullbacks did well. Give Kelly a break, his first pro start against a side top of the league that
before tonight were averaging 2 goals a game away from home. He should be proud of what he managed,
and he did better and better as he settled and supported Kebe well.

Note also that first-half Wolves were pinging most of the balls out to the LW-RB area to put extra pressure on the kid.

Really surprised at the moaners who thought it was a crap game. It was hard as hell, like a war-zone at times
and as well as the goal there was Noel's lovely header that looked like a goal all the way, and then Noel's
brilliant free-kick and a save to match.

I thought Kebe was fantastic. One thing in particular he does is that ball that comes to him where 95% of players have
to shield and hold and look for a pass to someone coming through in support... but he gets a toe in, flicks it past the
defender. If Kebe keeps improving like he has this season he will be the crowd favourite next season

Doyle and Hunt looked very tired after an hour.

Lita looked more lively. Long got very little ball but might have done better with a half chance.

I though Gunnar did well. Weird that someone thought he was rubbish. There was one sweet sweet moment
where he intercepted, waited and put Noel away with an immaculate pass (but the defender got a tackle in)

Great night. Also good that the gap to 4th and 5th has opened up to a healthy ten points

To think, two months ago, 25th November we were 12 points behind Wolves, 6 points behind Birmingham
Sheffield United were close on our heels (3 points) and Burnley were another point behind

As things stand we've made up 10 points on Wolves, 8 on Birmingham, 7 on Sheffield, 10 on Burnley
and that's after a sticky patch. Quite incredible, really

[bcubed]

If any was required, tonight was proof that sh*t happens in this game we love.

Given that by half time we were playing with just one of our first choice back four, every player who took the field tonight did us proud.

It would be easy to pick out one or two who didn't have their best of games but they all stood up and fought to keep the 3pts so generously donated by tonights opponents.

And, if we didn't know before, Pearce and Kelly showed that our youngsters are more than good enough to be this season's squad players. In fact, whilst I'm guessing SC will see things differently, I think Pearce should keep his place as he is the future, already offers no less than Ingimarsson and should only get better the more he plays.

The passage of play that lead to the OG all started from Doyle chasing down yet another lost cause and emerging with the ball.......................we should be thanking our lucky stars for every day that Kev remains at this club.

This result was massive, many thanks to all those who made it possible.

I agree Doyle is a huge asset and the master of chasing and winning lost causes.
But he looked off the pace in the second half and perhaps disinterested at times. I rarely think he should be subbed but with 20/25 minutes to go it was obvious he needed to come off. Just knackered? Guess he's due a rest