Wolves Vs Swansea

By: Toby | October 29th, 2008

A bitterly cold night at the Molineux, having snowed for the best part of the afternoon the pitch was slippery and a fair few players were skating around, obviously having not swapped over from their summer boots just yet. Not for the faint hearted, the kind of night where you can see your breath for far longer than you’d really like. Wolves were on a bit of a revenge mission, after the previous away game’s 3-1 against. And this time they had most of their attacking big men back in the squad, this one promised to be a rip roarer, and it didn’t dissapoint.

A good first half for Wolves saw Wolves dominate possession and find themselves with the ball in the back of the net twice. Both seemed dubious, Iwelumo’s disallowed effort because of some pushing seemed harsh at best, and continued the rule that you really can’t go anywhere near a goalkeeper anymore these days. Ebanks Blake scored the goal just before the break in an end to end half, breaking away and fighting off a dogged Swansea defence before slotting away. Iwelumo was lurking around in an offside position, but the assistant referee didn’t seem to think he was affecting play.

So it stood at one nil, Swansea were rocked. After they had been playing decent, positive and attacking football after originally taking a good twenty minutes to find their feet in the early stages. They forced a cracking tip over from Ikeme who shook off a back injury to retain his place within the starting line up, and justified his selection with the denial of what surely would have been a Swansea goal. Kightly looked sprightly and willing in attack despite not being able to take corners all that well, thinking getting past the first man was no longer a requirement for a successful set piece, whilst Iwelumo decided he was going to win everything thrown up into the air.

The Second half started as the first had left off, with both teams going hammer and tong, with Swansea taking the early initiative with Pratley scoring early on. (Bang goes another clean sheet eh?) Wolves went through a period of not being able to get hold of the ball thereafter, a nervous time for any hardened Wolves supporter, knowing their tendency to push the self destruct button. However Mick’s boys have a new level of inbuilt reserve, with Carlos Edwards drifting in a fine ball for Ebanks Blake to simply guide it in for his, and Wolves’ second of the night. Swansea refused to be dampened however with Gower thundering a shot off the bar after a slick passing move which all too readily exposed the Wolves’ current weakness in defence.

Wolves, under the cosh for much of the first half were made to work hard against Swansea under the conditions with Swansea putting move after move together with Wolves for the most part simply chasing shadows, between Iwelumo having another goal disallowed, this time, fairly. Kightly put in a good hour, obviously still not up to 100% after his recent spell out, with Dave Edwards coming in and doing a good job till the finish. Worryingly Shackle was taken off injured with the last five minutes still to play, with Keogh coming on to replace the stricken defender. But Wolves did hold tight and doggedly refused to give up their lead.

This result was a return to normality in the respect that our defence wasn’t leaking 4 or 5, however we were second best for most of the game, in that respect it showed that we were able to grind out a win again, a skill that’s utterly vital in a team that has aspirations for a title or promotion. We played our football in the freezing cold and snow and came away with three huge points against a team which you wouldn’t have believed were playing in the league below the season before, hats off for them they were value for money.

Elsewhere, Reading dropped points against Burnley giving us a 7 point cushion between us and them with Cardiff now lying in third to give Saturday a bit of extra bite, it also gives us a pleasant amount of breathing space for now from Reading, who I still think are the main danger in this league. And with Birmingham for once not scoring at the very last minute to ruin all of our days Wolves moved back to the top of the Championship. All round a very good night for us, all the results that could have gone our way, did, with Wolves themselves keeping their part of the bargain in a hard fought win over a Swansea who’d not lost in seven games. All in all, that means that technically* come the first of November we’ll be top. Meaning we’ll have been top of the table in August, September, October and November at least once. I’m in shock.

*The technically being before we kickoff…the hours of midnight till five twenty on Saturday at the very least.