Wolves Fail to Score Five but Still Win: Wolves 2 Palace 1

By: Matt | September 17th, 2008

Some would say that normality returned to Molineux last night as Wolves outfought Palace in a relatively close game. With the injury list starting to grow, the Wolves side looked a little unbalanced in comparison to previous games but still had too much for a battling Palace side. Keogh again played on the left side of midfield, replacing Matt ‘tight groin’ Jarvis, whilst Vokes played upfront alongside SEB in place of Chris ‘tight groin’ Iwelumo. Wolves lost a further player on 28 minutes, when David Jones went off with what seemed like a back injury, replaced by David Edwards.

So, Wolves lined up:

———–Hennessey———–
Foley—Stearman—Collins—Ward (s)
Kightly—Jones—Henry—Keogh
——Vokes——-Ebanks-Blake—-

As in recent games, Wolves started like an express train and the reward was immediate. Straight from kick-off the ball was worked out to Keogh, who took on his marker on the left wing and crossed to the edge of the penalty area where Jones headed down to SEB, who was near the penalty spot with his back to goal, he swivelled and shot into the corner of the net. Eighteen seconds of the game were gone and Wolves were 1-0 up. Neil Warnock was apocalyptic on the touch line as his well prepared “keep ‘em quiet for the first 20 minutes and the crowd will get on their back’ plans disintegrated in front of his eyes. Now Palace would have to come out to play and this Wolves team are deadly on the break.

For the first 20 minutes it looked as if Wolves would pull away comfortably but the second goal never came, both SEB and Kightly missed good chances and Wolves then slowly started to fade. Palace started getting back into the game, with five across midfield, and Wolves struggled to keep the ball. Palace were going to have a chance sooner or later and when they did Hennessey saved brilliantly from Ifil. Then on 28 minutes, an injured David Jones was replaced by Dave Edwards. Moments later, whilst attempting a clearance, Collins hit the ball against Palaces’s excellent young winger Djilali (although it looked like hand ball from where I was sitting) who passed into the box for Ifil to finish very impressively into the corner of the net. The game was now very even, going from end to end as both teams tried gain the advantage. Wolves could have been ahead at the break when Vokes was pulled back in the area for a nailed on penalty which the referee waved away.

Wolves put in a much better second half performance and a bright, confident, start was rewarded when a Collins free kick was flicked on by Vokes to Kightly on the right hand side of the box, his powerful cross was met by SEB’s boot on the six yard line but Speroni pulled off an excellent reaction save, the ball flew out to Keogh who did very well to react so quickly and head the ball into the back of the net. From then on Palace had their fair share of possession but didn’t really create any clear cut chances. Wolves caught them time and time again on the break and really should have put the game out of sight. Kightly had 3 very good chances, mainly created by his own endeavour, but could have also passed to better placed team mates on a few occasions but decided to go for goal himself.

It was hard fought victory and a decent performance by Wolves. We would have been over the moon with this sort of game last season but on the back of some fantastic performances this looked a little mediocre. Maybe it’s good to have a wake up call to dampen down expectations all around. You didn’t honestly think we would win every game by four of five goals did you?

Hennessey – 8 Commanded his area well. One excellent one handed save in the first half. No chance with the goal.

Foley – 7 Steady as ever, nothing too flash but solid

Stearman – 8 Excellent commanding performance, full of hard tackling and termination.

Collins – 7.5 Bad mistake for the goal, which he most people will remember about him for this game but that aside his performance was excellent. He won everything in the air.

Ward (S)- 7 Decent performance but looked to struggle against Scannell’s pace at times. Reluctant to get forward as much as before but otherwise pretty solid, doesn’t look out of place.

Kightly – 7.5 Had to come and dig the ball out of a crowded midfield and did this well, could have scored 2 or 3 and was a little selfish at times. Just not his night.
Jones – 7 Usual performance from him. Good passing, hope he is not out for too long.

Henry – 7 Good captains performance. A mistake in the first half led to a Hennessey super save but overall another solid game with good positive running.

Keogh – 7 Full of running, did well to assist for the first and was in the right place at the right time for the goal. Some good link up play with SEB when Vokes went off.

SEB – 9 Took his goal superbly, led the line well. Some of his link up play with Kightly, Edwards and Keogh was brilliant.

Vokes – 7 Not as effective as Saturday but a decent performance all the same but still put himself well and had a hand in the goal.

Edwards – 8 Excellent performance. Full of running and tracked back well. Got forward well and gave the midfield some spark when he came on.

Gray – 7 Came on to help out Ward and put in a steady performance.

Shackell – Only came on in injury time.

The referee was pretty useless.