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Wolverhampton Wanderers
Posted by Daniel Pountney on 12/13/2010

It was one-way traffic against Birmingham as our injury ravaged side pummeled the visitors.
If not for Ben Foster’s brilliant performance in the Blues goal, it could have been an embarrassing scoreline.
Now we’re one point from the safety zone and playing great football despite having to field a bench of youngsters.
The thing is, the players’ attitude and work rate has not changed since the first day of the season.
Finally though we’re getting what we deserve.

The Birmingham game was interesting for a few reasons.
Firstly, our peppering of the visitors’ goal actually resulted in us scoring.
However good Foster was in goal, he couldn’t hold out against the gold and black tide.
I reckon Mick McCarthy had identified our failure to score goals in previous weeks and adapted the tactics to rectify it.
I have never seen us flood the box with bodies so often when we went forward.
Often there would be four players in their box trying to get on the end of a cross.
That can work providing you have got the type of players with the fitness and desire to get forward and then race back in defence.
Ward, Edwards, Hunt and Foley will do that all day for Mick and the fact that he gets it out of them should be recognised.

Secondly, we should pay tribute to two players who opitomised the performance of the team.
Due to the injuries to 11 senior players, Stephen Ward was put up front for the first time in years after becoming a much-maligned left-back.
He responded with an awesome display. He never stopped running in to space or hastling their defenders.
The other real star was Sylvain Ebanks-Blake.
He showed us that it’s not just Kevin Doyle who can lead the line, even when he was on his own.
As well as numerous sharp shots on target, he tackled back in the manner that Tevez and Rooney do, and he put in a great ball for Hunt’s goal.

Finally, Birmingham had two chances right at the end of the game – one of them falling to our nemesis Kevin Phillips.
For the first time this season we got lucky as he headed wide.
Wolves have not had the rub of the green so far this year but seeing that ball go wide preserving our three points can only lead to the belief that the bad luck has left us.
With Albion up next, it has happened just in time.

Comments

Posted by Terry F. on 12/14/2010

I am among the first to criticize Stephen Ward, so let me say that he played a very nice game of football on Sunday in adverse conditions when the team really needed to step up. I will say that the back four is better with Elokobi and Zubar at the wings. Yet we certainly still looked shaky at times in the back, particularly at the end, but Birmingham poised no threat at all, barely making any organized offensive effort.
Ebanks-Blake was the Man of the Match for me, giving a winning full field performance.
Edwards needs to learn how to finish. He continues to get right into the best scoring psitions and makes nothing of them! Incredible he missed that header that would have salted the game away. Let's hope we get healthy and pick up the win at Albion. Those would be fantastic points for us, and we really need points over teams at the back half of the table!

Posted by blogs.soccernet.com on 04/05/2011

Wolves_1_ben_foster_0.. Tiptop :)

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