Birmingham City 2-1 Wolves
I really don’t know where to start with this.
In one sense it was a very Wolves thing to do; to put in such an abject performance against a local rival with points at stake.
But on the other hand I really didn’t see this coming.
We haven’t had the best record in local derbies in my 20 years of support but with the momentum firmly in Wolves favour and the fact that we were in the play off positions at the start of the day, this was hard to take.
The goals summed up the afternoon perfectly really.
The first was a Sunday league style scramble of failed clearances and comedy goalkeeping as first Ikeme failed to catch the ball; then McDonald kicking it straight into Kiernan’s chest for it to trickle over the line.
Just 4 minutes earlier things were looking very different when Dicko rode the challenge of 3 defenders and squared the ball to Afobe unmarked just inside the area who stroked it into the net.
Gray had had a decent effort from range which was straight at Ikeme beforehand though so it hadn’t been all one way traffic even if Wolves did have the majority of the early possession.
The freak equaliser though seemed to knock Wolves confidence more than it really should have done and the game descended into a scrappy, niggly affair from which it never really recovered.
Neither side were doing enough to even look like scoring before or after the break until a Wolves corner led to the winning goal.
The ball in was poor and eventually fell to Gray just outside his own 18 yard box.
From there he ran 30 yards where he met Golbourne who dispossessed him.
For some reason his concentration dropped at the very second he gained the ball and instead of playing the ball back to Ikeme or out into touch just lost possession for Gray to run onto and score.
In a sense it epitomised everything about the Wolves performance on the day; lethargic, lazy, sloppy and almost frightened in a way.
It is this that is the most worrying thing though as its now happened more than a few times for it to be a coincidence.
Whenever there is something at stake, Wolves seem to bottle it or put in a ridiculously bad performance.
Ipswich, Norwich, Bournemouth away all spring to mind.
If we are to make the play offs will the players be able to handle the pressure because on this performance I doubt it.
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