Two Vital Minutes Change The Game - Wolves 2-1 Sunderland

HENNESSEY, HENNESSEY
By Tom Bason
December 4 2011

Wolves today beat Sunderland 2-1, thanks to a brace from Steven Fletcher. Sunderland had taken the lead through Kieran Richardson, before Sebastian Larsson missed a gilt edged chance to wrap the points up for the Black Cats, Wayne Hennessey saving his spotkick.

I'll start at the start, and the line-up. The obvious talking point was the absence of Roger Johnson from the team, Jody Craddock replacing him. My views on Craddock are reasonably well known - he shouldn't still be at the club, and if we are ever forced to play him, we are probably in serious trouble... My second thought was that it was a very attacking midfield, but more on that later.

With Johnson (captain) out and Craddock (former captain) in, surely the former Sunderland defender would have taken the armband? But no, it was Stephen Ward. Evidence of both Craddock's new status at the club, and also the way that Ward has made himself both an integral part of the starting-11, but also the entire club.

The first real chance came for Steven Fletcher, playing upfront with Kevin Doyle, whose goal bound header was saved on the line by Keiren Westwood (my sources assure me it didn't cross the line). But, what was interesting was the 'quick corner' that preceded it. When Stephen Hunt sprinted to gather the ball after the corner was awarded, I assumed he just being his usual spritely self. But no, he fired the ball out to Matt Jarvis who quickly crossed, leading to confusion in the box. I've often wondered why teams don't take corners quickly, before the defence has had chance to organise themselves. Unfortunately, the subsequent corners were taken at a normal pace.

I said I'd talk about the midfield, and here we are. I'm sure there will be people adding together the fact that Karl O'Henry missed out and we won, and coming up with five, but I don't think the midfield pairing worked. Both Dave Edwards and Jamie O'Hara are similar types of box to box midfielders, and didn't work in tandem particularly well. They seemed to both either be too deep or too far forward. Admittedly, this probably wasn't helped by the inclusion of Jody Craddock, whose lack of pace forced us to defend slightly deeper than we do normally, leaving a lot space in the centre of the field that O’Hara and Edwards failed to fill. Had we playing against a more tactically astute manager, this space would have been utilised by moving Stéphane Sessègnon into a more central position. This would have caused real problems for the defence, as he would have effectively had no direct opponent. As it was, we were perhaps fortunate that Eric Black persisted with the relatively defensive pairing of Jack Colback and Lee Cattermole.

Can two minutes define a season? We could easily have been 2-0 down, but instead were level at 1-1. I couldn’t see us fighting back had Larsson scored the penalty, but at 1-1 it was anyone’s game.

Speaking of the penalty, it was a good save from Wayne Hennessey. It was noticeable that when Fletcher equalised, Ward ran to Hennessey, not Fletcher to celebrate the goal. But, I felt Wayne was at fault for the goal, although I think everyone expected Richardson cross across the face of goal. He also had a rush of blood to the head when he raced out of goal to a ball he had no hope of getting. The most worrying thing about this passage of play was the amount of time it took him to make the decision, and then getting it wrong. Still, he’s probably been our best player this season.

I actually almost missed Fletcher’s equaliser – I saw the header but not the cross. I was too busy watching Christophe Berra having an apoplectic fit in the centre circle. Craddock had somehow injured himself as Larsson fell over his outstretched leg, and had left the field for the penalty. But, with the ball not going out of play, we hadn’t managed to get Johnson on. Ward and Ronald Zubar had bombed forward, leaving Berra on his own with Nicklas Bendtner and Sessègnon for company. It was not until Zubar noticed that he dropped back into the centre-back position. I feel this wouldn’t have happened had Henry been playing, he would have seen and dropped back. Neither Edwards nor O’Hara had the positional nous to notice.

It feels strange to say, but until Fletcher equalised, I’d have said that Doyle was the more effective player – he certainly got a lot more involved in the build-up play. Fletcher looked disinterested at times, epitomised by allowing himself to drift offside that smacked of laziness. Aside from nice link up in the second half, again there was little to suggest that there is a blossoming partnership between the two. Maybe we’ve been unlucky that we’ve often had one of them injured, and so they haven’t had that much game together.

A win is a win, but it could all have been so different. From my seat in the South Bank, it looked like Phil Dowd got three big decisions wrong. Firstly, it didn’t look like a foul on Larsson. Secondly, O’Hara maybe handled the ball in the build-up to the winning goal (although this was admittedly at the other end of the pitch so my view wasn’t brilliant. And finally, it looked like Ahmed Elmohamady was clearly onside with Sunderland’s last chance. I hate that it when the defence runs out like that, and we were very fortunate to escape.

Next week, we are away at Manchester United, who have only conceded one league goal since THAT defeat to their Manchester rivals. Similarly, they have only scored one goal in each of those matches.

Two Vital Minutes Change The Game - Wolves 2-1 Sunderland

Posted by: Wolves (IP Logged)

Date: 04/12/2011 20:38

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