Wolves 1-2 Nottingham Forest

Wolves slumped to yet another defeat, stretching the winless run to eight games. As usual, Wolves took a Molineux lead through Björn Sigurðarson, but former Wolves target Billy Sharp equalised before half time. Unsurprisingly, it was former wolf Adlène Guedioura who won the three points for Forest, twelve minutes into the second half. 

- The line-up was pretty much to be expected; Kevin Foley returning for Richard Stearman was the only change from last week's defeat at Watford. Jermaine Pennant especially will have been looking forward to today's match being a former Notts County player and being unfortunately substituted twice in the last two games due to red cards. Christophe Berra was perhaps lucky to keep his place following The FA rescinding his red card against Watford. 

- Much of the criticism of Wolves this season has been the reluctance to attack, but in the first 10 minutes this wasn't in evidence. Each time Wolves got the ball, the first instinct was to push forward, with Stephen Ward twice delivering early crosses when previously I think he'd have played a short pass. The opening goal came from a driving run from Pennant, with the ball fortunately ending up at Björn Sigurðarson's feet in the penalty area and the Icelandic finished well. However, this seemed to be end of the attacking threat, as a mixture of Nottingham Forest coming more into the game and us stepping off the gas removed any impetus we had. 

- As it was, it took Forest just eleven minutes to equalise, with a goal symptomatic of Wolves' defensive problems today. Earlier in the match, Alan Hutton had the time to clip a ball over the defence to the onrushing Billy Sharp, but he wasn't able to control a ball that would have left him one on one with Carl Ikeme. This time, again Sharp ran on to a ball over the top; Kevin Foley stepped out, Roger Johnson chased Sharp back but wasn't able to get close enough as Sharp finished well. We've been playing quite a high defensive line, a problem when you consider the lack of pace of both Roger Johnson and Christophe Berra, never more in evidence than Berra's red card last week. But, this is compounded when you look at the amount of space that opposition midfielders and defenders have to pick their passes to the forwards running beyond the defence. 

- Tongo Doumbia and Dave Edwards not getting close enough to Forest's midfield was one of the key problems today. With Forest playing two out and out strikers in Billy Sharp and Simon Cox, Johnson and Berra generally had their hands full. Neither defended particularly well, giving Cox and Sharp far too much time, but even if they hadn't we'd have still had problems. I lost count today of the number of times that Adlene Guedioura or Simon Gillett got beyond Doumbia and Edwards and it was easy for Cox and Sharp to hold the ball off and give it to the onrushing midfield. Yet, when we were attacking, Doumbia and Edwards struggled to get beyond Forest's midfield, and so Doyle and Sigurðarson were often surrounded by two or three Forest players every time they got the ball. 

- Still, we finished the first half reasonably well, with the game very open. Both teams were attacking, and either could have scored. We actually started the second half not too badly either, but yet again it was a counter attacking goal that we conceded from, following poor goals let in against Watford (Nathaniel Chalobah) and Brighton (Will Buckley). One of the key aspects of any successful team is its ability to make the transition from attack to defence, and this is something that we cannot seem to deal with. Apparently Adlene Guedioura has a lethal shot, something that I'm sure is a myth built up over the years, similar to the one that Dan Agger is a danger from long range efforts. Guedioura hit the odd decent goal, notably a screamer against Millwall in the League Cup last season, but his only other goals for the club were a tap in against West Brom and a daisy cutter against Sunderland. But, he caught his effort sweetly today, aided by the amount of room he found himself in. I'm sure I'm not the only one fed up of former Wolves' players scoring against us. 

- Twice we'd started halves well, but both time we were derailed by goals - the first ours, the second theirs. David Davis and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake were introduced, with Sigurðarson moving wide, but neither made any impact. With five minutes to go, Anthony Forde came on, as we again moved to three at the back when chasing a game. Ward was nominally a centre back, with a midfield four of Sako, Davis, Edwards and Forde behind Kevin Doyle, Ebanks-Blake and Sigurðarson. Even then, and at the death with Johnson pushed upfront, we failed to carve out a real chance. Sako did beat Alan Hutton once, whipping a cross across the six yard box that Ebanks-Blake couldn't get to, and that was about as near as we got to Lee Camp's goal.