Wolves 2-2 Leeds United

Wolves failed to win yet again, albeit with a spirited 2-2 draw against Leeds United. A Lee Peltier own goal gave Wolves the lead, but Leeds hit back - Luke Varney equalising before a contentious Ross McCortmack penalty gave Leeds the upperhand. But. Wolves fought back to secure a vital point, with youngster Danny Batth's header equalising minutes before the final whistle.

- Wolves' line-up interested me when I saw it; a back-4, three central midfielders, a winger and two forwards. I did wonder whether we'd play a system like Newcastle United in the early 1980s - 4-3-2 plus Chris Waddle on whichever side he thought he could get the most out of the opposing fullback. Could Bakary Sako be our Chris Waddle? The other alternatives were 4-3-1-2 (a formation favoured by any Championship Manager 01/02 players) with Sako in behind Kevin Doyle and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, 4-3-3 with Doyle as a right winger or 4-4-2 with Jamie O'Hara playing as a right sided midfielder. 

- Probably unsurprisingly, it was the latter option that Dean Saunders picked, using O'Hara nominally on the right side of midfield. This is the position that Stale Solbakken probably viewed O'Hara playing; he played in this position in the one friendly he played pre-season, away at Walsall. Is this a position he can play on a regular basis? I personally have my doubts. He's probably slightly too one footed (one moment early on saw him turn England's Stephen Warnock well, but his reluctance to use his right foot meant he had to play a pass with the outside of his left into Doyle). He also doesn't really have that burst of pace that will get him away from defenders. Now, this is fine if you can cut inside and slide clever passes through the opposition defence á la Luka Modrić in his early Tottenham Hotspur days, but O'Hara doesn't really have this in his locker either. He was also never going to be disciplined enough to stay on the right side of midfield, meaning a real lack of width on this flank. This can work brilliantly if you have a rampaging fullback bombing forward to provide that width (see the way Steven Pienaar cleverly makes space for Leighton Baines to run into at Everton. No matter how good Baines has been this season, it is the addition of Pienaar in front of him that has transformed him into an arguably world class wing back), but this isn't Kevin Foley. if only we had a right back who could do this, perhaps one who was man of the match in the last game at Molineux, setting up Wolves' only goal of the game....

- After 15 minutes, Saunders changed it. O'Hara moved inside alongside Karl Henry, with Doyle pulling wide right and Tongo Doumbia given the license to rove forward in support of Ebanks-Blake. I've long thought this is Doumbia's best position; he has the ability to frighten the life out of opposition defences with his long legs and ability to glide past players. Doyle didn't look overly happy down the right (I still maintain he was signed to play in that position, a kind of better looking Dirk Kuyt), but within a couple of minutes he put in one excellent cross on his left boot, and put in two more later in the game. Obviously, goals are an issue with Doyle if he's playing down the centre, but they become less of a problem if he's playing down the right. I actually thought there were a couple of nice moments when Doyle drifted inside and O'Hara replaced him on the right, making both players very difficult for defenders to pick them up. Still, having a player like Doyle on the right may mean we are slightly narrow, and it will be down to Foley to break forward from right back more than he currently does. 

- That's twice now I've mentioned Foley's inability / reluctance to really be a threat going forward, but I'm not meaning to criticise him. I actually thought he played really well today, looking far more like the Foley we used to see in the Championship. He was as calm on the ball as he always is, and never looked flustered defensively. I need to see Leeds' first goal again though - there's a possibility Foley was at fault. Steve Morison was given far far far too much space in the penalty area to flick the ball to Luke Varney who finished nicely, bending his effort into the far corner in a manner not to dissimilar to that of David Nugent for Leicester City last week. 

- Of course, Wolves had gone 1-0 up and were probably good value for the lead. It was a good move down the left featuring Sako, O'Hara and Stephen Ward, eventually resulting in Ward reaching the byline in the penalty area. So often when he reaches these positions, Ward fails to pick out a Wolves player, and today he failed again. But, he did managed to find the boot of Leeds' captain Lee Peltier who could only divert the ball past Paddy Kenny for an own goal. 

- Yet again, we conceded a soft penalty, with Sako tracking his man into the penalty area, and Samuel Byram collapsing to the ground (although he didn't go down quite as easily as Doyle did earlier in the game, right in front of Neil Warnock who was apoplectic when the foul was given). Yes, it was soft, but it was far less of a foul compared to the penalty that should have been given to Leicester last week when Sako barged into a City player. You win some, you lose one. 

- But, we were staring at a third loss in five Dean Saunders matches. Again, we knocked and knocked on the door, seemingly without an equaliser. Björn Sigurðarson was introduced for Tongo Doumbia as we basically moved to a 4-2-4 formation, and Dave Edwards came on for Karl Henry to give us a slightly more positive looking central midfield. At one point, I'm sure I saw David Davis readying himself to come on - I like Davis as a player, but he's not the person to come on and change a game going forward, as we found out against Blackpool a couple of weeks ago. The equaliser eventually came, Danny Batth scoring his first goal for Wolves from a Sako corner. Batth could actually have had a hat trick, having one header cleared off the line after Sako cleverly took a corner quickly, and putting another high and wide from 10 yards out from one of Doyle's inswinging crosses. 

- The equaliser was deserved, there's no way Leeds can think they should have won on the balance of play. But, while this match, together with the previous 45 minutes against Leicester shows promise, there are still worries. We are still conceding goals – while Danny Batth has generally impressed since Johnson’s red card v Blackpool, he’s not going to magically produce clean sheets by himself. Had Batth not equalised at the death, I’d be writing this with Wolves in the relegation zone. Instead, we sit above Barnsley by three goals whole goals, with only three teams in the division having scored fewer goals than our 37. The January transfer window was pretty much disastrous, but now Saunders knows exactly what he was to work with. He’s possibly slightly fortunate that players are getting back to fitness (aside the relatively unknown Razak Boukari and Georg Margreitter, the players available to Saunders are generally our starting eleven. But, with only three wins in 22 games, we need to pick up three points from somewhere. Pride Park next week would be a good starting place.